Q&A: Hanifa Farooq

A: The struggles that my friends had in school growing up in Glendale are nothing compared with the struggles that these kids have to go through. Their daily lives consist of making sure their parents paid the rent, or — it's this community of Watts and beyond that, they don't know what's beyond that. So it's my responsibility to make sure that I'm making them aware of that. I always think back to my experience growing up in Glendale. What was I like as a student? What were some of the struggles I had to go through in my personal life and as a student? It's nothing compared to what these students go through.

This is the first time they're being exposed to all these subjects and teachers that have very high expectations for them. They may have had that in elementary, they may not have. And now they're getting exposed to it, and they're just like, "Why?" They constantly question, "What's the point?" And it's constantly telling them, "You know what, just because you live in this community, it doesn't mean you can't go to USC or go to Harvard, right? You can go there." Yeah, there are inequities in this world, but education doesn't have to be one of them.

I think growing up in Glendale, I did a lot of volunteer work, but in middle school and elementary school I was never exposed to that. I knew there were Third World countries where people were poor and I knew there were homeless people in the United States, but I never really understood what poverty does to the psyche of a child until I came here, which is very emotionally draining. Because you know that's not the life you had growing up.

Q: How do you attempt to make a difference in an environment like that, where kids question, "Why try?"