Olamide Adeyeri
I am an immigrant from Nigeria who lives in Hyde Park. I came to America in November of 2006. Since coming to the US, I have attended the Conley Elementary, Irving Middle, and Boston Latin High Schools. I have also participated in football, tennis, and wrestling.
My interest in public service can be traced back to 2018. With rallies happening all the time, as an immigrant living in Hyde Park, I could relate to what I saw on the news every night. I became fully invested, marching at rallies and using the hashtags, asserting my right to speak for what I believed in. My voice, the voices of my peers, and the voices of the world would be heard. I then realized that the differences I could make as just a high schooler were substantial. I had the opportunity to attend Boy’s State, and later Boy’s Nation, which ingrained in me an appreciation for the American values of democracy and service that I have always esteemed, as an American citizen, but had never had the opportunity to study in depth. Given the opportunity, I concluded that pride is what we should feel when exercising our democratic duties and that only when we are active in our government’s functions can it truly benefit the people. With this realization, I sought to act to create positive changes within my own community in strides. I began by canvassing for Rachel Rollins. At school, through the student organization I created, Understanding and Accepting Cultural Diversity, I promoted difficult conversations where students could freely express their frustrations and opinions in a community where people actually cared. And on weekdays after school, I expanded upon my volunteer work as a tutor at the Georgetowne Homes Community Center. Though my immediate priority has been helping children from the first all the way to the twelfth grade, I have simultaneously been working on my long-term goal to transform the learning center into an accessible pipeline for students to succeed in the city’s three exams schools, where minorities are consistently underrepresented. Armed with the belief that I could make a difference, I actively set out to do so, found success, and since then have continued to make more differences.