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W.I.S.E. Youth Mentor/Mentee Information
This area will be used for information about volunteer staff
and mentors. We will list each team member's birthday for the month, short bios and significant events. We will
also list local public information such as links to internships, scholarships, career and volunteer opportunities,
classifieds or personal announcements. Mentors can use this area to submit quizzes, columns or articles. This is a great
way to keep up to date on what fellow members are doing in an attempt to maintain active in the program and also
further stimulate mentees interest in their community. We may also include links to mentors personal web sites.
to our mentor Lakeisha from W.I.S.E.
Youth
March 8
ENJOY!!
BIOS
Delilah Martinez-Founder/Program Director
33 yr old, Bronx-born,poet, writer
and mentor, Delilah Martinez is the founder/program director of a non-profit mentoring group called W.I.S.E. Youth (Ways to
Inspire Self-Empowerment in Youth) which encourages self-awareness through the arts. She graduated summa cum laude from The
College of New Rochelle in May of 2005 with a B.A. degree in Liberal Arts/Communications and acquired a Masters of Arts Degree
in Bilingual School Guidance Counseling from New York University. Delilah's personal challenges as well as her community
efforts were recognized and documented for Columbia University’s New Yorker of the Week in February 2005. She was
nominated for 2005's Liz Claiborne Inc./Safe Horizon Champion Award. She was also chosen to represent The College
of New Rochelle School of New Resources/JOC Campus at the "Somos el Futuro" Hispanic Conference in Albany, New York, April
2005. Delilah Martinez is the single mother of a 9 year old boy named Elijah, who has autism and inspires her
greatly. She is the author of a collection of poetry called Boogiericanism and is working on completing and publishing her first
inspirational novel for teenagers called Spic and Span. For more information on Delilah Martinez, W.I.S.E. Youth and
how to contact them log on to http://wiseyouthbx.tripod.com.
Lakeisha Jemison- Mentor
Lakeisha Yolonda Jemison was born in the Soundview section of
the Bronx on
March 8, 1980. Born to a single mother, Lakeisha knew at an early age the
importance of education in
order to move upwards in society. She excelled
through elementary and junior high school and went on to attend the
prestigious
Bronx High School of Science. There she became part of several
programs dedicated to youth empowerment and conflict resolution.
For her
efforts, she became the president of the city wide Peer Mediation Council
and Coordinator of the Bronx Youth
Peace Summit. She received an award from
Mayor Rudy Guiliani for promoting peace earning a scholarship from the
New
York Yankees franchise. Lakeisha attended Stony Brook University in
Fall of 1998. There she became involved with SASU
and USSA, and lobbied for
student rights on the state and national levels. She became a member of
Zeta Phi Beta Sorority
Incorporated, and continued her activism by being an
executive board member of the Unity Cultural Center and Morale Chairperson
for the Up Till Dawn crusade to raise money for St. Jude's Hospital.
Lakeisha always had a love for the art of writing
and went on to write two
successful plays performed at her alma mater. Upon graduation, she recieved a B.A. in English.
Lakeisha currently works for the American International Group and prides herself on being knowledgable of her history, in
order to effect positive change in her community.
Look forward to more bios,photos, columns and articles by the W.I.S.E. Youth team in the near future.
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