Nadia Abraibesh ’10 spent part of her college career helping the homeless and working with foster youth. Now she’s been tapped to extend her outreach with Teach for America.
“I think students are becoming more aware of social issues,” says the psychology major, who served on the governing council of the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, spearheaded by Yamhill Community Action Partnership.
“I’ve changed while I was at Linfield,” Abraibesh says. “I have learned the importance of speaking out about issues like social justice.”
Before she heads off with Teach for America, she will spend a year in Libya, her father’s homeland, to become better acquainted with the language and culture. She hopes to learn Arabic so she can forge deeper connections with family members there.
Teach for America aims to end educational inequality by recruiting outstanding college graduates to teach at high-poverty public schools for two years, and the process is competitive, with 46,359 applicants vying for 4,500 slots. To be accepted, applicants must survive a lengthy process, with thousands cut at each step. That includes an online application, a phone interview, presentation of a lesson plan, a personal interview, a written test and a monitored group discussion with several other applicants.
Abraibesh may attend graduate school, but hopes to end up in the Pacific Northwest. “I can’t picture myself anywhere else,” she says.
