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Dalai Lama
OUR DREAM
WHO ARE WE?
The Dream Book Project is an online “book” for all first generations to find inspiration, personal stories, community, and mentors as they pursue higher education. Our hope is to connect first generation students from all backgrounds.
Why?
First generation students are at risk of dropping out of K-12 education and never receiving a college education due to a lack of resources. The resources that are currently available provide logistical information, but do not provide opportunities for students to find mentors, inspiration, or role models.
There is a need for a resource that can help K-12 students find inspirational figures, mentors, and stories about achieving a college education.
HOW IT WORKS
We want to use drawings, photographs, and video testimonials to make stories relatable for K-12 students and first generations from all backgrounds. We believe the hand-drawn drawings can be shared and enjoyed with everyone.
We conduct interviews with current college students or graduates and collect drawings, photographs, and video testimonials to tell the stories about their “dreams”. We ask these First Gens to “draw their dreams” so they may inspire anyone with similar aspirations. In the process, we hope participants will also be reminded of their own experiences as they reflect on their journeys and feel proud to become mentors to younger, future First Gens.
Our hope is that K-12 students can use this resource to find potential inspirational figures or mentors by searching for similar dreams or aspirations.
We are Kate Makaroff, Lenica Morales-Valenzuela, and Pamela Yau. We came up with this project through a Harvard course, Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding 13: Cultural Agents. We were inspired to use culture and aesthetics to stage a social intervention and solve a problem we saw in the world. All three of us have personal experiences as first generation students.
KATE MAKAROFF
Harvard '15
LENICA MORALES-VALENZUELA
Harvard '15
PAMELA YAU
Harvard '15
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