One of the biggest rewards of the work I do as a writer and performer is speaking with students and folks who work with students. On Tuesday, June 16, I’ll be participating in a half-day webinar sponsored by SPEAK Mentorship. Click here to learn more about the organization.
I'll be on Instagram Live at 10 am Pacific (1 pm Eastern), that's Tuesday, June 16th. You can find me @irmadherrera.
I was introduced to SPEAK Mentorship by Praveen Shanbhag, the founder of Name Coach, a software company whose product helps us learn the proper pronunciation of people’s names. With Name-Coach you can create your own audio nametag to append to your social media or email signature which tells people how YOU say your name. And its free to create your personal nametag. I discovered Name-Coach when a friend sent me a link to a news story in the business section of the SF Chronicle about a software used by colleges and universities to help them say students' names correctly at graduation. Click here to learn more about Name-Coach.
When my show, Why Would I Mispronounce My Own Name?, got on stage, I invited Praveen to be one of my post-show talkback speakers to discuss Name-Coach and the impetus for starting the company, and why saying someone’s name correctly is so important. This is the topic of the June 16th Summit and Name-Coach is one of many sponsors. Check out these videos of people sharing experiences related to their names. More videos are available on YouTube just look for #SpeakingMyName.
About SPEAK Mentorship
SPEAK stands for Support Prepare Empower Aspiring Kids. And Speak Mentorship is committed to developing a generation of diverse leaders across career fields through various means. Among them is putting together a network of committed passionate professionals who are interested in guiding young people toward meaningful career opportunities that may interest them. They work with school districts and individual schools that serve a large number of immigrant students and SPEAK Mentorship is especially aware that all too often immigrant girls are limited by various forces from realizing their full potential.
The organization helps students learn how to access and build social and cultural capital and how to support each other and seek support from people who can help them achieve their dreams. It helps them bridge the gap between high school and college by introducing them to colleges and various career tracks. Through peer support networks they can gain confidence and built greater esteem as they gain new skills interacting with each other and with mentors. They learn about civic engagement and explore and develop healthy coping mechanisms to address the social, cultural, and gender-related barriers that often stand in the way of their success. Their home cultures and languages are seen as assets that can assist them in creating successful careers and becoming leaders in their chosen fields. I’m very impressed by what I have learned about their work and am looking forward to being part of their program.
Hetal Jani, the Founding Director of SPEAK Mentorship was one of ten women honored by L’Oréal at their 14th Annual Women of Worth Ceremony in Paris in December 2019. The award was presented to her by Academy-Award winner Helen Mirren. How cool is that? Here's Hetal telling us her name story.
I am looking forward to tomorrow's conference. It’s free, and if you have time to join us, please do.
Registration link for the conference:
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
8:30 am – 12 pm Pacific
(11:30-3 pm Eastern).
AND my Instagram Live is at 10 am Pacific (1 pm Eastern), please tune it.
Thanks for reading my blog.