Welcome to New York State PROMISE Emerging Voices. Today's topic a budding broadcaster. New York State PROMISE student Ezekiel just graduated from Lansingburgh High School in the Capital District. He is extremely motivated to fulfill his dreams. The PROMISE team including case manager Amelia Allen [phonetic] and service provider, Marissa Urkevich, have been working with Ezekiel to help him secure job experiences where he has excelled and is getting excellent references. PROMISE is also assisting him with supported education services which include helping him get settled at Hudson Valley Community College where he'll be attending this fall.
I'm a very hard working person with a very open personality, very nice and kind, generous kind of guy. And have, you know, big dreams and goals like everybody else. You know go to college and be successful. Plan on being a journalist and hopefully one day being on ESPN. Hopefully. Big dreams.
In terms of his career and where we're trying to help him with things that he's really interested in sports broadcasting and this summer, actually through the Commission of the Blind, he's doing an internship, a paid internship at Sienna Radio. So he's really looking forward to that.
Ezekiel has also had job tryout experiences at both Price Chopper he worked for three months in every department and at Tessa's Restaurant near his home where he is learning communication skills as he interacts with other employees.
In the kitchen, you know the kitchen is kind of small there. So you kind of get to meet everybody and know everybody kind of quick. And you build relationships really easily. I've learned how to cook certain things or how kind of like -- I talked to the manager sometimes about how to run a restaurant. You know, all different -- it's like -- it's just like a learning experience at every corner that you turn. It's pretty cool.
Ezekiel was able to put down those experiences on his resume which helped him secure a paid work study job at Hudson Valley Community College.
On top of doing the job development and paid work experience service, he's been utilizing our supportive education service like crazy which is great. And it's part of how he got the work study job.
Marissa actually went and talked to [inaudible] the week before she brought me so she could learn where everything was before I did which I thought was really thoughtful. You know because she actually showed her time and effort and wanted to help me. And she showed me where everything was.
Ezekiel's determination and positive attitude have helped overcome numerous challenges in life. He is legally blind but has refused to allow that to keep him back from pursuing what he is passionate about.
It took him a lot of fighting on his own as an even little sixth grader to get into gym class let alone football team. And it was all done on his own advocacy efforts. So like he has a lot within him in terms of motivation and inspiration to do more.
Don't matter what you do in your life, no matter what hits you in life, I think it's always important to keep your head up, you know, and always fight through things because there's always a way to pass the harder things in life. And you know it's easier said than done, of course, and I think I'm pretty a good example, you know? People always told me for years that I could never play football because I can't see, you know? But I was dedicated enough and I got on the team and I proved people wrong. And you know there's nothing better than that feeling of proving somebody wrong, you know? And I just think that some good advice would just be you know always try your best and don't let people bring you down.
The New York State PROMISE Project produced this video under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Education