SMART Alumna Graduates from College, Returns as Tutor
(Winter 2019) – At 5:45 on a recent Monday evening, Ivayana Liggins met with Hiwan, a SMART Scholar, at a table in the corner of SMART’s main workshop space. Both are all smiles and immediately start talking quickly about the day as Hiwan unpacks her books to begin their tutoring session. “She’s just like me when I was her age,” Ivayana says, “bubbly and excited!” The roles have reversed for Ivayana. A SMART alumna herself, she’s now returned as a volunteer tutor and mentor.
Ivayana is a born and bred San Franciscan and was primarily raised by her grandmother. Her aunt discovered SMART in 2003 and brought Ivayana to an information session. Shortly after joining SMART, she began attending Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory. “Diversity was the biggest change. I was coming from a really different place than my peers,” Ivayana says. She notes that her time at Sacred Heart was very influential. It offered her a rigorous education, while encouraging creativity and open-mindedness.
At the same time, Ivayana was building relationships with fellow SMART peers who were going through similar experiences and transitions. She recalls former Executive Director, Nonoko Sato, being a committed figure through the growing pains of changing schools and environments. “She was really in my corner. I still keep in touch with her today,” Ivayana adds.
She continued her education at San Jose State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in 2015. And while she progresses in her career as a project manager at a San Francisco-based research firm, Ivayana wanted to come back to the organization that supported her own educational journey in the city. “I wanted to be part of a place that’s making a big impact and that is also very personal to me at the same time.”
She began tutoring and mentoring at SMART in the fall of 2018, quickly bonding with her Scholar, Hiwan, a sixth grade student. “SMART taught me that anything is possible, and that whatever I was interested in was something worth pursuing. SMART was the first step that led me to realize I can do anything. And if there is a middle schooler looking at me for guidance, I want to show her that she can be anything, too.”
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