Erika Salazar-Duarte is no average 15-year-old. The Emporia High School Junior has a past plagued with hardships, but she’s proved she’s not letting anything get her down.
With the help of GEAR UP, a nationwide program designed to increase the number of students who are prepared to enter and be successful in college, Erika is one-step closer to her dream— to go to college. GEAR UP, which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, was first brought to Emporia about a year ago. Led by Cathy Terrell the Emporia group serves about 130 students in grades K-12. Terrell said GEAR UP serves foster and limited income kids.
“These are kids, who without some help probably wouldn’t make it to college,” Terrell said. “We make sure they get there and that they’re prepared when they enter college.”
Erika said since she was young, going to college has always interested her and GEAR UP is paving the way to her college degree. Terrell said GEAR UP and Erika have been a great fit. That’s why she nominated Erika to apply to attend the Booz Allen Youth Leadership Summit in Washington D.C. this summer. Since this was the first year an Emporia area student would apply, Terrell wanted to make sure she made the right choice.
“I chose Erika because she is a prime example of what GEAR UP stands for,” Terrell said. “She’s had challenges and there are things in her background that she’s overcome. She has a lot of potential to do very well and her goal is to go to college.”
Erika said writing the essay to get chosen was the easy part. It was actually taking the trip that was most nerve-wracking. It was her second time on a plane, but her first was when she was only 2. She also had to go knowing that she would be with complete strangers.
“We got there and then really didn’t see each other until we left,” Erika said of Terrell, who went along to attend another conference.
“These 34 kids came from all over and they had all kinds of anxiety,” Terrell said. “But to see them once they got all together, well they probably learned just as much from each other as they did from the presenters.
“On the day we left there was not a dry eye in the room and that spoke volumes to the quality of the programming and the kids that were there.”
During the four-day conference, Erika said they listened to presenters and worked in teams to identify barriers that keep kids from going to college and come up with solutions. The kids were broken down into three groups — ‘lack of information’, ‘lack of support’ and ‘peer pressure.’ At the end of the week each team made a creative presentation of their solutions. Terrell said she was impressed that the students made themselves part of the solution.
“My team did ‘lack of information,’” Erika said. “So, we did our presentation as a newscast. At the end all three presentations combined into one huge presentation.”
The teens made their presentations to more than 1,800 educators, politicians and GEAR UP representatives.
“At first we were nervous, but they taught us how to break a board and that helped us get over our fears and taught us how to calm ourselves down,” Erika said.
Each teen learned how to tackle a challenge with a board breaking exercise. Each had to come up with a goal and something that will stand in its way. The challenge was written on the board and the teens learned how to break through it with their bare hands.
Erika said more than anything the message she took from the experience was “to always stand up for what you believe in, no matter what.”
“These kids learned a lot and they worked hard,” Terrell said. “It was heart-warming to see how they were changed in such a short period of time.”