Zanabou Njie
Goucher College
Zanabou Njie's story takes place over two continents, and she considers each of these experiences to have deeply informed her views on many critical global issues. While living in Gambia as a young teen, she became attuned to the inequality that existed around the world, and also deepened her understanding of privilege. Following the advice of her grandmother ("you can only do so much from the outside - the work needs to come within the community"), Zanabou returned to the US thinking about societal structures that facilitated hunger, poverty and illiteracy. At Goucher College, she enthusiastically leads her peers as a Student Leader for Civic Action, a competitive community-based student leadership program out of the Arsht Center for Ethics and Leadership. Her team engages K-2 students in a creative literacy program through the weekly Read-A-Story/Write-A-Story program. Zanabou is eager to learn from others, and strives to be a strong communicator while allowing the voices of others to rise. In the future, Zanabou would like to work towards a doctorate in Clinical Psychology, and then use her expertise to build wrap-around support systems for individuals who struggle with mental illness.
Personal Statement
As a young person, I have always been the one to ask too many questions. It was not until I came to Goucher College that my plethora of questions found a purpose. I am a psychology major, but my interest in the mind goes beyond theories and brain connections. I want to know why we do what we do and what keeps us going. I am still learning (just like we all are), but my work in the Community Based Learning Office has brought me closer than any psychology class to answering many of my questions. I became a Student Leader for Civic Action my second semester of college. This position has allowed me to run a program that aims to improve literacy skills early on in a Baltimore City School. Working with kids in Baltimore, as a mentor and tutor, has taught me and continues to teach me how circumstance does not always determine outcome. It has deepened my passion to help others realize their own potential and use what privilege I do have to work on closing the gap of inequity.
