Bed-Stuy School Sends First-Ever Graduating Class Off To College

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — And the high school seniors are off! But not without some swag.

Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy (BELA) Charter School, an all-girls high school on Stuyvesant Avenue, held a "college shower" on Monday for their seniors, the first graduating class in the school's history.

The shower came complete with college gear, including duffel bags, dorm supplies and wireless headphones for each of the 50 young women leaving BELA for their respective colleges.

"Today, you are rewriting history and contributing to the legacy of District 16 of Bedford-Stuyvesant," BELA cofounder and head of school Nicia Fullwood said to the graduating students. "We’ve always said that you all were destined for greatness; that you'd change the world in ways we could never imagine. Despite your non-traditional senior year, today, we celebrate all of you."

BELA opened its doors in Bed-Stuy in 2017 with a mission to overcome the educational inequities long faced by Black and Brown youth by empowering "each young woman to be the best version of herself." It's a school that primarily serves students of color — and 90 percent of the senior class identify as Black.

BELA’s class of 2021 applied to more than 150 different colleges and universities and received nearly $1 million in merit-based scholarships, according to the school.

More than 75 percent of the graduating class are first generation college students and will be the first in their families to pursue higher education, the school said.

For one senior, Mariam Sikiru, that higher education will mean working toward a goal of addressing transportation and housing infrastructure problems in New York City and, eventually, her mother's native Nigeria.

Sikiru plans to major in urban studies at Barnard College in the fall.

"I would just go straight back to Nigeria and work at a nonprofit and then like basically work on their transportational systems and making sure it was good," said Sikiru, though she plans to start her urban planning career in NYC. "I want to make an infrastructure to help those who are in need like the disabled, [and in] foster care and orphanages."

Her classmate Nyasia Bailey also has big plans, but for the media industry.

After ranking top of her class for three straight years, Bailey, who was her class' valedictorian, said her perfectionism was put to the test because of the pandemic.

"Covid really taught me that I can't do everything," she said."Sometimes I need to allow myself to take a break, but I always got back on the saddle."

The valedictorian is heading to Sarah Lawrence College in the fall to study creative writing and journalism. She aspires to challenge the mainstream narratives she believes do no justice to whom Black women really are.

"As a Black woman, it just feels like we're really overlooked," said Bailey. "Through writing and film, I want to be able to tell our stories and share what we're going through, because some people just don't want to hear it from us."

Those people Bailey refer to could change their attitudes soon enough, especially with NYU-bound Sinmiloluwa Afolabi—who goes by "Sinmi"—heading their way.

"I want to look out for diseases," said Afolabi, who plans on majoring in biology. "I'm really looking forward to doing a lot of research in the labs, in both college and my career, to prevent future pandemics and keep everyone safe."