POOR Magazine Youth Skolah of the Year: Jasmine Hain

by Staff Writer

Fourteen year old POOR Magazine youth scholar Jasmine Hain, a survivor of homelessness and class and economic struggle, is a true young leader. She has spoken out on social justice issues from homelessness, child nutrition, saving public libraries and funding public schools to funding for community college welfare-to-work education, from the CA State Capital to Washington D.C. Jasmine is the author of the POOR Press publication My Life x 4 a book she wrote at the age of twelve of storytelling, art and poetry about her life experience of living without a home for four years in Oakland, CA.

Currently, Jasmine is a 4.0 honor student at Willard Middle School in Berkeley, is on the Hunger Action Coalition with the Alameda County Community Food Bank, a Youth Leader with LIFETIME (Low-Income Families’ Empowerment Through Education) and a Youth Elder scholar with POOR Magazine and the F.A.M.I.L.Y. Project.

Recently, Jasmine received the first POOR Magazine Youth Skolah Award for her excellence in family support of mama and sistas, arts excellence, multi-generational leadership and for earning straight A’s in her mastery of formal institutions of learning. Jasmine will be attending Berkeley High School’s International Small School’s Program. Her goal is to attend University someday, studying public policy and becoming a leader who will make positive social change. Jasmine’s other aspiration is to continue her work with POOR Magazine’s Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute as a youth scholar and would like to travel the world, empowering youth to become social justice leaders in their communities.