Announcing the LEAP Emerge Class of 2021
LEAP Emerge: Summer Internship Program is an eight-week paid summer internship program designed to develop emerging young leaders by providing college students with practical leadership skills and the opportunity to work virtually in a community-based organization serving the Asian and Pacific Islander Community.
COVID-19 has made 2020's program entirely virtual, but LEAP is still committed to providing 5 participants this year with a paid internship opportunity, hours dedicated to leadership development training, and a chance to create impact in their assigned nonprofit placement site for the summer!
We are excited to officially announce the interns of the LEAP Emerge Class of 2021:
Marina Aina
Pomona College
Marina Aina (she/hers) is a summer intern at Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics (LEAP). Raised in Menifee, California, her interests center on educational equity, demilitarization, and health disparities concerning the Pacific Islander community. She is a rising junior at Pomona College, working for her campus’s Asian American Resource Center. Alongside that, Marina is both an AAMP (Asian American Mentor Program) and IPMP (Indigenous Peer Mentor Program) mentor. This summer, Marina is eager to meet other similar-minded AAPI students and grow alongside them, embracing the intersectionalities and multi-faceted aspects of her identity, learning more about AAPI’s social activism in the realms of her interests, and finding more interests and hobbies. In her freetime, she attends her relatives’ sporting events, watches anime, and creates random slideshow presentations to show her pals.
Placement Site:
LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics)
Founded in 1982, LEAP (Leadership Education for Asian Pacifics) is a national, nonprofit organization, with a mission to achieve full participation and equality for Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs) through leadership, empowerment, and policy.
Casey Cheng
University of Pennsylvania
Casey Cheng (she/hers) is currently a junior at The University of Pennsylvania in the School of Nursing. She chose nursing because of its unique intersection between health sciences and human interaction, and finds value in being able to be there for the patient at the bedside. Currently, she serves as President of the Asian Pacific American Nursing Student Association (APANSA) at Penn. Casey has served on board since her freshman year and feels passionately about furthering the mission of APANSA by fostering a community for Asian Pacific American student nurses at Penn. On campus, she is also involved in Renewal College Fellowship, a college fellowship part of Renewal Presbytarian Church. She also works as a Peer Career Advisor at Career Services, providing advice and tips to her peers regarding recruiting, and application materials. In the future, Casey hopes to return to Los Angeles, her hometown, and eventually work as a community health nurse serving the APA community after witnessing how impactful it was to her grandparents when they had a provider that looked like them. She is excited for this summer and the work she will be able to do as a LEAP intern!
Placement Site:
Asians for Miracle Marrow Matches
A3M’s mission is to improve the health and welfare of patients with blood cancers or blood related disease by educating and recruiting potential marrow donors and providing patient support services.
Yi-Shen Loo
University of California, Berkeley
Yi-Shen Loo (she/hers) is a rising senior at UC Berkeley, double majoring in Asian American Studies and Ethnic Studies and minoring in Japanese. She is involved in various roles on campus, including working as an editor for the Asian American Research Journal and as a tutor in Japanese language. She is passionate about creating spaces to uplift voices in the AAPI community and is also a member of the AAPI Community COVID Archive. In her free time, she loves to bake and go on hikes.
Placement Site:
Asian American Journalists Association
The heart of AAJA’s four-fold mission is to increase AAPI perspectives and representation in newsrooms, media, and storytelling.
Jasmine Mao
University of Virginia
Jasmine Mao (she/they) is a queer Chinese american little sister, growing abolitionist, friend, and freedom dreamer, learning and loving on unceded Manahoac land in so-called Hamilton, Virginia. A newly minted graduate of the University of Virginia with a major in Global Development and minor in Asian Pacific American studies, Jasmine continues to commit to abolitionist study and practice and cultivate a radical imagination for a better, more just, more life-affirming world. Along with considering relationality and systems of power, they spend most of their time deepening their capacity to more wholly care for themselves and their people and envisioning the possibilities of intersectional (Asian american) organizing.
▪“american” is intentionally lower-case.
Placement Site:
Empowering Asian & Pacific Islander communities to achieve LGBTQ, racial, and social justice. Together we can create an inclusive, equitable, and just society where all API LGBTQ people will thrive.
Deborah Pereja
California State University, Los Angeles
Deborah (Debbie) Pereja is a 1st-generation student at Cal State LA. Debbie’s pronouns are she/they/siya. Currently, she is a third-year majoring in Criminal Justice and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. They also serve as Lead Peer Advisor for the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) serving students from underrepresented backgrounds through advisement, programming, and community building. Debbie hopes to find a career in social justice and continue to work with the communities around them.
Placement Site:
Asian American Youth Leadership Empowerment and Development
Asian American LEAD (AALEAD) envisions a United States in which low-income and underserved Asian Pacific American youth, and youth of all backgrounds, are equipped with the tools and opportunities to define themselves and their own futures.
Previous cohorts shared the following testimonials with LEAP at the end of the program:
“The skills you learn on how to develop yourself as a leader and even personal ambitions will go a long way towards your future goals.”
“The entire program is so worthwhile- I am so so glad that I went through this program to see what nonprofit work is like before entering the workforce.”
“I appreciated many things about this program. I love how close we all became by the end.”
SPECIAL THANKS TO THE SPONSORS OF LEAP Emerge 2021:
The Official Airline for LEAP Emerge.