Hear stories from some of our most inspirational voices — you!
Pictured: Brenda in WFSU's FM studio.
Listen: Week of July 26, 2018
Transcript
What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's voices that inspire. My name is Brenda Gekunda and I'm a recent graduate from Rikert High School and I work as an intern at WFSU as part of the Tallahassee Future Leaders Academy program. I was born in Kenya. I came here when I was six years old and I have lived in Tallahassee ever since. As you can imagine, it would be hard to face a new environment but surprisingly it wasn't that hard for me. I started second grade. I made friends. I just did the normal thing. Around fourth grade, fifth grade. I don't know what it was but it was just this shift and I was like oh I don't like being here. Of course you know kids I mean but I had to go home to my mom and I was like I don't want to keep speaking Swahili in the house anymore. So it was hard to speak in English but I never got rid of it and it was really around junior year when I really saw the need for it when I started interpreting for the refugees at my school and so it's great that my mom just kept that in me because I would have lost it a long time ago. Seeing the strong supportive people that I have around me especially being introduced to this whole new refugee community, it's been really great to see how people who come from nothing can come here and just build and start a new life and it's been really amazing to see even my own family do that and so that's what inspires me to just like keep moving knowing that I'm never going to be in a more worse situation than they've come from. My name is Brenda Gikinda and I work here at WFSU as an intern for the Tallahassee Future Leaders Academy. You're listening to voices that inspire.
Brenda Gikunda - People who come from nothing can come here to build and start a new life.
Recent high school graduate Brenda Gikunda came to Tallahassee from Kenya when she was six years old. Though she found it challenging navigating her native culture as a child, she credits her mom for keeping Swahili in her life. Beginning in her Junior year, she used her language skills to interpret for other refugees at Rickards High School. She is currently an intern at WFSU as a part of the Tallahassee Future Leaders Academy program.