Nicole Crawford has worked in the Sacramento area to create resources to encourage equitable educational opportunities as the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for her College and Career Readiness program through her high school. She graduated from Inderkum High School and will be attending UCLA to study political science and sociology in her efforts to learn more about how to create sustainable restorative justice in her immediate communities.

These experiences led to her community work to build online learning management systems to educate her community on how to combat disparities in maternal mortality and healthcare for Black women as the Diversity Education Specialist Intern for Her Health First.

As part of her efforts to pursue social justice she joined the statewide inaugural BOLD Youth Cohort partnered with ASAP Connect. Her work with this cohort allowed her to advance her work regarding the necessity of representation in our educational system and reconstructing euro-centric education systems to be more representative of the diversity of the students we have in California.

Nicole insists “It is so incredibly important that we all feel represented, seen and understood in our society. This is the fundament to how we learn to view and treat one another as well as ourselves. However, the systemic racism, injustice, and marginalization of vulnerable people in our society often disallows all of us to have that experience.”

Nicole is excited to expand her work in to address racial disparities in our state and create a future where everyone has an opportunity to live a healthy and dignified life.