Feeling appreciated

I’ve been traveling a bunch between San Francisco and New York so it feels good to finally be home to catch up on some much needed work, reflection and writing.

I always miss the organizations and students I work with when not in Toronto.  So when I got a thank you email for helping run a recent conference to teach young girls code, I was thrilled. Though this wasn’t like other thank you’s I had normally gotten. This particular thank you message was actually emailed to my mom who proceeded to forward it me telling me that she was crying when reading it. I’ll let you read it for yourself:

My name is Helen, and I run a girls’ computer club with my daughter. Amira has mentored a number of the girls at workshops they have attended and I was thrilled to find out that she could help us with our annual conference. She helped a number of the girls, she brought much needed extra laptops, and then she topped it off by bringing two more mentors to help us out with the conference. We have often spoken together of the need to get more girls, and in particular girls of colour, interested in technology. She made it her mission to help us with this, as she too could see how important this is … something for which we are eternally grateful.

 

Her intelligence, grace, and friendliness was noticed immediately by both the girls at the conference and the many other women who were also mentors. She was always quick to see what needed doing, and did not need to be asked.

 

I know very well, that this all reflects the amazing job you have done raising a young woman with strong and positive values. We hung a picture of you and Amira up at the conference as examples of ‘women in technology’.

 

Thank you so much for the wonderful gift of Amira.

 

Cheers,

Helen