Yuleysi Luna

Yuleysi at Graduation
Yuleysi came to Boston in 2003 from the Dominican Republic with her mother and older sister. In her junior year at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School, she became a founding member of SCAN, the YEA document management business.

For the first few weeks Yuleysi sat silent and sullen at her desk. She wouldn't speak to anyone, and no amount of eye contact would elicit more than a skeptical glance. Her teacher reported that Yuleysi worked quite well independently but basically kept to herself.

Then one day the YEA staff brought in a computer expert to teach the SCAN teens how to use the new scanning software. For the first time, Yuleysi looked up. When the trainer asked the teens to gather around the computer for a demonstration, Yuleysi literally pushed herself to the front. She stood right behind the instructor, intently watching his hands and the computer screen. After a few minutes, he asked for a volunteer to take over - and Yuleysi slid into the seat. After fifteen minutes, she reluctantly yielded her spot to a teen colleague.

After the software expert left, Yuleysi worked on the program for the rest of the school day. Within three days, she had learned the entire software program - an enormously complex task. She then began mentoring her peers, many of whom were having trouble learning the system.

By the end of the school year, Yuleysi was running the business. She oversaw every job that came in and took charge of quality control. She quickly displayed a remarkable business mind, with a wide range of technical abilities and interpersonal skills.

Later that year she won a scholarship to attend a weekend coaching workshop for teens, held in a wealthy Boston suburb. She spent every day with affluent suburban teens and discovered that, despite her different cultural and socio-economic background, she had many things in common with these teens. And just as she had done at SCAN, she began to assert herself. She was no longer a "low-income Boston teen." She had come to see herself as a leader.

After graduating from Madison Park in June 2007, Yuleysi decided to take a year to work. She is building her business experience and saving money for college. She will be the first in her family to attend college, and she knows it will be a stretch for her - socially, intellectually, and financially. But she jokes that her greatest challenge will be pacifying her family. Her mother has decided she should be a psychologist, and her father wants her to become a lawyer. But Yuleysi knows her own mind and plans to earn a degree in business.

She is currently contributing her perspective and energy as the first Alumni Representative on the YEA Board of Directors. In time, she plans to organize other proud graduates into a YEA Alumni Association.