{"id":26007,"date":"2020-02-21T18:24:18","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T23:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26007"},"modified":"2020-02-21T18:24:28","modified_gmt":"2020-02-21T23:24:28","slug":"local-student-praised-as-true-leader-in-black-excellence-by-school-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/local-student-praised-as-true-leader-in-black-excellence-by-school-board\/","title":{"rendered":"Local student praised as \u201ctrue leader\u201d in Black Excellence by School Board"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amira Zamanifar dreams of becoming the Prime Minister of\nCanada in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 14-year-old was in the spotlight recently when, as\npart of Black History Month, the York Region District School Board featured her\non social media as an example of Black Excellence. They described her as a\n\u201ctrue leader\u201d, a talented student, volunteer and caring young woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel a great sense of pride to see my accomplishments\nbeing highlighted on such a large platform. Black excellence has always been\naround but it has not always been acknowledged. To me, black excellence is when\na black person is able to break through barriers and persevere to achieve their\ngoals. Due to my background, I have always been aware that I was different and\nthis difference has made me work harder and strive to be better than what I\nmight be perceived as,\u201d explained Amira. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her maturity is palpable even as she expresses gratitude\nfor her achievements in elementary school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Grade 8 student at Lester B. Pearson Elementary School,\nAmira won a Leadership and School Involvement Award from the Alliance of\nEducators for Black Students Committee and was one of the students chosen to\nrepresent her school at YRDSB Applause Award Ceremony for winning the Solar\nOven Challenge in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am also on various sports teams and lead our\nannouncement team. My favourite achievement is being in the top four in the\nStudent Spark Speech competition. This competition was a platform for\nstudents to voice their opinion on one of three topics. I wrote a speech in\nFrench on my personal opinion of what our future school systems should\nresemble. I presented my speech to my class and my teacher recorded and entered\nme into the competition where people across York Region voted,\u201d said Amira.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amira was born in Canada to a Jamaican mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have visited Jamaica on several occasions. Jamaica is\nknown for producing personalities like Usain Bolt, the fastest runner in the\nworld, famous singer Bob Marley, and it is a country with amazing food and a\nbobsled team. Jamaicans always strive to be the best and that is a lesson I\nwill always carry with me \u2013 Try my best in whatever I do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her goal of becoming the Prime Minister of Canada is a\nserious one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope to continue achieving and be the best student I\ncan be in both academics and extracurricular activities. Beyond that, I would\nlike to receive my law degree at the University of Toronto and pursue my\nultimate dream of becoming Prime Minister. I would love to one day lead and\nrepresent the people of Canada and voice their opinions. Representing my\ncountry on a global scale and meeting the needs of Canadians as best as\npossible motivates me for this role.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So impassioned are the teenager`s aspirations that they make you hope her dreams take flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Kinjal Dagli Shah <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amira Zamanifar dreams of becoming the Prime Minister of Canada in the future. The 14-year-old was in the spotlight recently when, as part of Black History Month, the York Region District School Board featured her on social media as an example of Black Excellence. They described her as a \u201ctrue leader\u201d, a talented student, volunteer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/2020-02-20-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Lt","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-21 14:02:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}