00:00Hi, my name is Sani Lakoma. I'm the founder and executive director of Brown Kids Are Incorporated,
00:20which is a non-profit that I started to motivate all children, but especially children of color,
00:26to read more diverse literature, and I am also a basketball player. My unstoppable equalizer
00:34is Kenya Travis. She is the author of Victorian Phoenix is a Real Princess, and she has been
00:41one of my closest mentors since I was two years old. Kenya Travis has inspired me in so many ways.
00:47It all started when I was, I'd say, 11. I've always been an entrepreneur. I've always wanted to make my
00:54own money. So I had the great idea of starting a party entertainment business, but I wanted to do
01:00it based on a book because I've always been an avid reader. So I went to Miss Kenya and I made an
01:06entire proposal, a really cool PowerPoint presentation, and I explained to her, this is
01:12what I want to do. This is the book that I want to use, which was Victorian Phoenix is a Real Princess,
01:17and I made the whole mock-up, and she poured into me. I mean, she was the person who started me on the
01:24path to make Brown Kids Read. She worked at the Barnes & Noble where I did my first event. She was my
01:31first featured author for Brown Kids Read. She's just always been there to push me and inspire me to help me
01:38be my best self.
01:44I have always been a proponent for kids to read, but more importantly, I feel like a lot of children
01:52don't have access to literature where they feel represented, and that's part of the problem. I
01:58mean, that's one of the biggest problems I've seen in the American book production industry is that there
02:03are not enough books that feature children of color, and there are not books that feature children
02:09of color that children of color have access to. So my social cause is just inspiring kids to read
02:17by giving them books where they feel represented. In my experience, there are two kinds of books.
02:22There are window books and there are mirror books. So window books are books where children are looking
02:29into somebody else's experience. They're able to see into the other side and put themselves into the
02:35other person's shoes so that they can build more empathy, they can build more compassion, and they can
02:41build more understanding. And mirror books are books where they feel reflected. So the main character
02:48has something in common with them, whether it be race, gender, ethnicity, experience, circumstance.
02:54And I just want children to understand that there's always a book for them, and there's always a book
03:00where they can learn about somebody else.
03:04One of Miss Kenya's biggest messages, especially with her book, is that children need to accept who
03:12they are. They need to accept what they look like, even if that may be different from other people,
03:17and it's just living in their own skin, which intertwines with the message of Brown Kids Read.
03:23Because I want children to be comfortable in who they are. And as human beings, we write about
03:29things that are important. So if there's a little kid and they feel ostracized because they're different
03:35or they're not the societal norm, if they read a book where they feel represented and they can
03:40closely connect to the main character, it changes their life. I mean, that's a life-changing experience.
03:46So because Miss Kenya's message is being comfortable in your own skin, and my message is feeling
03:54represented in literature, those two come closely together and they create a beautiful marriage
03:59of acceptance and representation. So I have a lot of projects that I want to do in the future.
04:06And because she was the person who kind of helped me mold, inform Brown Kids Read,
04:10especially being a board member herself, she has shown me so many different ways that I can incorporate
04:17my message into Brown Kids Read programs. So one thing I'm really big on is being a role model for
04:23little kids. And in my life, even from now to being an adult, I feel like it's very impactful for a
04:30teenager to be in the community and making sure that they're showing little kids what it's like to
04:37be proactive and want to make a difference. So because Miss Kenya has always taught me to be
04:44comfortable in my own skin, I'm going to take that with me and just wear it. I'm just going to be
04:51confident in who I am. And hopefully that makes a difference to other people. I've seen it even in
04:57conversations with adults that they're inspired by me, which is very nice. And it's humbling because
05:04it's like a kid can make the biggest difference. So I want to take that message and just run with it
05:09for the rest of my life.
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