“A Future Where Everyone Is Cared For”: Reflections on Youth and the Social Fabric by 2024 Emerging Leader Nicole Awwad

Brattleboro resident Nicole Awwad, career foundations teacher at Windham Regional Career Center, has been named a 2024 Southern Vermont Emerging Leader, along with 23 other young people from across the Bennington and Windham regions. Individuals were nominated based on their work as community leaders and volunteers, and for their professional accomplishments and commitment to serving the region, and were presented with awards in May at the Southern Vermont Economy Summit in Dover.

Each year since 2018, the Southern Vermont Young Professionals (a program of Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation) and the Shires Young Professionals have sought to highlight and honor young adults in their roles as leaders and change-makers in the Southern Vermont economy and community through the Emerging Leaders awards. Over 100 local leaders have been given an Emerging Leaders award since the beginning of the program, and 35 of those have subsequently been recognized statewide through Vermont Business Magazine’s Rising Stars awards as well.

Nominations for the 2025 cohort are now open. Read more about other awardees and submit your nomination at www.sovermontzone.com/emerging-leaders.

What Nicole’s nominator had to say:

Nicole is one of the newest members of the Windham Regional Career Center Team, teaching their Foundations course. It’s clear that she cares deeply about her students and their outcomes, both in class and after they graduate. She is creative, and comes up with great lesson plans and curricula. Nicole also supports her New American students. She speaks Dari and Pashto and is an incredible resource in helping this population of students get the most out of their education. WRCC is lucky to have her.

Nicole’s Reflections

The destruction of social systems is only going to set us back

I see the economic struggles that ordinary people across our nation are currently facing as a major shift backwards in our nation. The destruction of social systems that care for humans and support those suffering is only going to set us back. I also worry about the destruction our government participates in overseas, when we don’t have enough money to educate, house and feed our own population!

We can turn things around if we work with youth

I am interested in continued volunteering and organization around youth development, education and work training – our young people see these crises as “hopeless,” and I know we can turn things around if we work with youth to educate and train them for a future where everyone is cared for!

I was awarded a Vermont Rowland Fellowship in January 2021, selected to be one of 6 across Vermont. Through that fellowship, I worked alongside my principal and leadership teams at Springfield High School to develop the Confluence Community Based Learning program, with $100,000 funding towards developing my leadership skills and school change project. I loved learning about the Springfield community, spending lots of time at the historical society with Bunny and Hugh Putnam, and learning how communities are kept alive by the people living inside them. I also loved the program work I did with students, who were re-engaged in their schooling after they spent a year with me in Confluence.

I am currently enjoying building a new program at WRCC, the Career Foundations program, alongside community partners and am making new connections to my new community. 

My Vermont life has been rich and meaningful

I love living in Brattleboro, love the people here, have loved teaching here, and my students are just wonderful. I am close to my sister in CT, but closer to the woods and waterfalls along Route 30 (which I frequent!) and love the summer here more than anything. I hope to be able to afford a home here soon, and am excited about my new job at Windham Regional Career Center.

My grandparents had a house in Brattleboro that we would visit for skiing in the winter, and for the Alpine Slide in the summer, and in the end I couldn’t stay away! I moved here in 2010 to attend SIT in Brattleboro to do my MA in Sustainable Development, and then stayed to do a double MA at Marlboro Grad School in Social Justice Education. Even after leaving to live abroad for 4 years, I decided to come back to Brattleboro. 

I appreciate my Spark teaching community for supporting me here in Vermont, and making my life here rich and full and meaningful – especially Mikaela, Biko and Isa. I appreciate my students and colleagues for the challenging work they do and showing up every day. I love my mom and my partner, Mike, and wouldn’t be able to get through without the support they provide. Lastly, but not least, thanks to all my ancestors who have forged the possibilities for me to take this path I am on today.

About Southern Vermont Young Professionals

The Southern Vermont Young Professionals is a workforce initiative of Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS) and the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC). Our mission is to attract, retain and support Young Professionals in Southern Vermont by providing engaging opportunities and networking through social and educational events, and volunteer opportunities. The YP initiative is increasingly important to Southern Vermont’s businesses and communities as a strategic approach to growing the size of the region’s workforce and increasing the number of younger households in the region. For more information please visit: https://brattleborodevelopment.com/sovtyps/