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About Me
About Me
My name is Isabella Freitas, and I am a sophomore at Holliston High School. One of the biggest parts of my life is all-star cheerleading, which I have been doing for about six years. Cheer has taught me teamwork, dedication, and confidence, and it has helped me build strong friendships.
I was born in Brazil and moved to the United States when I was seven years old. Moving to a new country was a big change for me and my family. I had to adjust to a new language, culture, and school while learning how to fit into a different environment. Because of this experience, I understand some of the challenges that many immigrant families face.
Being both Brazilian and American is an important part of who I am. I am proud of my Brazilian heritage and enjoy staying connected to my culture through family traditions, food, and language. My personal experiences inspired my project, Voices Without Borders, and the story in my children's book is closely connected to my own journey of moving to a new country.
Outside of school and cheer, I enjoy spending time with friends and family. I hope my experiences and project encourage others to be more understanding, compassionate, and welcoming toward people from different backgrounds.
Community Need
Community Need
My project, Voices Without Borders, focuses on ICE discrimination and the impact it has on immigrant families and communities. Many immigrants face challenges such as discrimination, fear, and uncertainty due to immigration enforcement. These experiences can make families feel unsafe, separated, or misunderstood, even when they are trying to build a better life and contribute to their communities.
I chose this issue because it is important to me and affects many families across the United States. Negative stereotypes and misinformation often lead to unfair treatment of immigrants, creating fear and division within communities. Through this project, I hope to raise awareness about the effects of ICE discrimination, encourage empathy and understanding, and help people recognize the human side of immigration. My goal is to promote more informed and respectful conversations about immigrants and the challenges they face.
Project Goals and Progress
Project Goals and Progress
The goal of my project, Voices Without Borders, is to help educate people about immigration and encourage more understanding and empathy toward immigrants and their families. For the educational part of my project, I created a children’s book called A Little Red Seed about a young girl moving from Brazil to the United States and adjusting to a new life. The story focuses on the emotions, challenges, and experiences that come with moving to a new country. I chose to make it a children’s book because I believe it is important to teach kindness, empathy, and understanding at a young age.
One of my main goals was to read my book to elementary school students so younger children could begin learning about immigration in a simple and meaningful way. I have already completed this goal by visiting Placentino elementary school 1st grade classrooms and reading my book to students. This was an important milestone in my project because it allowed me to share my message directly with children and start positive conversations about immigration, empathy, and acceptance.
Throughout this project, I researched immigration issues, created my book, connected with community members, and shared my work with students. I hope the story helps children better understand what it may feel like to move to a new place, learn a different language, and adapt to a different culture. Through this project, I want to help reduce stereotypes and misunderstandings about immigrants while creating positive conversations in schools and communities.
If I continue working on this project in the future, I would like to publish my book so it can reach a larger audience. I would also like to read it at my local library or other community events to continue educating people about immigration and promoting empathy and understanding for immigrant families.
Community Partnership
Community Partnership
For my project, Voices without Borders, I have been working with Immigrant Learning Center through Ariana Moir. The Immigrant Learning Center focuses on supporting immigrants through education, resources, and community programs while also helping spread awareness about immigrant experiences and contributions. Their goal is to create a more welcoming and informed community by helping people better understand immigration and different cultures.
Ariana was very supportive of my project and shared ideas for how I could make my children’s book available to more people. She suggested possibly sharing a PDF or link to the book on their website along with a book guide that we could help create together. She also told me about opportunities to participate in storytimes and suggested reaching out to local elementary schools, libraries, and bookstores to do read-alouds of my book.
This partnership has helped me think about different ways to share my project and educate younger children about immigration in a meaningful and engaging way. With the support and guidance from the Immigrant Learning Center and Ariana, I hope my project can help encourage empathy, understanding, and acceptance toward immigrants and their experiences.
How the Community Can Help
How the Community Can Help
The community can help support my project, Voices without Borders, by helping spread awareness about immigration and the experiences of immigrant families. One way people can help is by sharing my children’s book with younger students, teachers, schools, libraries, and community organizations so more children can learn about empathy, kindness, and understanding different cultures. Community members can also support the project by attending read-aloud events, sharing the project on social media, and encouraging conversations about immigration and acceptance.
Another way to help is by supporting organizations that work with immigrants and provide educational resources and services to immigrant families. Learning more about immigration and listening to immigrant stories can help reduce stereotypes and misunderstandings within communities.
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