QUARANTINE CALL FROM BROOKLYN
Lamar Shambley Founder and Executive Director at Teens of Color Abroad
Of the 350,000 US students studying abroad each year, only six percent are students of color. Today’s guest, Lamar Shambley, gave up his teaching career to help solve that problem. After teaching for seven years, Lamar’s high school Spanish students inspired him to Teens of Color Abroad, a program that provides high school students of color with language immersion study abroad programs. TOCA's aim is to expose students of color to global languages and cultures in order to augment their educational outcomes, and strengthen their global competency skills.
He formed the non-profit (with a mightily impressive advisory team) just this past year, and the first cohort was set to travel to Seville, Spain this summer of 2020. Then, the pandemic hit.
This episode is a bit different, shining a light on the impact that Covid-19 is having on the brave changemakers like Lamar, who have to fight to keep their dreams of making an impact alive. In this episode, you’ll hear Lamar’s own journey, and how much programs like the very one he created had a positive impact on the trajectory of his life.
You can feel how important opportunities like study abroad programs are for teens and young adults, and how important it is for a program like Teens of Color Abroad to exist. Lamar is working to continue to keep Teens of Color Abroad not only alive, but relevant to the current educational environment, and pick up where it left off as soon as it is safe to do so. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Lamar, on Episode 5 of Adventure Calls.
About Lamar
Lamar Shambley is a Brooklyn-based educator with seven years of experience teaching both middle school math and high school Spanish. He's an avid traveler, lover of languages, and passionate about all things hip-hop related. If you want to support Teens of Color Abroad, please visit https://www.teensofcolorabroad.org/donate
episode highlights
3:30 Lamar talks about his quarantine in Brooklyn, and the sound of ambulances as a reminder for what is happening outside right now.
8:50 Lamar talks about his path to college and his first study abroad experience.
10:40 How the gift of Lamar’s teacher removed the largest barrier in his life.
11:20 Lamar talks about his experience in the Dominican Republic translating for doctors at 19, and the impact of seeing people of color, black people, with different backgrounds, speaking Spanish and living a totally different life.
14:45 What it means to be a black man in the US vs as a traveler or expat (and how women of color in his life experienced something entirely different).
17:30 How studying abroad impacts your understanding of where you fit in the world, your identity, and how that affects your life moving forward.
20:50 We get more in depth about Teens Of Color Abroad.
26:50 What Lamar knows: the passion for language learning and travel won’t die with this pandemic.
32:00 How Covid-19 throws his students of color into a global conversation, at the front line of global issues, around why Covid-19 is not the great equalizer, but rather the great revealer of systemic inequalities worldwide along racial lines.
36:30 Lamar’s hopes that this pandemic can serve as a wake up call that we are all nothing if not healthy.
Links mentioned in this episodE
@teensofcolorabroad on Instagram
www.teensofcolorabroad.org/donate
Breakthrough Collaborative: https://www.breakthroughcollaborative.org/
About Adventure Calls
From her quarantine to theirs, world-traveler and author of How To Move Abroad And Why It’s The Best Thing You’ll Do, Jessica Drucker, calls up travel experts to find out what they envision for the future of travel in a post-pandemic world.
Full episode transcript
Jessica Drucker: Of the 350,000 us students studying abroad each year, only 6% are students of color. Today's guest Lamar Shambley, gave up his teaching career to help solve that problem. After teaching for seven years it was his own high school Spanish students who inspired him to start Teens Of Color Abroad, a program that provides high school students of color. With language immersion study abroad programs. Tokyo's aim is to expose students of color to global languages and cultures in order to augment their educational outcomes and strengthen their global competency skills. Lamar formed the nonprofit over the last two years, and the first cohort was set to travel to Seville, Spain this summer, then the pandemic hit. In this episode, you'll hear Lamar his own journey, and how much programs like the very one he created had a positive impact on the trajectory. of his own life. You can feel how important opportunities like study abroad programs are for teens and young adults, and how important it is for a program like teens of color abroad to exist. Lamar is working to continue to keep Teens Of Color Abroad not only alive but relevant in the current educational environment. Plus, he wants to pick right back up where it left off as soon as it's safe to do so. And now on to my conversation with Lamar Shambley on Episode 5 of Adventure Calls.
Okay, Lamar. Hi, thank you so much for talking to me.
Lamar Shambley: Hi, thank you so much for inviting me really looking forward to the conversation and glad to connect. Because I haven't talked to another human being all day today. Oh, no.
Jessica Drucker: Good. I'm glad Speaking of which, so where are you and where are you quarantined right now?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah, I'm home in Brooklyn, New York right now. So Been here, you know, enjoying every cent of the rent that I pay.
Jessica Drucker: Got it. How is it being in Brooklyn for you right now? sIn the epicenter of the epicenter?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah, I will say it's, it's really eerie hearing, layering ambulances go up and down the streets all during the day. It's a reminder of, you know, everything happening outside. So I've been trying to keep myself busy and here and establish my own world. But those ambulances, is there a reminder of what's happening outside of New York. So this sounds really, really tough. You know, I, one of my part time jobs, I'm on the phone a lot. So I do a lot of interviews. And so I'll try to be in that world. And then I just have this reminder that, you know, someone's being rushed to the hospital. And so, you know, every time I hear it, I try to say a little prayer and Just hope that this ends sooner rather than later.
Jessica Drucker: Like I was saying, too, before we started recording, when I found out about you, I, like read everything I could I feel like we actually have some bit of our paths that, that run similarly for a hot second. So I'm going to ask you lots of things. But so you're originally from Brooklyn, and I want to bring it, bring it all the way back first. So you're from Brooklyn. Um, and I read about this amazing program that you were a part of called the breakthrough collective. And I was hoping we could bring it all the way back to when you were little. I think you were like, 12 or something. And you became a part of the breakthrough collective and like, or is it called collective? Yeah, right. breakthrough. Collaborative, collaborative. I knew I was saying around breakthrough collaborative, and how that shaped you and what what that was about I think it's a great start to your story.
Lamar Shambley: Yeah. So I was born here. Here in Brooklyn. And then I was always a very studious kid. And so, you know, just performed really well in school. And in 1997 when I was in fourth grade, Bed Stuy was not the best place to raise your kids. And so my mom made the courageous decision to move down south. And so I spent half my childhood here in Brooklyn, and then the other half in Norfolk, Virginia, Norfolk in Virginia Beach. And so when I saw I moved down to Virginia, I moved down to Virginia when I was in fourth grade. I continued to be a bookworm in schools until sixth grade, where this opportunity to apply for breakthrough collaborative came up. And so I was 12 years old. I remember, you know, hearing about this presentation, my eyes just jumping out of my head like, this is so cool. I could take classes over the summer and my teachers would be college students, and so I thought it would be a really cool place to learn and spend my summers and stuff I did and it was it was incredible. So the breakthrough collaborative. We had taken summer classes that essentially gave us a bit of advantage for when the school year started up that we were already prepared because we had studied much over the summer. And so joining breakthrough just really opened my eyes to the academic possibilities that were available for me down in Virginia. My mom, you know, really cared, but she just didn't have the resources and growing up in a single parent household. I sort of had to or I felt at that age, comfortable looking for educational opportunities, so that I would go to college I knew that I wanted to go to college ever since I was a kid. And so I was focused on that at a very early age and breakthrough just made that access to college even more accessible for me. The summer before my 10th grade year received a scholarship from breakthrough to study at Phillips Exeter Academy over the summer. And so I traveled by myself from Virginia, all the way up to New Hampshire 15 years old, and spent the summer at Exeter and I remember that being an incredible summer for me, because it I was saying in a dorm. My roommate was from Greece, I was making friends with people from Italy, Turkey, the UK, and so a kid from Bed Stuy, Brooklyn before I know what I'm connecting with people from very different backgrounds than myself, but there was no there was something common that that had bonded us all together. And that really, you know, solidified in my mind that college was near and that I definitely wanted to go to college because I was so excited at the at the independence at you know, creating my own schedule and taking the courses that I wanted to take that was only 15 years old. So at that early age I was I knew that in just a couple of years that college would be right there. So, um, breakthrough really just made my future much more realistic. I would say, it seemed like a faraway dream. But breakthrough really started to solidify it. And it was no longer a dream but actually a reality after I did break through in middle school in high school, when I was in college, I went back to break through and began teaching, because I wanted to give, you know, younger kids the same experience that I had when I was their age and in their shoes. So breakthrough just was instrumental in young Lamar eventually college and then eventually studying abroad and becoming a teacher.
Jessica Drucker: Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you next. So when's the first time you actually did go abroad?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah, so the first time I went abroad, so backtrack, because I feel like there's there's this earlier story before that. When I moved down to Virginia, eventually in eighth grade, I had switched to a school. That was a southern, wealthy private school. And again, I stuck out like a sore thumb. Being from Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, one of six black kids in my grade. And Spanish class was the class where I had sought refuge, I had jumped ahead a year and gotten straight A's, most of my middle school and high school experience. And then in high school, there was an opportunity for students to travel to Spain. And so I was super excited about it. But I couldn't afford it. And so I remember that breaking my heart because I had gotten straight A's most of my high school experience in Spanish class and so I felt that I deserved it. But it was one of the first times where I had to understand no matter how academically competent that I was inside of the classroom, because I came from a single parent household that I would have limited opportunities that my classmates had. And the biggest one that I wanted was to travel. Like, that's what I wanted so badly. And so my Spanish teacher, she was fantastic. One of my favorite teachers, and she just reminded me, you know, when you go to college, there will be opportunities for you to travel. Fast forward, I went to the College of William and Mary, and I was accepted to a medical mission where students traveled to the Dominican Republic, and opened up a free clinic. And so I was really excited about that. But then I looked at the numbers and realized I don't have a passport. I've never been out of the country. And so I went to my academic advisor and just was very honest with him, and let him know you know, thank you so much for accepting me on this trip. But I don't have a passport. No one in my family has ever been out of the country. I don't know where to begin. And he said Why didn't you say anything earlier and slid his credit card to me across the room. table, you need to be on this trip with us. You deserve to come with us. I will get you a passport. Let's get you that flight again. And it was the first time that I had someone with that extreme generosity literally knocked down the largest barrier that had existed between me and at that age, my dream. And so it was settled. I was 19 years old, I traveled to the Dominican Republic with a group of, you know, students who are also excited about doing something cool in the world. And so we were in about real, not too far outside of Santo Domingo, we opened up a clinic and did ethnographic research in the community. I helped translate for doctors. So this is also my first time getting real world experience using Spanish were much of my K through 12 career. I had, you know, sat behind a desk in a classroom conjugating verbs over and over and over and over again but not engaging in a real conversation. For me to have those real conversations in Spanish, with other black people, I mean, my mind was just like, Whoa, what is this happening? So now I get this really interesting view of race and language in a different cultural context.
Jessica Drucker: I think that you can't become really fluent until you need the language and what the level that you needed to get these words. And this translation correct was very high at 19. That's very intense.
Lamar Shambley: Yeah. Oh, is exactly I was circum, low cuting. So much. So I didn't know the word for like cough. And so I would say like, Are you feeling something in your chest that causes you to make a sound? They were like, yes, a cough and I'm like, Oh, yeah, that's the book. So I just like really, in those situations, learn a lot and take them you know, write those down and build my vocabulary as much as possible. Also, understanding that the Mexican Spanish at times is very different than the cassiano I was learning in school, those two weeks, for my first time out of the country was just really transformed. What I wanted to do in life, honestly, I studied abroad for six months in Seville, Spain. I applied for a Gilman Scholarship. And so I received the Gilman Scholarship, which helped me to study abroad. And then Luckily, the tuition transferred over because I studied abroad through my school. And so that made it all financially accessible for me to live in Spain for six months. Which, I mean, that just that was an incredible time in my life. It was also spring 2009. So this is right after Obama was inaugurated. So it was quite the quite the experience to be a black American studying abroad in Spain right after Obama was inaugurated and You know, of course people like Obama coming over Obama Come come over. Absolutely not see Joe Obama. But uh, just there was this excitement about, I think cross cultural conversation and, and learning about my experience as a black American that I felt many young. You know, other folks who were studying abroad just really wanted to learn and hear about what my life was like back in the States. And so that experience after that, I continue to travel.
Jessica Drucker: Of course, I want to ask you about that too, because I think that's one of I mean, and we'll get into this with with the program that you're that you run called teens of color abroad, or Toko. But do you find that when you go abroad as a person of color that you are first seen as an American and second as your race? Do you feel some type of does it feel more liberating? How do you You feel in terms of your identity not only as a black man or a black American, but also being seen as an American. And when you when you go abroad, because obviously here, we're all Americans. So it just immediately divides along different lines. So how does that feel when you're abroad in that in that way?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah. Yeah, that's an excellent question. Because I feel growing up, my mom had talked with me about what it means to be a boy, Amanda to the best of her ability. You know, she helped me become aware that I'm a black boy, I'm not just a boy, but I'm a black boy, I'm a black man, but that I buyer of what it means to be an American. That's something I hadn't had experience exploring. And I had my international adventures. And so and also, I know for a fact that my experience is very different than black women experiences when they were in Spain. And so, yeah, there was very different experience. So I feel like you In some ways, being a black man versus being a black woman was this like element of privilege that I was just treated in a very different way than then my woman counterparts,
Jessica Drucker: because in machismo as well as an additional element,
Lamar Shambley: I think that's always an element. It's not necessarily like culturally machismo that you're thinking of, but just being a man in typical, you know, you know, most cultures and across the world just look lesser upon women. And so my, my black women friends who were studying abroad, the same time that I did just have had a very different experience with strangers of people wanting to know about their experience versus versus me. And so I think it's really important to note that because I think that many of my experiences are just I felt so well received because I was a black man. But there was also a lot of Americanness about myself that I just did not know about. And it just became very obvious and clear to me, like every single day that I that I was there, but I also do think that I came off as very American to some people by the way that I dressed even now, the way that I looked. And usually I was with groups of other Americans. So I could easily stand out as an American versus a migrant worker or someone who's in Spain who just immigrated there, and they treated also very differently than how I was treated.
Jessica Drucker: I mean, you've already talked to it a bit, but I really do wonder about identity and how much a student who is like the students that you are dealing with also are 16 years old, and how does that affect how they understand who they can become after after living abroad?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah, absolutely. I think It's a, you know, it's liberating in some ways to realize that I could have an impact, even bigger than Brooklyn or New York. I and I was living and thriving as a 21 year old in Europe. And so I got to see myself outside of these confines that existed for, you know, black boys, black men here in America, based on you know, America's just history, painful history with race. Now in a different country, that context is sort of removed.
Jessica Drucker: And in some ways, do you find that you felt some people perceive you as being like, even cooler?
Lamar Shambley: Oh, absolutely. Like, I will say like, in my travel experiences, people are like, are you Dominican? Are you Panamanian? you're black, but you speak Spanish. It's like, yeah, no one in my family speaks Spanish. I learned this language because I thought it was cool. And I really wanted to commit People in so I think when, when many non Americans hear that an American one actually is traveling to a black American is traveling three, black American who has learned another language is here conversing with me in this language that they've learned, I think that it kind of triples up and makes me seem super cooler than I actually am. But I'm all into, you know, thinking of ways that we can maybe redefine what a typical American looks like. And so that's what I really wanted to do with teens of color abroad as well as to have students have this experience that sort of expands what is possible for them, and also, and also push them to understand more about themselves in a global context. And so realize that They are so much more than than what they think they are. That their their possibilities are just endless, especially with learning another language.
Jessica Drucker: Yeah, I mean, so we might as well get into this wonderful organization that you are the founder of, and I believe it's still a relatively new, correct.
Lamar Shambley: Yes, it's very new. We actually we haven't had our first cohort of students study abroad yet. I was looking forward to that this summer. But uh, you know, things are beyond our control.
Jessica Drucker: I mean, it's still a perfect idea and it's still the perfect place for you, you know, in terms of your past experience, I really think they experience with breakthrough collaborative too. I can you can just see all over how influenced like how you were by that, but So talk a little bit about the details of tocar teens of color brown, what does it entail?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah, so after I studied abroad, I knew that I wanted to come to come back. In New York and become a teacher. And so I was a teacher here in Brooklyn for seven years, I taught sixth grade math for five years. So I took a bit of a detour from my passion. But after those five years of teaching math, I knew that I wanted to be able to teach Spanish. So I became a high school Spanish teacher here where I have the immense privilege to be able to stand in front of kids who look like me who came from my same neighborhood, most of whom are not from Spanish speaking families, and to get them excited about the possibilities of learning the language. And those students changed my life. I love being in the classroom and specifically being in the classroom with them. And they loved learning Spanish. And so in my second year of teaching, you know, Spanish classes only 50 minutes, 55 minutes, and I had a student asked me after class, you know, Mr. Chamblee, you speak Spanish really well. How did you You like learn it. And so I told them, you know, when you go to college, you got to study abroad, it changed my life, you know, do full language immersion, it'll be difficult, but that's the quickest way to learn a language is just to struggle through it. And so, a student asked me, Well, what about high school study abroad programs? And so I said, You know, I actually don't know too much about them. Let me let me do my research. And so I started looking up high school study abroad programs. And as you could imagine, none of the kids in the photos looked like my kids and the leadership didn't look like me. And so I just saw that there was this clear racial gap that existed. And then I started doing research on those numbers and seeing that 6% of college students who studied abroad were black and then when I studied abroad 10 years ago, well now 11 back in 2009, it was only at 3%. So from 2009 till about today An 18 has only grown 3%. And so I did what any data driven instructor would do. And I went back to the class and surveyed my students to figure out how many of them are actually interested in a like language learning study abroad program. And I saw that 78 out of 80 of them were interested. And so I said, Well, here's what I see from the data. Clearly, a majority of you wish that you had this language learning experience in your high school career, and I believe you deserve it too. So I have no idea how to start a nonprofit. I have no idea how to start a website, but if this is what you want, then I'll figure it out. And so that's how it started. I left the classroom full time June 2018. To begin brainstorming what is now become teams of color abroad. And so summer 2018 I was in Seville, Spain, and I got to reconnect with the director. If the language school that I studied abroad with their name is central Moodle language, my six month experience in Spain was just absolutely incredible because of Central Moodle language. And I reconnected with the director. And he is a, you know, he's from Chicago and moved up and move to Spain in the mid 2000s to try something different and eventually started the school. And so when I told him my ideas, he was just ecstatic. And this was something that he so desperately wanted for central mono lengua for them to be able to offer their services to students who would really appreciate it and students who wouldn't often have this type of experience. And so that's how sort of the the foundation of teams of color abroad came out. It's a partnership between us in and central Manila, where students would take three hours of Spanish class a day they would live with a homestay family family makes all meals during the duration of the program. And then in the afternoons, we do culturally immersive activities. So flamenco dance lessons, pay cooking classes, museum tours, all delivered entirely in Spanish. So we would do a full language immersion program where students would have a much deeper exposure to the language than simply a 55. class, you know, 55 minute class period.
Jessica Drucker: That sounds awesome. And for how many weeks or months is it?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah, so for our pilot program, we were looking to start in a two week program, just because in my my research with, you know, my former students, aside from asking them if they were interested in a language learning study abroad program, I asked them for how long because I do think like long, you know, month to month long exposure, really, yeah, it's intense. And some of them have never been away from their families for longer than two weeks. And so For a pilot program, we're looking at a two week program just to start, and then eventually build it out into a longer program.
Jessica Drucker: So how did you feel so back to the fact that we are living in quarantine and in the middle of this Coronavirus pandemic? How did you feel when you first started to hear the news that students abroad were being called back home? And you could kind of feel the study abroad industry, whatever want to call it kind of imploding and everybody's rushing to come home? How did you interpret that time for those students? And how do you think that's going to really affect this this in the future because my I'm very fearful that that people could stop wanting to send their kids abroad as a result of this. But as you and I both know, this is a life changing experience that students today need more than ever before.
Lamar Shambley: Absolutely. Yeah, I don't think that the the passion for language learning and travel will die with this pandemic. At least. I really hope not. You know, when when I saw that students are starting to come back, I just felt awful because I know how transformative my six month experience was. And so I tried to put myself in their shoes and I can't imagine my, you know, my experience being cut short, especially, you know, happening in February, March right after they got there, and maybe we're getting their feet wet, and then it all being taken away from them. But I know for a fact that that was a hard decision by many study abroad providers, but at the end of the day, the students health is primary. And so that was obviously the right decision to make the past couple of weeks. months now have been really scary for study abroad programs. And unfortunately, a lot of them have had to downsize and you know, I just, I think I'm still grieving right now. So I just feel a lot of sadness and, and in frustration that, that this whole outbreak wasn't handled in in a more appropriate way. And so I just really hope that these students know that the world will will still be there for them when you know travel limitations are lifted, that the world will still be open to to welcome their curiosity and that people will still want to build and connect with them across cultures. And so I hope that passion and that excitement to see the world still, you know, stays alive with them.
Jessica Drucker: And I do think that I mean, I can't imagine being anyone other than who I am right and I can't imagine not wanting to always go you know, travel and not just travel and go on vacation, but you know, I think we were very similar in that way but it's the cultural part it's the really getting to know a place part. I don't think that's gonna die within people. But you know, you you don't have to To know the answers for for like the industry, right, but I mean how how will it affect you? And have you started to think about how you would alter the program or will you still offer it the same way? I mean, have you started to think through that as an individual contributor to this post Coronavirus world?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah, definitely, you know, everyone is adjusting to being now in this virtual space. And I do think that there is so much to to learn from being in this virtual space. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't transfer to actually being there and being in person. But I think that this is going to push us to become more innovative and think about what we can do to give our students these transformative experiences, whether that whether it be international and we take students in other country or whether it's local and taking students to the local Places that they've never experienced in having them see that there is still so much to learn, even if it is a little bit closer to home. So I'd be curious to see how some, you know, local, cross cultural programs are adapting. And, you know, definitely for Toka. And I'm thinking now about, you know, how do we connect students to share their experiences with how their family and their community is responded to Coronavirus? Because I think that this is something that, you know, it almost bothers me that students have to worry about this when I think of students under 18 I'm like, they're so young, I don't want them to worry about this pandemic. This is something that adults, you know, that we should handle, but this is affecting everyone's lives, across borders, across languages. And so I think that this will, you know, push us to, to be innovative on how We're connecting our students with students from across the world. Right now,
Jessica Drucker: we are all going through something in real time all across the world and forever in these kids lives, they will share that with everyone their age, across the whole world for the rest of their lives. So there is this thing that does really connect people right now, no matter what, and unfortunately, a 16 year old, in every country, you know, has to deal with the same thing. So I don't know if that will bring some kind of like, so the fabric tighter of the Cross Country cross cultural understanding, but I feel like that's a really positive takeaway from this otherwise tragic event.
Lamar Shambley: Yeah, absolutely. And, unfortunately, you know, with New York City being hit so hard, especially in many communities of color. You know, I think that this is a really interesting time for Students of Color just to think about, you know, how this may hit closer to home for them more than some other students. And also get to a point where they're able to learn a little bit more about why, why that's happening in our world. And, and how, in some ways, global education is needed now more than ever, because many students of color who don't have opportunities to global education now need to be on the front lines for global issues like the virus like that is not just something that's happening over there, or something that's just happening here. And so I think this would be just an incredible time for more Black and Brown students to be placed in global conversation for them to, you know, confront some of the larger global issues that we have today.
Jessica Drucker: That's really interesting. Do you wish in some ways that you were still teaching So you could have a pulpit to talk to these kids about this
Lamar Shambley: lately, I, when I left teaching, I didn't think that I would miss it as much as I do. And now is such a huge learning opportunity. And my students knew that I was the teacher to like, let me explain all of this to you and break down some some of the things in in teaching young kids how to identify some of the wrong that's happening right now in the face of COVID. And so, yeah, I really missed the classroom because I'm excited. I was, you know, excited to teach them but also there's so much to learn from students. And so I really wish that I had the ability to learn alongside them.
Jessica Drucker: Wow. Yes, I think that they could really use you. I can, I can, I can really feel that from you. Well, so what do you see for yourself? And for Toka for the next, you know, a couple of years, how do you see yourself moving forward?
Lamar Shambley: I think that this is it's just pushing me to think creatively. Um, you know, right now with Toka still being so knew I'm currently the only person really, you know, helming the ship. And so it's overwhelming being the only person sometimes Luckily, I do have a board and Advisory Council and these are people to, you know, who am I thought partners. But I will say something that I'm working on right now, and I don't want to give too much information, but I just know that there's a lot of fear and anxiety out there. I'm feeling it myself. And so I'm really worried about younger folks. succumbing to that fear and that anxiety in terms of not wanting to explore the world and oh, with, with teams of color abroad, I'm working on something that would fill some hope and inspiration in the international education and study abroad world. Because again, it's a beautiful world out there. And though it's scary right now, the world UT has not left us. And so I'm really hoping to, you know, have some sort of like, inspiration and some sort of excitement to to add to the global education, you know, discourse right now, I do know one thing for a fact and that students are still going to be excited about connecting through language and in connecting people from very different backgrounds. And so I want to make sure that Toka is here to students when they're ready to travel again.
Jessica Drucker: I think you're amazing.
Lamar Shambley: Thank you. comments. I really appreciate it.
Jessica Drucker: Yeah, I'm so glad that we got to talk. I'm so glad that you said yes to chat with me. Your perspective and your voices is really needed so much I really, and and,
Lamar Shambley: yeah, I I'm just really hopeful right now that you know, things will eventually turn and in some ways, you know, I will be excited to return to some semblance of normal, but there's a lot of things that I hope change because of this, I think that we, we see now more than ever, if we are not healthy, then then nothing can happen. And so, you know, I really hope that this is a wake up call in some ways for us to realize that we are more interconnected as people you know, more now than ever before and so we really need each other. So I really hope that this just pushes people to rely on each other and, and also to take care of each other. Because we we definitely need that as well.
Jessica Drucker: He meant to you. Um, so where can people find you? And how can people find out more about Toka? And all the work that you do?
Lamar Shambley: Yeah. So we are at WWW dot teens of color abroad.org. We're also on Instagram, at teens of color abroad. Facebook under teams of color abroad. So those would be excellent places.
Jessica Drucker: Great. We will share that. And as soon as you have your new project, tell us and I'll share it, for sure. All right, thank you so much. Thanks so much for taking the time. It's great to speak with you.
Lamar Shambley: Great to speak with you too. Jessica.
Jessica Drucker: Thank you against Lamar for spending time during his quarantine sharing his story and his story of the program. Like I said in the intro study abroad changed the course of my life. It was the first time I found my place in the world. If you want to support teens of color abroad, please visit www dot teens of color abroad.org forward slash donate. If you're liking adventure calls, why not take 10 or 15 seconds out of your day, head over to Apple podcasts where you can rate review and subscribe to the podcast. Thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.
*Transcribed by https://otter.ai AI transcription service. Please excuse any errors.