Tiffony Jacobs and Kanya Sim on the Power of a Mentor

Tiffony Jacobs and Kanya Sim are writers, speakers, entrepreneurs, and members of the original Freedom Writers, a group of high school students led by teacher Erin Gruwell, who inspired her struggling students to share their personal stories through writing. (A movie of the same title was made starring Hilary Swank.)Tiffony and Kanya were regarded as unreachable and underprivileged,  mostly due to their traumatic home life. Tiffony experienced poverty, domestic violence, and homelessness, while Kanya and her family dealt with the hardships of being Cambodian refugees struggling to acculturate to a new country. With the help of their teacher and mentor, they were encouraged to write anonymous journal entries and for the first time in their lives they gave voice to their internal pain and feelings of failure. After graduating high school, they went on to train over 600 educators with the Freedom Writers Foundation, teaching others to use the powerful tool of writing to heal and tell their stories.  Both have gone on to also teach others how to break the cycle of generational poverty through financial literacy. Their stories are powerful, honest and inspiring. Find out more about Freedom Writers @: http://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org Find out more about Tiffony @: https://www.wfgconnects.com/tiffonyjacobs Find out more about Kanya @: https://www.wfgconnects.com/kanyasim You can follow Tiffony Jacobs @: https://www.instagram.com/tiffonyj_thefreedomwriter