Written by: Therese Joffre, Website Manager
Safia is a senior at Hope College and is from Des Plaines, Illinois. She is pursuing a double major in computer science and English with a creating writing emphasis. Her talk's title is "Why biases in healthcare are more deadly than illness itself."
She applied to be a speaker for TEDxHopeCollege because she did competitive speech in high school and she has spent a lot of time watching TED and TEDx talks, thus it became a bucket-list item really quickly. Safia also loves to create free and accessible information, and she believes that TEDx creates an environment that does just that.
Safia is inspired by TED and TEDx due to many of their talks' vulnerability shown. She is a firm believer that people have the ability to change the world; however, she also believes that there are systemic barriers that prevent marginalized people from being able to contribute to large conversations. Safia has found that TED and TEDx created an environment that elevates all voices at such a large scale that has the ability to catalyze change. For Safia, turning the tables means "taking the time to unpack and deconstruct the narratives that have been perpetrated by society, narratives that systemically exist to uphold systems that not only harm marginalized communities, but ultimately all of us as a whole." She is most excited to see everyone's talks since they are all different, and all interesting!
After graduation, she will be pursuing a masters of Fine Arts in creative writing. She has been accepted to her dream program, but is currently waiting to hear back from a few more schools. Her dream job would be a career writer turned professor, or on the flip side an accessibility software engineer. Her biggest irrational fear is bees! She is most proud of the person she has become, through the ups and downs she has gone through lots of growth and reflecting to become who is she is today. Finally, she is very much a theater kid and is passionate about English literature pedagogy.
