Sakinah Sanders, a 1999 SSP alumna, is the founder of nonprofit The Hrlmgirl Project. By providing the opportunity for travel to schoolgirls in Harlem and Gwinnett County, Ga., Sakinah explores travel as a pedagogical tool centering cultural understanding and self-development.
The Hrlmgirl Project focuses on volunteerism and cultural exposure to provide learning both in and out of the classroom. Those accepted into the marquee travel program who express need will receive financial support, while tutoring and mentoring are offered to ensure participants’ academic goals are achieved.
Sakinah aims to offer a program she feels she could have benefitted from in her youth. “For me, it’s something I’m very passionate about – getting kids, especially black and brown girls who look like me and have grown up like me, opportunities they may not otherwise have.”
With her roots in Harlem, Sakinah attended St. Jean Baptiste High School and soon after graduated from SUNY New Paltz with degrees in Public Relations and Black Studies. Sakinah’s education continued with her master’s in Human Development from Binghamton University. She spent 15 years in communications and media, working at organizations including Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, HBO, and the Weather Channel, before dedicating herself to founding The Hrlmgirl Project.
Sakinah finds daily proof for her passion in her relationship with her 9th-grade daughter. She describes going on her first vacation after landing her first job: “I had the chance to see this new place and talk to people of a different culture, and that opened my eyes to the importance of travel.” She says that after this experience she made the conscious decision to travel with her daughter. Now that they have been to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the Bahamas, Sakinah notices a positive shift in her daughter saying, “I hear different viewpoints from her because we’ve been to other countries.”
By founding the Hrlmgirl Project, Sakinah hopes to share this experience with other girls from her community and inspire them to dream big.
