Amiya's Story
As a child, you’re often asked what you want to do when you grow up. Twelve-year-old Amiya Alexander of Detroit, Michigan wants to become a dancing obstetrician, but she’s not waiting for adulthood to make her dreams come true.
On September 6, 2008 at 1:02 a.m., Amiya woke up and told her mom about her plan. “I told her I would like to help her, as a single mother, by opening my own business like her,” she recalls. Amiya had a dream of converting an old pink school bus, complete with a wooden floor and a ballet bar, into a mobile dance school.
The young entrepreneur wanted to do this to serve the underprivileged areas of Detroit. “Every child deserves a chance to learn. There might be dancers that are really, really good, but, I mean, they can’t afford it, or their parents can’t drive them, and I just wanted to help them,” the preteen says. Amiya travels through the inner city on her school-bus-turned-dance-studio, offering a variety of classes to young children who have come to look up to her. Not only does she teach her students to dance, but she encourages them to excel academically and to give back to their communities.
On September 6, 2008 at 1:02 a.m., Amiya woke up and told her mom about her plan. “I told her I would like to help her, as a single mother, by opening my own business like her,” she recalls. Amiya had a dream of converting an old pink school bus, complete with a wooden floor and a ballet bar, into a mobile dance school.
The young entrepreneur wanted to do this to serve the underprivileged areas of Detroit. “Every child deserves a chance to learn. There might be dancers that are really, really good, but, I mean, they can’t afford it, or their parents can’t drive them, and I just wanted to help them,” the preteen says. Amiya travels through the inner city on her school-bus-turned-dance-studio, offering a variety of classes to young children who have come to look up to her. Not only does she teach her students to dance, but she encourages them to excel academically and to give back to their communities.
Aside from the obvious feel-good benefits of getting your groove on, dancing also helps to combat the obesity epidemic that continues to spread throughout the nation like wildfire. “One-third of children in America are obese or overweight, and I want to get that down to zero. One way of doing that would be dancing”, says Amiya.
Amiya’s biggest goal in life is to save the money she makes from her business so that she can attend her dream academic destination: Harvard Medical School. It is there that she wants to become an OB/GYN to help women understand their bodies and to bring new life into this world. Right now, Amiya has seen a few births, and dreams to see a C-section. Once an OB/GYN, she plans to take her medical talent abroad. She has visited her mother’s home country of Jamaica and realized the health inadequacies in other countries, and hopes to one day make a difference. Amiya’s role models are Dr. Ben Carson and Dr. Charles Drew, and she hopes to give to medicine what they’ve given to us.
