Former UPrep graduate Kalabe Tewolde returned to the school as a keynote speaker for this year’s Social Justice Week.

“There’s that quote: one person can’t change the world. But I think one person can change the world. It usually takes more than one person. It could be one person making an impact and creating a community that is willing to get behind certain ideas,” Kelabe Tewolde said.

Kelabe Tewolde surrounds himself with people of different backgrounds, people with new perspectives and people he cares about. He has cultivated an ever-expanding circle of friends and family through his pillars of community. He likes that his community will always reflect the love he invests. 

“Throughout the struggles that I’ve had, my community has lifted me up, but also, I have been able to work within my own community to provide impact with the help of others,” Tewolde said. 

Compiling these experiences to create a story that demonstrates the effects of a strong community was Tewolde’s main goal for his keynote.

“I saw this subject was community and I was like, oh, that’s something I can actually talk about. There’s a need for people to build community,” Tewolde said.

For Tewolde, a clear first step toward building community is simple conversation and when preparing for his keynote he kept going back to a conversational activity he did as a high school student. The activity entailed a 12-minute discussion in which four group members were given four minutes to tell the group anything they wanted relating to their life story. 

“I think my goal going into it was to get students to actually do something active at the end. So in order for students to buy into an activity where they’re supposed to be vulnerable and talk with each other and get to know their community, I’ve had to model that as well,” Tewolde said.

During his keynote Tewolde shared a quote from his old UPrep teacher Ms. Hundley: “You can’t hate someone if you know their story.” Within the social circle of a school, it is easy to stay within one’s bubble and limit yourself to the comfort of a few people. Tewolde urges students to be curious about other’s stories and branch out through conversation. 

“Even at a small school like UPrep, you can get siloed into that little group, and you don’t learn about anyone else’s experiences. I think it’s important to do that, especially in a space like in high school, or in middle school, where you’re still growing and you’re still learning about the world,” Tewolde said. “You have all these people at your school that have many different life experiences that you may not know about until you talk.”

Tewolde’s final message relates to finding a community that every UPrep student can help build.

“You’re at a young age where you are at this school with a whole bunch of people from very different walks of life,” Tewolde said. “Build those communities and learn from each other and to create change.”