The future looks bright for Baldwin Harbor teenager

I feel like I’m more confident in myself.”

Soraiya Baksh, Baldwin High School graduate

Soraiya Baksh is a 17-year-old who can do it all thanks to time management, she says. Headed to Pennsylvania State University to study for a master’s in marketing after being one of 14 members of Baldwin High School’s pilot college education program, Baksh has started her own eyelash company, helped the homeless and won numerous awards along the way.

Her most recent award was Excellence in Student Activities, earned while she was part of the Nassau Community College dual enrollment program, the first high school partnership program with NCC, which allows seniors to receive college credits while attending classes on campus.

After the turmoil of the coronavirus pandemic and discovering that a few of her friends turned out not to be as genuine as she thought, Baksh said she needed a “fresh start.” She found that in the dual enrollment program.

“I wanted a fresh start, somewhere I felt that I could excel and succeed, and I feel like that was definitely Nassau Community College for me,” Baksh said. There, from September last year to June this year, she attended classes with college students, and last semester was president of NCC’s Caribbean Club. “The club definitely taught me a lot of leadership skills,” she said. “During the fall semester I was the secretary, and I got to manage the social media, which worked well for me because it was more hands-on experience and exposure which led me to becoming president.” 

“Academic-wise, socially, I feel like I definitely excelled, and I wouldn’t be able to do that at Baldwin High School without this experience,” Baksh said. “It really opened up my communication skills, and now I feel like I’m more confident in myself.  This experience was rewarding for the academic focus and college exposure which enhanced my maturity as a learner and communicator.” In the program she accrued 36 college credits, which means she will enter Penn State as a sophomore.

The program felt right for her, instead of high school, in part due to the pandemic. Baksh was a sophomore when Covid-19 hit, and when it was time to start her junior year, she said, ““It wasn’t the same, the environment was not the same. I felt better learning virtually because
there was more one-on-one interaction with the teachers.”

The pandemic kept her from seeing her grandfather Mohamed Manaru, a role model with whom Soraiya is very close, but who was sick with sepsis arthritis. He is one of the reasons she persists in times of struggle. He would tell her stories of his boyhood in Guyana — “We’re Guyanese,” she explained, "a multifaceted culture of Indian, African American, Dutch,
Amerindian, Chinese, Portuguese, Nepalese, British, and Spanish roots which is considered a Caribbean nation." Her grandfather left Guyana and came to The United States with only $25 in his pocket to make a living, which inspires her to work harder.

Her grandfather’s story, and those of other strong women in her family, inspired Soraiya to “never give up, throughout this whole experience,” she said. “And the last two years he just kept fighting, because he’s a fighter, and sometimes I’ll experience little things and say, ‘I can’t do it, it’s too much,’ but then I think about him (and) he inspires me to persevere and keep going.”

His grandfather had four girls, and Baksh feels she has to continue the legacy of strong females. “I feel their feminism in our family … it really inspires me,” she said. “I feel their feminism in our family there is a strong empowerment of feminism in our family stemming from my grandfather… it really inspires me, “ she said. “ I have a lot of female role models around me – I just want to continue (that).”

During the pandemic, Baksh worked at the Halo Network, an organization headquartered in Amityville that helps the homeless, the disabled, the elderly and other vulnerable populations. While working there, Baksh became interested in marketing, which she plans to study at Penn State.

Helping to advertise Halo’s services, she said she “fell in love with the job. They created the position just for me, and I managed all their social media, creating their fliers and reaching out to people.” She added, “It was interesting to see and get a different perspective on how other people live,” and she learned an important skill: patience. “When you’re with these people, they require a lot of patience and understanding,” she said.

Along with all of her other interests, Baksh is a business owner, the CEO of Bratz.Blinkz4U, an eyelash-extension enterprise that launched in May, and released its summer collection on June 1. She had an interest in the cosmetics industry, and, she said, “I feel the beauty world definitely has a hold on me.”

Baksh said she wasn’t sure whether she could have accomplished all that she has if she had not grown up in the safe and diverse environment of Baldwin her household that foster academic growth, strong family values, religion and ethics. “Because of the diversity here, I never felt out of place,” she said.  While Baldwin is a small niche community, it’s home that continues to diversify which allows us all to feel comfortable in our skin. “Like, everywhere I go, I see somebody that I know, or somebody that looked like me. I didn’t have to worry about racism or anything like that.