Jaki graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2012 with a major in Global Studies and a minor in Entrepreneurship. During her time at UNC, Jaki founded Linking Immigrants to New Communities, which helps ease the transition of recent immigrants through student interaction and awareness-raising in the community, and served on the UNC Emerging Communities Taskforce that established the Carolina Latina/o Collaborative, dedicated to developing a greater awareness of Latina/o issues, cultures and identities.

After graduating from UNC, Jaki stayed at the Campus Y to serve as the director of the Campus Y’s Global Gap Year Fellowship for three years before working for the United Nations in Thailand. Since 2018, Jaki has served as the Innovation Initiatives Coordinator redesigning and managing the development of CUBE, UNC Chapel Hill’s social venture accelerator.

Today, Jaki and I are talking about the power of connection, what it means to come to a halt in the name of mental health, and her experience growing up as a Latina in rural North Carolina.

To learn more about the Campus Y, visit https://campusy.unc.edu/. Follow @campusysocialjusticestories on Instagram for updates and new episodes of the podcast.

Music: Scratcher by Blue Dot Sessions

Graphics: Britney Hong