Serena Williams Discusses The American Dream and Education at Opportunity Nation
•“My parents always taught me the four D’s: to have a Dream, Dedication – always be dedicated – and have the Desire and Determination to achieve it.”
Whether you’re an athlete or a doctor, you need these qualities to attain that dream, Tennis Star Serena Williams, explained. Passionately involved with education through her namesake foundation, Williams has already opened two schools in Africa, but she was clear to mention how much she likes to do work in the US.
“People are so smart and I want to help send talented, young adults the chance to achieve their dreams,” Williams said. “I think summits like this help create opportunity and, most of all, raise awareness to empower ourselves to know the issues. For example, the numbers around student debt are over $80 billion dollars. That’s a huge challenge and very disappointing.”
The hope, she mentioned, is in the brightness she’s seen in youth during her travels around the US and the world. Echoing the sentiments of everyone at the Summit, she felt, as a society, that we’ve moved too far away from the American Dream by focusing on the wrong things.
The need?
To bring people back to the core.
“A single person can’t lift a building, it takes a whole team to get in there and make it,” Williams noted. The power, she said, comes in the form of awareness so that we can quickly move into the fundraising and tactical stages to develop practical solutions.
Opportunity, as Williams sees it, also rests in the power of social media and the dialogue and innovation in the digital realm to spread awareness and keep the conversation on the forefront of the country’s agenda.
