Exploring Jasmine Chazulle’s struggle and her achievement
From Beauty School and unemployment to being in NECC’s graduating class of 2014. While Jasmin Chazulle is not a recent NECC graduate she is still well known by many faculty members and possibly some current students on campus. If anyone remembers any events thrown by Student Life and being persuaded to participate in any wacky games by a very energetic and loud person, then you have come across Jasmin Chazulle or Jazzii as some would call her.
In many ways Chazulle was apart of NECC for almost 9 years. She started NECC in the Fall of 2008 and continued to stay even after she had already graduated in the Spring of 2014. During her six years of being an NECC student she majored in Accounting and then later decided to change her major to Computer Science. She also participated in a few clubs on campus as well such as; P.A.C.E, Student Senate, and she was also a work study for Student Life. “P.A.C.E helped expand my possibility of receiving more education, the Student Senate helped teach me the ways of brown-nosing and networking and Student Life helped me become the women I am today”
Even though after graduating from NECC with an associate in Computer Science Jasmin later went on to receive her bachelor’s for General Studies with a concentration in Small Business at Southern New Hampshire University. But Chazulle’s story it isn’t as straightforward as one may think. While going to school part-time Chazulle also became a mother to now a 4-year-old Benjamynizaak. Unfortunately, Chazulle was never able to have that one-on-one time at SNHU that she wanted but it did however create a new challenge for her. She took advantage of Southern New Hampshire’s online degree program and taught herself the material every chance she got. “It took almost 2 years of hard work and understanding. When my strong suit was being more visual instead of teaching myself that was the hardest. Looking for help for a certain subject when I didn’t have a car back then to travel to campus really took a toll but when you put your mind to it and really try to understand the concept, I felt like Southern New Hampshire really knew what they were doing.”
By Spring of 2017 Chazulle had graduated Southern New Hampshire with her bachelor’s and had decided to move even one step further and achieve her master’s degree at Cambridge College for Business Administration. While Chazulle is mostly on Cambridge College’s Lawrence location, working as a Program Coordinator for Playworks. Playworks is a nonprofit organization that originated in Oakland, California to help improve the lives and well-being of children through play. Chazulle’s main responsibility is to organize recess for the kids by teaching them a game and showing them how to play safely so they can have certain tools for life. “Once I got myself into it, it broke me in to the fact that they are why I wake up in the morning, because I know these kids, because I was one of them,” she said.
Chazulle hopes that in her advocacy at Playworks that she changes the lives of the kids she teaches and gives them the hope of being something greater than their situations or what anyone else tells them they are.
One of Chazulle’s current projects for Playworks was raising money for her junior coaches to go to a conference to be recognized for what they do in their afterschool program that teaches kids leadership skills, fun and safe games that they can use in life, confidence, and how to use their words to be more assertive and not aggressive. In one afterschool program that Jasmin hosts on Thursdays from 3 to 430 she used to have 4 students and after some time it became at max capacity of 15 because even the kids are realizing how Playworks is helping them. “I have 15 students under my belt and every one of them knows I’m an open book, they understand that this is who I am. There are no excuses, they don’t care so they understand that if coach is in pain and is sick and is still here than so can I.” While Chazulle juggles getting her master’s, being a mom, a teacher, and renewing her beautician license she still reminds herself of what she truly wants to do both personally and professionally. Her personal goal is to hopefully acquire a master’s in dance so she can educate the youth. She would also like to start her own nonprofit organization for troubled youth so she can get the opportunity to show them that they can better their life by investing in themselves.
“I want to tell these students yes, I was born and raised in Lawrence. I grew up in poverty,” she says. “I know what it felt like to be scared. I know what it is not to have food. I know what it is not to have good clothes or clean clothes. I know what it is not to have the brand-new sneakers. I know the pain and suffering you must feel. Hear the gunshots from across the street the inappropriate noises at night. Yes, I do know, and I was there. But that is not an excuse to act that way, it is for you to become better and preform better in your community, so your community could flourish.”
Towards the end of the interview Chazulle had some encouraging words for any current students at NECC left with her till this day from Student Senate, “Education leads out ignorance. The more education you get the more you will understand the past, the present and the future.”
