PEABODY — Dado Nassa left her mark on Veterans Memorial High School when she delivered a speech at convocation acknowledging the difficulties of finding oneself and the importance of standing up for equality.
Nassa won her yearbook’s “Social Justice Champion” superlative and translated her thoughts on the accolade into a speech highlighting the importance of using your voice for change.
“Once you stay silent, you instantly take the side of the oppressor,” she said in the speech. “No matter how you look at it, ignoring issues — regardless of their relation to you — makes you no better than the societal institutions that silence the oppressed.”
She discussed how topics of injustice may be uncomfortable for people to discuss, but it is important to know and understand that “we are all humans before anything else.”
She said the most important thing for anyone to do is fight for the people around them and stand up for them when need be.
Nassa said her generation has constantly been referred to as the “generation of change,” adding that it is time to take that name and prove it to the world.
Nassa said when she was in 10th grade, one of her teachers asked her who she was and she was unsure of how to respond. Now, as a high-school graduate, she said there is a lot going on in the world and she wants to focus on making positive changes and finding the “real Dado.”
“We owe it to ourselves to be the absolute best versions of ourselves, and we owe it to each other to stand up for one another,” she said during her speech. “It’s OK that we don’t know who we are yet… but it’s important that we realize who we are becoming and what we want to leave behind.”
Nassa said as a freshman in high school she became a different person when she learned how to use her voice and get involved.
She started by joining the newspaper and legacy clubs, student committees, chorale, track and field and the hockey team.
She also discussed social justice and equality in classes, posted about it on social media and devoted much of her high school experience to engage with classmates and teachers on important topics.
Nassa said she plans to continue her passion for social justice at American International College, where she will study psychology. She said she originally wanted to go to school for pre-law — and may yet change her major to it, because she would love to be a civil rights or immigration lawyer.
“I just want to do something where I know I’m helping people,” she said.
If not a lawyer, Nassa said she would like to be a psychiatrist because she said that, in minority communities, there have not been many psychiatrists she could relate to. She said mental health in the Black community has been ignored, but it needs to be discussed — and she wants to help change that.
As of now, Nassa said she is keeping her options open, and hopes to find a career that she loves while also making a difference in the world.
In one word, Nassa described her high school experience as “awakening.”
“I just realized a lot about the world, myself and people around me,” Nassa said. “Going to Peabody High just really woke me up to things I never thought of before.”
