In 2017, Shaniyah accompanied her older sister and cousin to Juma’s annual holiday party. She had already heard good things, but meeting the Juma staff for herself gave her the confidence she needed to sign up. As a high school student, she’d worked some part-time jobs before, but Juma was her first foray into a job where she could get the hours she needed to earn real income and challenge herself.
“My initial motivation was to earn some money for personal expenses and try to help my younger siblings get whatever they wanted, but I also craved a sense of community where I could grow both personally and professionally,” Shaniyah recounted.
At her first shift–a night game in the Bay Area’s famously chilly fog–Shaniyah was overwhelmed by the energy of the bustling stadium but when she recognized an Enterprise Manager she’d met at the holiday party, her nerves settled into an excited flurry. She felt supported by all of the Juma staff that evening as well as her peers on-the-job.
Today, Shaniyah still works at Juma, but has grown from a nervous rookie to a confident Youth Manager. At work, she supports youth in the same way she felt supported that first night on the job.
For Shaniyah, Juma started at the ballpark, but expanded into many facets of her life, as well as expanding her own ideas about who she could one day be. As a high school student, she took advantage of all of the programs Juma offered, from learning to network through JumaLink to increasing her confidence managing her income with financial capability courses. She built long-lasting friendships and the self-confidence she gained drove her to earn her Bachelor’s Degree in Managerial Economics with a Minor in Technology Management from UC Davis.
This year, Shaniyah was eager to participate in the pilot phase of a new Juma program geared towards helping youth who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs get a head start on their business management skills.
“Every week we’d learn something new and then use that to develop our business plan,” Shaniyah recollected. “We answered questions like where our funding would come from and thought through who our business would target and how we would market to them.”
At the end of the program, Shaniyah and her peers crafted a full business plan utilizing all of the things they learned over the course of the program. The skills she gained in her time at Juma: networking, communication, and teamwork, helped her to succeed in this new area of growth.
“For now, I’m looking for my first full-time role in client success because I really love talking to people and working with them one-on-one, but from there, I hope I’ll learn new skills and advance in the technology field,” says Shaniyah. “Eventually, I’d like to become a Client Success Manager and then maybe even open a business. I might be a future CEO.”
Recently, Shaniyah gave a speech recounting her Juma experience for a room full of supporters at Juma’s Annual Paths to Possibility Celebration. Just as Shaniyah worked hard to make her way from her very first shift in the ballpark to managing teams of youth, today she’s working hard to take the next step forward in the job market. Wherever Shaniyah takes her talents,, we are proud to have been one of the stepping stones on her journey to a fulfilling career.
