LOS ANGELES, October 20, 2017 (Newswire.com) - Emmanuel Ventouris graduated high school with a 4.0 GPA and received a scholarship to Columbia University. He eventually graduated with high honors.
Emmanuel says that his biggest motivation was his desire to leave his past behind and create a better life for his family.
I had young boys who committed serious crimes cry in front of me when I talked to them. It's like no one else tried to understand them. I think that our young generation needs to be educated, not blamed. The ones who are to be blamed are us, the older ones. The kids happen to be aggressive, depressed, and anxious only because of the medium in which they grew up in.
Emmanuel Ventouris
The young man was born to a poor family and was raised by only one parent, his mother. This experience made him grow up faster and learn how to be responsible earlier in life.
While his mother tried her best to put food on the table, she passed away due to lung cancer when Emmanuel was only 15.
“My mother tried her best to give us a meal every day and a birthday present every year until she got sick with lung cancer. For someone that didn't smoke a single cigarette in her whole life, that was a big shock. To know that you can get such a monstrous disease even if you live a normal healthy life is crushing. I was 14 at the time. I grew up in a poor area of Brooklyn, and it wasn't always easy.”
Emmanuel Ventouris also speaks about the temptations he had while he was young and how he chooses the right path for him and his family.
“I could get into a gang and sell drugs to make a living for my mom and my sisters, but I chose to live a different path. At that time, my mother couldn't take care of us as she used to. Everything became a struggle; there were days when my sisters had to ask on the streets for food. We started to live with food stamps and the generosity of people only. It didn't take too much until our beloved mother died, I was only 15 at the time.”
Emmanuel Ventouris spent most of his free time studying and working to make ends meet without neglecting his education, and now he wants to help other teenagers who are in the same position as he used to be in.
“I spend most of my day, teaching lessons about life to the kids that come from families with dysfunctions. The reason? I don't want to watch another young teenager go through the same hard times that I had to deal with. In life, you either have to suffer a strong trauma to change, or you need a good education, and when I'm talking about education, I don't mean the school matter. Our education system is failing, and I have to change that. Kids from all over New York come here to my class.”
Ventouris likes to speak about the importance of moral principles in education as well as the fact that mental health is often ignored in the American educational system. Many kids end up in gangs selling drugs simply because the educational system turns a blind eye to what happens to them.
He now holds classes where he teaches kids how to avoid the same type of suffering he went through as well as how to succeed when the odds are stacked against you.
“I had young boys who committed serious crimes cry in front of me when I talked to them. It's like no one else tried to understand them. I think that our young generation needs to be educated, not blamed. The ones who are to be blamed are us, the older ones. The kids happen to be aggressive, depressed, and anxious only because of the medium in which they grew up in."
His noble deeds and passion for helping others made this young man not only shine through his own achievements but also through the kindness that he shows to others.
The classes Emmanuel Ventouris holds are unique and chock full of empathy since he was once in the same position as the kids who attend it.
Source: Web Presence, LLC
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