Living Large and In Charge of UConn AHEAD

Hello all, Darlene here,

At the end of last fall semester, I had the wonderful opportunity of being voted President of UConn AHEAD (Aiding Haitian Education, Advancement, and Development). For those of you who are not familiar with the organization, we work alongside a non-profit organization UHELP to raise money to fully fund one college student in Haiti for all four years of their college education.

I have been a part of AHEAD since my freshman year serving as the Chief Financial Officer for two years and Historian for one.  At first I was a little bit nervous about the position because I knew that it would be a huge responsibility but I realized that with a strong executive board behind me so I had nothing to worry about.

As president this semester I have been running around and sending massive emails trying to get a few small things set up for the club such as bake sales, so that we can worry about other bigger events during the semester. As we are such a small organization a challenge that I have been running into is trying to get our events funded!! Though USG and SUBOG do a great job at helping to fund many events held by UConn student organizations some of their restrictions make it a bit difficult to try and make a profit from these events.  However my wonderful VP and other members of the e-board have come up with some other great idea’s that will help us raise money for our scholarship fund.

A personal challenges that I face as a leader is delegating tasks. I tend to enjoy doing things on my own so that it can be done the way that I imagine it to be, and so that if there is a mistake I have no one else to blame but myself. I often get a little upset when things are not the way that I imagined them, or are not done by the time I want them done so I tend to just try to do everything on my own. As president I am trying to include all of the members and especially the e-board on tasks and certain decisions by giving them responsibilities and trying my best to be a diplomatic leader. So far I think that it is going very well!

A few members playing some trivia at our Taste of Haiti event

Two of my main goals for AHEAD during my term are, developing well organized events that can bring in revenue for the scholarship fund and be repeated in the future, as well becoming more well known in the UConn community. Over the years AHEAD has been able to hold a few successful events such as our Annual Cabaret Night and A Taste of Haiti but I would love if we were able to add more events to our list as well as bring in more people.

I am really excited to see where AHEAD ends up by the end of next year and I hope that I will be able to set a new bar the organization and it’s future leaders.

Signing off,

-Dar