TWIGGS COUNTY, Ga. – Aylah Birks, a senior at Twiggs County High School in Georgia, credits her mother for inspiring her to earn a 4.0 grade point average and for being awarded $2.2 million in scholarships from 84 colleges.
Birks, who was often bullied in school by her classmates, has also achieved her dream of becoming a published author, she told WMAZ-TV in Macon, Ga.
Birks who is a valedictorian and a finalist for the Gates Scholarship, a highly selective scholarship for outstanding minority high school seniors from low-income households, said that although she got accepted into so many schools after long nights of research, her biggest inspiration through it all has been her mother. All she has ever wanted to do was to make her family and herself proud, she said.
“I think the main driving force behind these accomplishments has to be my mother. Just seeing her tireless effort of always taking the time out to read me a story, or teach me something new as a child,” she said.
The young scholar said she struggled to understand why she was bullied in school for so long. “I was often bullied, and I didn’t understand why, but when you’re bullied…people see something in you that they don’t see in themselves,” she explained.
As a result of her experience, she became an anti-bullying advocate. Also, unlike her classmates, Birks admits she did not have the chance to participate in as many extra-curricular activities as she would have loved to because her mother had to dedicate so much time taking care of her grandfather who took ill a few years ago.
That notwithstanding, the high school senior merged her dream of always wanting to be an author with her experiences and has penned her first book, ‘Perspectives Through the Looking Glass.’
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