Helena Lourdes Donato-Sapp is a 15-year-old national and global award-winning activist, educator, artist, poet, and speaker who believes that it is urgent for young people like her to understand and be empowered to confront critical issues like anti-Blackness, ableism, Queerphobia, misogyny, poverty, and climate change. She is keenly aware that humanity is in crisis, and that her generation stands to inherit a world still struggling with injustice, threats to democracy, and environmental instability across the globe. Helena’s positionality makes this all personal — she is Black, disabled - neurodivergent, a teenager, American, an adopted daughter to Queer fathers, and a birth daughter to Haitian immigrants, whose one father is an immigrant from the Philippines, and whose one father grew up in poverty in Appalachia. Thus, she is an activist for social, economic, and environmental justice who understands that Activism is as much a fight as it is the pursuit of peace, and must always be inclusive and intersectional.

        Guided by her experiences, family values, and intersecting identities, her scholarship and activism is currently focused on Disability Justice, Anti-bullying, Black Girlhood, and Decolonizing Education. She has published academic chapters and articles in books, peer-reviewed journals and magazines, exhibited art in museums, and spoken to audiences nationwide. Helena has presented in major academic conferences and is a sought-after keynote speaker. Most notably, she has delivered multiple keynotes in her partnership with the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the nation with 3 million members, and its subsidiary state associations.

        The impact of Helena’s work is recognized by colleges and universities, local and state government, the disability community, feminist organizations, a national think tank, and global NGOs through collaborations, appointments, and awards. She has been featured in magazines, podcasts and blogs, and news articles. She appeared on the Disney Channel for Black History Month in 2023 as a featured “Young, Gifted, and Black” changemaker, and more recently on Discovery Education as a national model for the concept of empathy. Her work has also brought her into new leadership roles. In the City of Long Beach, Helena is newly appointed as a member of the inaugural Commission for Women and Girls, holding the distinction of being its youngest member and the youngest Commissioner in the history of the city. In addition, Helena is Senior Blog Team Leader and Editor for the Feminist Focus blog, as well as a member of the international Student Advisory Board of Girls Learn International.

        Helena has received national and global awards. She is featured in the Summer 2024 issue of Diversity in Action (Advancing STEAM Students and Professionals) as “20 Under 20 who are making a difference.” In March 2024, she received the 2024 Yes I Can Award in Academics from the Council for Exceptional Children, the largest international professional organization dedicated to high-quality education that is inclusive and equitable for individuals with disabilities. In November 2023, she flew to London, UK as a finalist for the Global Youth Awards, where she took home the top award in the category of Educational Leadership as the youngest winner overall as well as the only winner from the United States. Helena is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Heumann-Armstrong Award from The Coelho Center for Disability Law, Policy and Innovation at Loyola Law School for her advocacy to improve access in schooling. She was also awarded a grant for Educators Working for Disability Justice by the Abolitionist Teaching Network, which not only continued its support for the second year in 2023-2024, but further highlighted her work as a “Featured Grantee.”  She was first awarded the grant in 2022. 

        Helena was again the youngest honoree on the 2022 D-30 Disability Impact List which recognizes 30 individuals around the world who impact the inclusion, leadership, and representation of people with disabilities in various domains. Also in 2022, she was awarded “16 Under 16 in STEM” from The 74 as one of the nation’s most notable teen thinkers and doers. In 2021, she was celebrated as one of New Moon Girls Magazine’s “21 Beautiful Girls.” In 2020, Helena and her dads were presented with the prestigious Generations Award which recognizes one family’s lifelong and multi-generational commitment to social justice, equity, and inclusion for all people.

        As a rising civic leader, Helena is deeply engaged in the communities she resides. In celebration of Women’s History Month in 2023, Helena was the youngest recognized by the 69th District Assembly of California as one of its Women of Distinction for her service in the category of Education. During Pride month, California 33rd District Senator Lena A. Gonzalez along with Congressman Robert Garcia, Commissioner Ricardo Lara, and Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, formally honored Helena for her courageous work in lifting up LGBTQ+ families. When she graduated from her K-8 school in June 2023, Helena proudly received the school’s culminating namesake award for exemplifying its mission and core values, and demonstrating excellence in character and academics as well as in the arts and athletics. 

        The Designated Poet of the National Institutes for Historically-Underserved Students since 2009, Helena was recently awarded the title of Youth Poet Laureate of the City of Long Beach for 2024-2025, following her role as an inaugural Youth Poet Ambassador in the previous year. In July 2024, Helena was also one of the 15 distinguished finalists for the title of 2024 Los Angeles Youth Poet Laureate and was proudly awarded the role of Los Angeles Youth Poet Ambassador. An early lover of letters, she has relished poetry since her first copy of Goodnight, Moon, a book she adored so much as a baby she quite literally ate it! Her second publication is a poem entitled “Black Girl Magic is a Glorious Gift,” in the anthology Strong Black Girls: Patchwork Stories of Remembrance, Resistance, and Resilience in K-12 Schooling, and is a celebration of Black Girlhood. Poetry, such as “Future Me Thanks You” and “A Disability Justice Poem: Be Kind and Be Fierce,” has been embedded in her keynote speeches and in much of her scholarly work as a literary vehicle for her message. As an activist, Helena relies on poetic language to activate emotion, in particular the emotion of caring. In so doing, she realizes the power of poetry as an antidote to apathy.

        Indeed, Helena believes in the universal power of The Arts to transform society. In Summer 2023, her original painting was unveiled at Los Angeles City Hall by the Department of Cultural Affairs as the cover of the 2023 LGBT Heritage Month Calendar and Cultural Guide. Helena plays the violin and enjoys an eclectic mix of music, from classical and classic rock to 1980s pop. In their final public community performance, her school’s String Ensemble earned a prize with Helena at the helm as Concert Master. A Storyteller and Poet, Helena dreams of breaking into film or television as a Writer, Actor, and Director. She recently shot and finished her first short-form documentary for a national contest. In March 2024, she presented her first academic chapter in Film Studies at a conference in Boston as a member of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies, which is dedicated to the scholarly study of film, television, video and new media. While she loves classic films and admires renowned filmmakers, Helena is disheartened by the inequities still prevalent in the industry and is inspired to make positive change, promising, for instance, to center underrepresented people and their stories in her films. 

        Helena loves to travel with her family, and has enjoyed visiting Rome, London, Paris, Sydney, and Amsterdam overseas, and New Jersey, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Montgomery, Orlando, and Parkersburg stateside. In her Sophomore year of high school, Helena proudly joins the Creative Writing conservatory at a renowned arts school in California. Second to the writing arts, her favorite subjects include Science, Spanish, and Theater. Helena loves History, reading mystery novels, and everything Science Fiction. Outside of school, she has dedicated years to the practice of Martial Arts and has recently earned a Green Belt in karate. 

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