21 Leaders 2015: Seven Who Give Life to Movements: Jyothi Gaddam-Pulla:

21 Leaders 2015: Seven Who Give Life to Movements


Jyothi Gaddam-Pulla: Portland's Nurturer of Girls and STEM


Inner city girls' education in Portland could not have a more persistent and tireless advocate than Jyothi Gaddam-Pulla, the founder of Girls Lead. Since she moved to Portland in 2007 Gaddam-Pulla, an Indian immigrant, documentary filmmaker and mother of twin girls, volunteered at an inner city all girls public school called the Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy for Young Women. Volunteering all day, every day, for five years, she did everything from organizing parents and mentoring and tutoring students to writing grants and establishing a Young Women's Media Center to support the school's efforts to provide STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education for predominantly African American and low-income students.

In April 2012, when the Portland Public School district proposed to close Harriet Tubman, Gaddam-Pulla led the fight to save the school. Despite all the efforts of students, parents and community supporters, the school board voted to shut the school down. Not one to give up on the needs of the girls, Gaddam-Pulla set up a leadership club called Girls Lead to provide a nurturing space for girls in math, technology, media and leadership.

Growing up in the city of Hyderabad in India, Gaddam-Pulla was influenced both by her father, an eminent educationist who founded India's distance education system to democratize access to higher education, and her teacher, Professor Haragopal, a civil rights leader who introduced her to the human rights movement in India. While her interest in equity in education may have stemmed from this background, it wasn't until she chose to educate her daughters in a predominantly African American and low-income neighborhood school that she encountered the serious racial, gender and class inequities in the American educational system and society.

"I see a particularly urgent need in bridging the gender and racial gaps in STEM education and breaking the cultural stereotypes that women and people of color cannot be good in math and science," she said.
Last year, Gaddam-Pulla helped start math clubs called NoPo math in seven schools in the North Portland neighborhood of the city in which students learn to apply math to question inequalities in their daily lives, among other skills. In a community where low-income students of color have been displaced many times with school closures, Girls Lead and NoPo math are hoping to play a crucial role in bringing equity and building a community.

. . . .

--By Tatyana Bellamy-Walker

http://womensenews.org/story/21-leaders-the-21st-century/141220/21-leaders-2015-seven-who-give-life-movements