Today we’d like to introduce you to Imran Khan.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Imran. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I grew up in Chicago, and went to Chicago Public Schools. My family emigrated from India and our story is one of identity struggles, evictions, food stamps, successes, and failures. Throughout college, I thought I’d go into business with the goal to make money and have a comfortable life. But I started thinking more deeply about the impact I wanted to create, and I started questioning if the business route was the right path for me. I felt the urge to do something where I would be helping others.
I transitioned my focus into education, and ended up teaching English at Harper High School in Englewood. There, working with low-income Chicago students, I quickly realized that the students needed so much more than what Hamlet could offer. My students’ world was one that was shocking to me — their friends were being shot, families were struggling to make ends meet; what would reading about a depressed, medieval prince do for them?
What started as after-school trips with a fellow teacher, January Miller, to expand the students’ vision of the city and their own opportunities, grew into Embarc. We wanted them to see that they could achieve success that seemed so out of bounds because of the isolation they faced. Now, we work with over 800 students throughout the city.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Embarc grew really fast. We started as two co-founders, then we brought on more team members every year. We used to do all our work out of one small office, around one table, in the Leo Burnett building. Now we have a team of 16. Scaling for social not-for-profits is always a challenge, but it keeps things interesting.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Embarc Chicago – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Embarc is a leading experiential education organization. Think about your life. Every person you’ve met, every trip you’ve taken, and situations where you find yourself trying something completely different; those experiences made you who you are. This is the basis of what drives our work.
Embarc was founded in 2007 by myself and January Miller when we were both teachers at Harper High School, which was infamously highlighted by This American Life because of the incessant violence our students faced. I quickly realized how small my students’ view of their city, their world was. Most of them rarely, if ever, left their four-block radius, which meant they never saw the lake, never experienced the great cultural amenities Chicago is so well-known for and so familiar to many of us. Most days, they were just trying to stay safe.
To combat this, we started taking a small group of students on after-school trips. We went to Broadway shows, museums, restaurants. The benefits of the exposure were evident almost immediately — graduation rates went up, students who never saw themselves going to college were accepted to school. Mindsets shifted.
Embarc has now grown as a class for 10th – 12th graders at 18 underserved schools throughout the city with over 800 students. Every student goes on 8 – 10 “journeys” per school year, plus they get Embarc classes during their school day. Our curriculum, developed using research from the UChicago Consortium on School Research, focuses on building identity, establishing agency, exploring career tracks, and building strong, real-world skills. Our team works directly with teachers at our schools to deliver that curriculum in their Embarc classes, which take place every day as an elective. For the trips, we have 250 partners all over the city. Examples of businesses we work with include Leo Burnett, Groupon, Chicago Fire, Green Street Smoked Meats, and ArcelorMittal.
Our class, in conjunction with journeys all over Chicago, has had incredible results: 93% graduation rate, and 85% college enrollment. We also encourage Professional Pathways, where students enter into good jobs right after high school if that is the best path forward for the student.
If you want to learn more about Embarc, visit our website and sign up for emails. Save the date for Thursday, May 17 for our 8th Annual Unbelievably Amazing & Terribly Entertaining BLOWOUT! Variety Spectacular!
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Over the years, doing this work has shifted my own view of how not-for-profits can work together. The current model of scaling social and education interventions is flawed. We need to start thinking of change as disruption, and model social innovation after tech leaders like AirBnB, Lyft, and Google. We want our message of fighting isolationism to get out to the masses. That means citizens and educators across the nation should have access to and adapt our model, without the control and structure that slows interventions down. To make the changes we need as a nation, we want to get these resources into the hands of people who are passionate about making these changes.
Contact Info:
- Address: 125 S. Clark Street
- Website: www.embarcchicago.org
- Phone: (773) 270-1175
- Email: embarc@embarcchicago.org
- Instagram: instagram.com/embarcchicago
- Facebook: facebook.com/embarcchicago
- Twitter: twitter.com/embarcchicago
Image Credit:
Christina Noel
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