Pooyie!

C’est Bon: Skyra Rideaux

For students at Lafayette Middle School — a low-rated, “inner-city” school with a majority low-income/black student body, many from single-parent households — the start of the school year was also an opportunity to begin the day with examples of success.

Skyra Rideaux

If you’re a parent like many of us here at The IND, the first day of school is a blessing. For students at Lafayette Middle School — a low-rated, “inner-city” school with a majority low-income/black student body, many from single-parent households — it was also an opportunity to start the day with examples of success.

Skyra Rideaux, the executive director of the Lafayette Community Health Care Clinic, arranged to have a group of successful minority men greeting students along with new principal Allison El Koubi and other administrators as they arrived Thursday morning (images below). The gentleman involved were Jasper Faulk, Langston Faulk, Christopher Bernard, Ruben Henderson and Shawn Bernard.

As Rideaux wrote on her Facebook page:

I put out a private call for some upstanding men in this community to come out with me on the first day of school to greet students and show them what success can look like for them. They need images like this to affirm that they too can become great citizens of our community. These outstanding gentlemen answered my ask and showed up to encourage and inspire the children of our community. What a difference we can make by one small gesture.