WakeEd Partnership is an organization that honors teachers and students in Wake County for their outstanding achievements in education and the community. Every year, WakeEd hosts a gala to honor these individuals for all their hard work. Nominated by Green Hope in 2024, Nabiha Rahman (‘25) won the Emerging Star Student Award on Oct. 30. She was recognized with this honor for her efforts in establishing and leading the EmpowerHer club at Green Hope, and her non-profit organization the Lumina Girls Foundation.
This community award is made to recognize seniors in high school in the Wake County district. According to the Wake Ed stars website, award winners exhibit strength in both academic and community leadership.
Backed by major businesses and community leaders, the WakeEd Partnership is a nonprofit organization that operated in Wake County for over 30 years. The organization focuses on transforming the education and teaching world. According to their website, they prioritize on providing graduating students with the knowledge, skills and content they need to succeed.
In an interview with the GH Falcon, Rahman said that the award was a physical representation of the work she did. Constantly reminding her that what she does makes a significant difference in her community. During her freshman year, she founded the EmpowerHer club at Green Hope to empower girls at all levels of education. In the club, she does volunteer work, especially at elementary schools.
She works with students and provides services such as coding workshops, teaching them basic computer science principles. Rahman credits her Bangladeshi roots as her motivation to give back to the community. “In Bangladesh there’s a huge divide between males and females especially in leadership positions and I want that to change,” she said. Rahman’s goal is to address the challenges of gender inequality in all communities she has been a part of.
Rahman also created a non-profit called the Lumina Girls Foundation that features a similar goal as the EmpowerHer club. The main difference between the two is that the Lumina Girls foundation has a larger reach. Last summer, Rahman visited a small school in Dhaka, Bangladesh and distributed safety kits made up of flashlights, whistles and pencils, along with providing self defense lessons to the female students.
Rahman didn’t stop there. She went on to collaborate with another non-profit organization in Turkey to provide young girls in that area with self defense lessons so they can protect themselves.
On top of her already amassed achievements, Rahman is the co-president of Green Hope’s Psychology Honors Society, Vice President of both Key Club and the Muslim Student Association. In these clubs, she leads students to success and helps to represent minorities in our community. Rahman attributes her success in the community to her overwhelming want to give back. “I’m very grateful for everything that’s been given to me so I feel the need to give back,” she said. Rahman was able to do all of this work for her community while also achieving success in her classes and placing top in her class.
Through the EmpowerHer club, the Lumina Girls Foundation and the multiple clubs she leads, Rahman made a broad impact on her community and fellow students. These achievements, along with her exceptional academic record, paved her way to winning the Emerging Star award from the WakeEd Partnership.
