In a world the place illustration typically stops at visibility, Trinidadian-born Marcelle Lashley-Kaboré is pushing the boundaries.
As a five-time New York Emmy® Award-winning producer, world strategist, and tireless youth advocate, Lashley-Kaboré, a Queens resident, has emerged as one of many extra modern voices redefining what empowerment actually appears like in motion.
With a profession that spans continents and industries, Lashley-Kaboré instructed Caribbean Life on Monday, July 21, that she has devoted her life to constructing areas the place underserved youth — particularly Black and Brown youth — can inform their very own tales and construct their legacies.
Born in Trinidad and Tobago to oldsters of Guyanese descent, Lashley-Kaboré mentioned she carries her Caribbean heritage into each area she enters—infusing her work with “vibrant tradition, deep-rooted values, and a worldwide perspective.”
Lashley-Kaboré mentioned her journey started within the “fast-paced world of experiential advertising and marketing”, the place she created “dynamic model activations for some of popular culture’s greatest names.”
However for her, storytelling was by no means nearly product placement — “it was about folks, energy, and goal.”
Lashley-Kaboré mentioned that mindset led her to remodel her artistic manufacturing expertise into “equity-driven platforms” for youth.
Because the founder and CEO of the New York-based Women With Data, Inc. (GWK) and GWK World, Lashley-Kaboré mentioned she leads initiatives that empower at-risk youth by immersive training, multimedia storytelling, monetary literacy, entrepreneurship coaching, and cultural change.
Relatively than delivering charity, she mentioned she affords company — “serving to younger folks see themselves as leaders, creators, and changemakers.”
Lashley-Kaboré mentioned that dedication was on full show throughout a current celebration marking the fruits of GWK World’s afterschool programming at P.S. 287, also referred to as Bailey Ok. Ashford, situated at 50 Navy St., Downtown Brooklyn, inside New York Metropolis Geographic District No. 13.
She mentioned the Finish-of-Yr Pop-Up & Enterprise Launch, in partnership with M&T Financial institution, showcased “college students bringing their enterprise goals to life.
“The occasion took on a vigorous, hibiscus-themed carnival ambiance”, mentioned Lashley-Kaboré, including that it was a nod to her Caribbean heritage, the place the hibiscus flower is widely known for each its magnificence and its cultural and dietary significance.”
She mentioned the occasion featured student-run manufacturers promoting teas, skincare, and trend.
She mentioned some even showcased carnival costumes designed by GWK’s younger trend entrepreneurs.
Lashley-Kaboré mentioned greater than $500 in student-created merchandise had been bought, with proceeds deposited into every pupil’s custodial financial savings account, alongside an identical seed funding from GWK World.
“That is larger than entrepreneurship—it’s about educating self-sufficiency, sustainability, and the ability to construct one thing of your personal,” she mentioned. “We’re not simply making ready youngsters for the longer term—serving to them fund it.”
By means of GWK’s agribusiness and monetary literacy curriculum, Lashley-Kaboré mentioned college students aren’t simply studying in idea — “they’re gaining real-world, revenue-generating expertise, and rising into assured, community-minded change brokers.”
Lashley-Kaboré mentioned she has acquired 16 New York Emmy® nominations for her transformative storytelling, together with the acclaimed documentary What Occurred to Black Wall Road and the youth-produced anthem Work Arduous.
“These initiatives problem programs, amplify youth voices, and switch activism into artwork — and artwork into alternative,” she mentioned.
Lashley-Kaboré mentioned her world attain is “deeply private.”
A proud alumna of China Europe Worldwide Enterprise College (CEIBS), Lashley-Kaboré mentioned she has studied and traveled throughout Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and the Caribbean, “deliberately constructing packages that join native influence with world understanding.”
She mentioned her work has earned her accolades as a SheMedia Neighborhood Trailblazer, BlogHer’s 2019 Voices of the Yr, a Schneps Media Energy Ladies of Queens honoree, and certainly one of Apparent Journal’s “20/20 Visionaries to Watch.“
Nonetheless, Lashley-Kaboré mentioned her mission stays grounded: “creating platforms the place younger individuals are not solely seen, however heard, invested in, and geared up to steer.”
By means of Women With Data, she mentioned she builds “futures — not for youth, however with them.”
In her world, Lashley-Kaboré mentioned, “manufacturing meets goal, magic meets metrics, and the end result – a worldwide motion rooted in tradition, fueled by data, and led by the following era.”
In 2013, impressed by her first go to to Africa, she added social entrepreneur to her already profitable profession path as an experiential advertising and marketing content material curator and producer.
Lashley-Kaboré mentioned her goal is to advocate and curate a multimedia platform of empowerment “to redefine narratives and disrupt historic patterns.“
She mentioned she needs to assist equip youth to rewrite their narrative and rise towards injustices.
In her youth growth work up to now, Lashley-Kaboré mentioned she has used multimedia to create “a voice and selection platform for youth,“ which has garnered 12 New York Emmy® nominations and gained three New York Emmy® Awards on the sixty fourth & sixty fifth Annual Awards Present for social justice, documentary, and “Edutainment“ movie items.
She mentioned her aim is to be impactful globally and turn into a multimedia mogul in media arts in communities of coloration.
By means of the vessel of experiential leisure, Lashley-Kaboré mentioned she’s going to proceed to achieve younger girls and women in underserved communities all over the world by creating content material that’s “a robust haven for them to develop, study, and actually change the trail of their life.”
Whether or not by movie, music, or animation, Lashley-Kaboré mentioned she is creating “edutainment“ to assist rewrite the narrative of in the present day’s younger folks.
“Our youth are confronted with fixed hopelessness, particularly in in the present day’s media,“ she mentioned. “I wish to create automobiles and platforms that may let the world know that the youthful generations are going to steer us into a brand new future so long as we proceed to have an efficient hand in molding them.”
