Meet Nagea Kirkley | Howard University Student & Junior Project Manager

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nagea Kirkley and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nagea, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
What I do is create unique projects that help people in need. What I do is called project management. I decided to pursue a creative career because I didn’t want to be constrained by the traditional jobs with offices, suits, and time stamps. The thought of that was always really restrictive, monotonous, and scary. On this path, I can travel and talk to people from different backgrounds, create new events and seminars that help those in need, and have memories that say I have explored this world and made a positive impact.

I chose this path because I want to be able to give people access to education and opportunity in non-traditional ways as well. Doing basic community service like handing out food was never enough for me. Creating projects that have lasting impact is what I’ve always wanted to do like hosting a case study competition or teaching kids how to play instruments. Project management is my calling because I can each people skills that will help them in life.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I would like for the world to know that I hear you and others do too and that I won’t ignore you. I want the world to know that my job consists of giving people what they ask for. I would also like for the world to know that it is incredibly hard to do. When you look around and you see a new scholarship, a concert for kids in the hospital, a new school being built, and job fairs being created, people like me are the ones creating those things for people like you. We are called project and program managers.

I take ideas and concepts, develop them, and turn them into real life events that can be experienced by those around you like how Issa Rae put on that block party in the HBO hit-show Insecure.

It was not easy to get to this point because you have to learn so much about how to be a servant leader, organizational psychology, and how to lead others so that your ideas come out well executed. Every organization I joined only wanted to do basic community service like hand out food which is still good, but not long lasting. Professors would tell me my ideas were big, not feasible. It was even hard to get friends and family to engage with my work on social media. In general, it is very hard to get people to care about situations they don’t think affect them so I often run into situations where, let’s say I want to create an event for stressed high school students that teaches them how to deal with stress so they can improve their grades and go to college. I would ask for support and fundraising money and people would think “Well, this does not affect me or my child so why should I care?”

This meant I even had to learn how to get people to care about others. Every obstacle I run into, I have to learn how to solve and I do it for the betterment of communities worldwide. Of course, I got my start in my Atlanta community where I host events for artists to get recognized and for k-12 children to learn subjects not offered in school.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Places I would take my bestie to would be Golden glide because I grew up in DeKalb county down the street from it and because who doesn’t like skating. I would take them to Atlanta Botanical Gardens and the Georgia Aquarium to see the aesthetically pleasing scenery. This one is underrated, but I would take my friend to Fernbank so we could see the planetarium show and hope the UniverSOUL circus is in town that week. Of course, we would have to stop by the Traphouse and eat; A LOT.

Fellini’s Pizza in East Atlanta and Slutty Vegan of course are places we’d go to. We would eat at Zaby’s, Waffle House, JJ’s Fish and Chicken, and American Deli at least once. Jim N’ Nicks Bar-B-Q is actually at the top of the list of places to eat.

At the end, we’d stop by the mall…maybe Lenox and eat Auntie Anne’s pretzels.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to shout out Lions Club International (LCI) and Women of Color Advancing in Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS.)

As the outreach and communications director of the WCAPS Georgia chapter, I have been able to host different events that help the Georgia community increase their skills in domestic diplomacy, grassroots organizing, innovation, and entrepreneurship. I have also learned about these topics through these events that bring education and opportunity within the field of international affairs, community development, and government.

Through Lions Club international, I was able to charter the Howard University Lions Club Chapter where we promote the development of servant leaders through project management to foster a commitment to service to communities on a global scale with the primary focus to the African diaspora.

The purpose of this club is to provide consultation and support to student leaders whose goal is to service a community through a community service project as well as provide support to established programs in the United States. Without this club, I would not be able to practice what I preach. I would not be able to serve communities bringing access to education and opportunity to marginalized groups of people through fun events and seminars.

Thank you to everyone who supports me and the communities I service!

Website: https://nageakirkley.wixsite.com/foundation

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nageak_/?hl=en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nagea-k/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nagea17

Other: https://linktr.ee/NageaK