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Hokies mentor young authors

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Neuroscience student Elea-Maria Abisamra has founded the Kids Can Write nonprofit and student organization. Kids Can Write connects Virginia Tech students with local elementary children to guide them through the process of writing and self-publishing their own book.
In Kids Can Write, we really aim to help kids be empowered. A lot of kids don't really have a support system to have a book edited or something or to have a book published on Amazon. They just wouldn't know where to start. We really want to give them, kind of, a support where they have a tutor who mentors them one-on-one. Just a little bit more than a year ago, everything was just in my head. And now we have more than 150 tutors and almost more than 100 kids that are going to be published this year. Our kids are geniuses. Some of them make horror stories, some of them write about really deep things, like a family member passing away. And then that family member leaving a magical necklace and then using the magical necklace to travel through these hidden worlds. And then the kids in the neuroscience program, they interpret the brain in so many different ways. And I think this will really benefit even the scientific community to see it from a different perspective. So, when the books are finished, parents will publish the books and the kids will have their name published on Amazon. And the tutors will have their names published as editors. And the kids will get all of the revenue from the books. So every time a family member buys that book, then the kid will get a check in their name. And that is something that's really empowering, just the fact that, you know, they really stamped their mark on the world. They really publish something that's theirs. Their ideas, their creativity. That's something that somebody else is buying. And it shows that you can dream and no matter what you dream, you can accomplish it. And dreams are not as far away as they seem.