Zoya H.

Zoya began her changemaker journey in elementary school when she wrote a book about a radioactive hamster that did community service. She based this off of experiences she had with her mother in her own community. From there, her interest in stories and service only grew.

In middle school, Zoya created a project that collected book donations from her local community and found ways to resell those donations at book sales around her city and through online bookstores. Impassioned by the project’s impact, she was motivated to take more action.

During her high school career, Zoya met three friends who shared her love for history and literature. They decided to focus on those subjects to create History Retold - a youth-led organization working to diversify the national curriculum by sharing community stories, compiling resources on their website, and organizing policy action pushes. Zoya and History Retold continue to democratize access to representative curricula by providing teachers, students, parents, and community members with a platform to share their stories.