Bringing awareness to mental health

Jose Perez was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago with his two parents, one older brother and one younger brother. He graduated from Thomas Kelly College Preparatory High School. When describing his typical household, Jose mentioned how he and his family would eat dinner together, enjoy Spanish worship music, and do traditional Latin dances. 

Now, Jose is a senior at Taylor University pursuing a degree in psychology with a minor in counseling. “I fell in love with the idea that people can improve. I fell in love that things can be fixed and there’s hope with people out there who have problems,” said Perez. “Also, I feel like on the South Side of Chicago there’s not much mental awareness that they talk about, so I want to be that change. I wish that when I was younger, I had a counselor or therapy which would have been pretty beneficial. So I want to be that person in the neighborhood and bring mental awareness all over Chicago.”

Having this passion and drive for bringing awareness to mental health in Chicago inspired Jose to pursue higher education. Jose also mentions that his family has motivated and supported him to go to college. “I think seeing my big brother go to college and seeing that he’s capable of doing it inspired me and motivated me. My dad also went to seminar for like five years, so seeing him study and being intentional with his time, I think motivated me. My parents were always supporting me and telling me I was going to do great things and have a good career, so I would say a combination of my parents and my big brother because he was the first one to graduate from a university in our family. Seeing that if he’s capable of doing it then I’m capable of doing it,” said Perez.

Not only has Jose's family poured into him to pursue higher education, but his family and church have shown him the value of community impact.  “My dad is a part of a ministry that emphasizes and focuses on the community; it's called New Life Community Church. It’s very community-oriented, so we do a lot of community events, outreaches, and just events overall to help out the community. I think my vision and my personality of helping my neighbor shaped me to go back to Chicago. Although I’m studying in Indiana, I want to [return] to the city and pour out into the city that raised me,” said Perez. 

Jose plans to go to grad school to receive his PhD and re-invest in Chicago by working to improve mental well-being as a youth counselor. “I would like to work somewhere like a youth organization in Chicago. I want to work with youth and minorities. I want them to know that there is hope out there and they can come up with solutions for their problems and the things that they go through. I feel like a lot of people around Chicago specifically in the city there is a lot of trauma that they do not explore. There is a need for being aware of trauma that needs to be explored, and the more you explore it, the more you understand it, your mental well-being improves and gets better,” said Perez. 

With the passion and heart to give back to his community, Jose also mentioned that he learned to lean on others and his community through Pursue Scholars. “There’s a lot of things I learned from being a Pursue Scholar. One of the biggest ones is that I’m not alone. No matter what, I can reach out to someone from the Pursue Scholars staff, and they can help me out and explore what I want to do with my career or my life in general. I also learned about going back to the community and going back to where you are from and helping them out. I’m not alone and there’s people that believe in me and are willing to walk alongside me," said Perez. 

While Jose is navigating senior year, he wanted to let the next generation of scholars know that if he can do it, so can they. “There’s hope out there and help out there, especially from the Pursue Scholars staff that are willing to walk alongside you and pour onto you. That’s some advice I can give and know that the Pursue Scholars' staff are willing to help. You can reach out to them no matter what and you can do it. There are many Pursue alumni who came from the city, and they are out there making big differences in the city of Chicago,” said Perez.

Stories like Jose are the reason we are grateful for partners like you. Your gift to Pursue Scholars today will be actively investing in young Chicago leaders and help them embark on a journey that will truly lead to change.