Nehemiah Narvaez, a senior at Simeon Career Academy in Chatham, is already learning how to run his own business while practicing his barber skills.
“It’s been a dream,” Narvaez said. “I see what it can bring. It brings a lot of connections, a lot of opportunities. It’s like everybody gets a chance.”
Narvaez, 17, of Englewood, is just one of many students enrolled in the Career & Technical Education program, a Chicago Public Schools initiative that provides students with career-focused experiential learning programs. On Thursday, Chance the Rapper visited the South Side high school to announce that his nonprofit, SocialWorks, would give $100,000 in grants to five Chicago schools to support career-focused programs over the next three years, which will include Simeon Career Academy’s barber and cosmetology program.
“There’s nothing greater than owning your own business,” the rapper said. “There’s nothing greater than learning a trade or skill that you can then pass on to your family, that you can hire your people at.”
The other schools that will receive grants include Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts, Dunbar Vocational Career Academy, Prosser Career Academy, and Manley Career Academy High School. Principals from all five schools attended the assembly.
Since the rapper’s nonprofit was launched in 2016, it has supported 55 CPS schools with grants that have funded the upgrading of classrooms, equipment, arts education and more.
The $100,000 grants doled out to the five schools were overseen by the Children First Fund, the foundation for CPS.
“Every single young person that we have the chance to pour into has the greatness within them,” said Megan Hougard, CPS chief of College and Career Success.
Tamarah Ellis, who is the principal of Simeon Career Academy, is an alumna of the high school herself. She said this year, the school became a wall-to-wall Career & Technical Education school, meaning that starting sophomore year, students will be able to pursue a trade program.
Some of the programs offered at the high school include auto body repair, carpentry, culinary arts and welding.
“We do big things around here, right?” Ellis said to the students.
Narvaez said he plans to graduate and earn his certification to become a barber. One day, he wants to open up his own shop and work with his friends.
“There was a lot of doubt at first,” he said of when he first started learning how to cut hair a year ago. “I was thinking, ‘Man, this isn’t gonna go anywhere.’ But, I mean, it just comes with time. We’re here now.”