WISE is always challenging and personal. But never more so than for Mahogany Bogle, Class of 2015 at Queens High School of Teaching.

Most WISE students are able to work full-time on their projects during the last part of their senior year. Not Mahogany. Mahogany had to stay in school for her classes until late in the year, at which point she finally got the chance to focus on WISE for the final weeks left until her presentation. But her subject was something she knew a lot about – an introspective project which took her and her audience through her life and hard times, through her family history, and through the struggles that she and her family had faced. Her project was appropriately called “A Little Walk in My Shoes”. And what a walk it was.

Confronting Personal Challenges

In her WISE project, Mahogany grappled with the personal issues that had such a direct impact on her and her family. Among those issues was the recent loss of close relatives, including the tragically premature death of a 22-year-old, and the death of a cherished 106-year-old. But death wasn’t the only problem she had to face. There was the issue of growing up with an autistic brother: the complexity of those circumstances, and the effect of the necessary attention that had to be paid to him and not to the other ‘normal’ children in the family.

While Mahogany wasn’t able to spend as much time on her WISE project as some of her classmates, she made magnificent use of the time available to delve into her circumstances and come to terms with them. In her journal and in her presentation, she laid it all out, gaining perspective and bringing others along in her journey. She used the research component of WISE to find out more about her family – researching and building her family tree – and about autism itself, solidifying her comprehension of the subject and helping her understand not only her brother, but the effects of his condition on every member of her family.

A Journey of Personal Discovery

WISE turned the journey of Mahogany’s senior year into a journey of self-discovery. Rather than being frustrated by the academic demands that kept her in school after others had been released to their WISE projects, she made full use of the time she had and dug deep to reveal, to herself and to others, those traits that kept her strong: determination, empathy, close bonds and deep faith. She emerged triumphant. As her mentor remarked, not only did she survive…she thrived!

An Amazing and Moving Presentation

WISE is so often a transformational experience that supporters are rarely surprised by the wonderful outcomes they see when it comes to Presentation Time. But Mahogany’s presentation exceeded their already high expectations… and reduced virtually everyone to tears. The presence of her mother and grandmother, along with one of her brothers, bore witness to Mahogany’s testimony that she drew the strength she needed for her achievements from two sources: her supportive family and her deep-seated faith.

Mahogany’s WISE journey may have started a little later than many, but it was no less far-reaching. She took herself, and her audience, on a walk back into her past, allowing her to come to grips with it, mining it for everything that had contributed, for good or ill, to the present and to her own personal development. Now, armed with the new understanding she had gained, Mahogany is set to chart a confident walk into her future — the ultimate goal of all WISE Projects.