Reeshemah Brightley: Shares her passion for youth

Reeshemah Brightley: Shares her passion for youth
Photo by Stefano Giovannini

Reeshemah Brightley is an entrepreneur, consultant and educator. She recently joined the team at ZenoRadio as the Caribbean regional content administrator. In her role, she is responsible for the English-speaking Caribbean region and the Caribbean Diaspora in the United States and the United Kingdom. This position allows her to connect radio broadcasters in the Caribbean and the U.S. who focus on the Caribbean market.

As an educator, Brightley is the vice president of operations of Sabree Education Services, a subsidiary of her event planning company, Sabree Special Events LLC.

In this position, she trains childcare providers, servicing families with infants and toddlers; she co-facilitates classes for parents and their infants/toddlers and plans family oriented events. She is also the co-creator of the First 2000 Days NY™ Campaign and writer for her parent blog Sabre‌eHarl‌emPar‌ents.com.

As an entrepreneur, Brightley decided to shift the focus of her event planning business from the Caribbean entertainment industry to youth.

Working with the youth has always been one of her passions; it began during her time working on the Harlem Book Fair.

The idea to focus on youth was once discussed with one of her mentors, the former Consul General of Jamaica in New York Dr. Geneive Brown-Metzger, as she worked on special projects.

One of the projects was cultivating Jamaican young people, specifically college students and young adults. Dr. Brown-Metzger always advised, “Find your niche and understand your market.”

Before joining ZenoRadio, Brightley was the assistant director of the Touro College of Pharmacy – College Science and Technology Entry Program. She was directly involved in the authorship of a four-year US$452,000 grant received by the College and helped to facilitate the implementation facets of the grant.

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Jamaica

EDUCATION:

Hobart & Williams Smith Colleges, BA, Spanish and Hispanic Studies

OCCUPATION:

Entrepreneur, consultant and educator

PERSON I ADMIRE MOST:

“I admire my mother because of the challenges she’s overcome – never allowing it to consume her,” Brightly says. “She always figures out a way to work through them or have them work in her favor somehow.”

FAVORITE QUOTE:

“Loving life and daring to live it” – Dr. Maya Angelou