Students and tutors gathered in a welcoming learning space

About SpeakUp Scholars

SpeakUp Scholars is a youth-led nonprofit that helps ESL students build confidence in public speaking, debate, and core academics like English, Spanish, Math, among others. We believe every student deserves a chance to be heard, not just the ones who speak English as their first langauge.

Founder's Note

I started SpeakUp Scholars after noticing a pattern around me: in Southern California, there are a LOT of ESL students (over 500k to be specific), yet they were consistently being barred to equitable extracurricular opportunties, among those public speaking and debate. Public speaking and debate skills are some of the most important skills that any individual in any profession can have because it teaches people how to communicate and research effectively.

I saw students who were scared to raise their hand, who had great ideas but didn’t know how to say them out loud. Some were learning in a language that wasn’t spoken at home. Some didn't know they had the power within themselves to speak up.

I’ve been lucky to learn debate and public speaking, and it completely changed how I show up in class, social interactions, and life. I wanted to share that same confidence boost with ESL students who are traditionally left out, for free and in a way that feels supportive, not scary. That’s how SpeakUp Scholars was born.

Since then, we've been fortunate enough to have served thousands of students across several countries, but we're always looking to expand. The end result is not just collecting numbers or impact; it's about genuinely changing individual's realities. Realities that were once confined to the ideology that their life would never change--perpetuated in a cycle of inability to learn.

An ideal world is one where every single person thrives not in equality, but equity. My community is currently very far from achieving that goal. At the end of the day, if SpeakUp Scholars helped make that a reality for even one person, we accomplished our mission.

- Rishi Sikh