Kimberly Pham

Philadelphia, PA

Kimberly Pham is a national activist focused on improving the conditions of young people across America. She is focused on reshaping the narrative and culture of how young people engage in processes of driving positive change in their community. Kimberly is a member of the Project U-Turn Collaborative, which focuses on learning and implementing best practices and strategies for opportunity youth in the City of Philadelphia. She is a junior at Temple University majoring in social work, who has an interest in public policy and social justice transformation.

Kimberly is a former Opportunity Youth. As a youth, she was involved with the juvenile justice system and traveled down a complex road to earn her high school diploma. Upon her return to Philadelphia to finish high school, she found herself left back several grades because of the confusion between the justice and education systems. Her own resiliency and determination to earn her degree led her to track through different re-engagement initiatives in the city, reviewing several until she found a program model that worked for her: the GED to College Success Program. Kimberly went on to earn her Associates Degree from Eastern University. She received the very first Distinguished Alumni Award from District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund, National Union of Hospital & Health Care Employees.

Kim says she is guided by the words of Thurgood Marshall : “None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns – bent down and helped us pick up our boots.”