The Harvard Crimson…
Third-year Harvard Law School student Brice Ngameni co-founded Pembe, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering prospective law students of African descent, in early January.
“Our mission is to nurture and raise a generation of legal scholars and leaders from across the African diaspora, by providing the tools necessary to excel in the law school application process and beyond,” the organization’s website reads.
Ngameni said he helped found Pembe out of a “desire to give back” to the larger African diaspora and break the “ivory ceiling,” which includes knowledge gaps, financial inaccessibility, and a lack of connections to the field.
Ngameni, who grew up speaking French and moved from Cameroon to the United States in 2008, said the “main challenge” he encountered pursuing law school was “information.”
“Just learning about what becoming a lawyer means in the U.S. in terms of an educational path was an uphill battle,” he said. “I didn’t know any lawyer at that very moment, and I had to build a network organically of people who were in law school — professors or whatnot — and pick their brains about what I needed to do.”
Oluwole M. Oluborode, a third-year law student at Georgetown University involved with Pembe, said that when Ngameni approached him a month ago about joining the board, it was a “no-brainer.”
“Being a first-generation Nigerian, I understand the need for more Africans in law school,” he said. “Applying to law school can be a very tedious process — there’s just so many difficulties that one can face, and I understand it can be a lot.”
Ngameni said he started recruiting students to join him this past December.
“We went about contacting friends of ours or various legal student organizations,” he said, including the student organizations for African law students at Harvard, New York University, Columbia University, and Howard University.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/2/26/law-student-founds-pembe/
