Julia Sewell Confirmed guest speaker for Project Ignition, March 5

E.M.P.I.R.E.'s founder and President, Julia Sewell, has been a motivational speaker and performer for the past 9 years. Julia Sewell is a 21-year-old from Minneapolis. She is a Senior at Augsburg College in Minnesota, studying psychology. She is
an actress, a model, a motivational speaker, and a published poet.

She started her work in service at 10 years old. She began volunteering at soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and with community organizations. Her passion for service and to be apart of change continued to grow. She attended the National Youth Leadership Training and became involved with the National Youth Leadership Council(NYLC). From here on out, she also became apart of their entity and started presenting at various conference, the first of which was the Ryan White Conference for HIV/AIDS. Julia served on the Youth Performance Companies' youth artists board(2006-2007) and is the founding Vice President of Umoja Academy, an organization that her and a friend began. Through this organization, they target and provide programming for at risk youth in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Julia served as a member of State Farm's Youth Advisory Board 2007-2008 where she helped to give out $5 million worth of monies to service-learning projects across the country. She was selected to serve on the America’s Promise Alliance Youth Partnership Team and still serves on their IMPACT Network Steering Committee. Julia recently became a Bonner Scholar at her college. Julia is also a McNair Scholar. Through this program, she has completed her research on definitions of success and how these differ among black and white young men.

Leadership has always been in her heart. At age 14, Julia was selected to be apart of the inaugural group in the Youth Leaders International Program. This program gathered the top leaders from all across the globe(Russia, Africa, Australia, etc) and brought them together to create strategies for leadership within the local and National context. Julia was apart of this program for 3 years and traveled to France and Great Britain on the programs behalf. She was also selected to attend the Inaugural Clinton Global Initiative in New Orleans, LA where Bill Clinton spoke and gave advice about global leadership and how we as youth can work to be apart of this initiative. As a result, Julia now serves as a campus representative for the organization. Performing has always been in her blood. Julia began acting at age 5 and she hasn't stopped since! Julia began to combine her love for the stage with her passion for change. Julia became involved in plays whose messages were educational and was apart of tours and educational films that were produces. Julia is now a sought after speaker and performer and performs at conferences, events, programs, and ceremonies. She recently performed at the 2009 National Service Learning Conference. Julia has currently performed and spoken at more than 100 conferences, events, and venues.

Julia began E.M.P.I.R.E. to continue to serve her world as a speaker and performer but also to offer other young people, around the country, with this opportunity. Julia is passionate about helping people to find their arts, hone them and to use them to motivate change in their communities and world.