YS fellow: Didi Preminger

I saw him outside in the classroom hallway one day, while at the Bilingual Middle School.

He wasn't one of the kids at the Learning and Enrichment Center but I asked if I could work with him anyway.

And so we began, meeting once a week. I would see him sitting outside in the hallway during class, and I'd come and sit with him.

At first we tried to work on his studies, but that didn't go so well.

Instead a genuine friendship formed between us. Over many talks, I felt that I helped him gain confidence in himself, made him feel that he was important.

And I learned a lot from him too. I learned how to be radically optimistic. When there's a will there's a way, and he is a very determined person when he wants to be. We even had serious conversations about real topics, such as whether it is possible to live in this country despite the animosity between our peoples.

At first I thought he had a lot of friends at school. Turns out he sees the world differently than everyone else, reads social cues differently than others. The other kids don't get along with him, and even the school almost expelled him several times.

But he's a big dreamer. He's optimistic.

Every few days it's something else, "Didi I want to be a pilot," he tells me, "Didi I'm going to be a doctor."

He has a wild imagination, and he doesn't share any of it with his classmates because he's scared of what they'll think. But within the confines of his imagination, he is completely at ease.

I said to him, "Your imagination is the place where you are free to be whatever you want to be. Don't give up on that, follow those dreams!'

And I'm excited to see where they lead him.