We Did It, Momma
A Recognition of Healing-Centered Education and the Power of Lived Experience
I have started writing this several times, and every time I do, I find myself somewhere between tears and laughter.
I have been selected as a distinguished winner of the Elets World Education Awards, receiving the Excellence in Student & Educator Wellbeing Award (Individual).
When I read the words Selected Winner, the very first thought that came into my heart was:
“We did it, Momma.”
My mother died when I was very young, and yet somehow, that was where my heart went first. I imagined telling her that all these years later, the little girl who had to find her way through a world that did not always feel safe grew up to become an educator whose work in wellbeing has now been recognized on an international stage.
And I smiled.
This award means so much to me because I have never believed education begins and ends with academics.
Before a student can truly learn, they need to feel safe enough to be curious.
They need belonging.
They need to know that they matter.
They need adults who understand that behavior is communication, that wellbeing is not a luxury, and that the whole human being walks through the classroom door.
Educators need those things, too.
Through Mama Star's Healing Circle, my work has continued to explore what becomes possible when education, creativity, storytelling, nature, food, community, and healing-centered practice are allowed to meet one another.
The evaluation for this award looked at measurable wellbeing outcomes, programme design, reach and inclusivity, innovation, institutional culture change, and whether knowledge can be shared and replicated.
Those words matter deeply to me because I don't want to create something that belongs only to me.
I want to build ideas that can travel.
Ideas that teachers can use.
Ideas that communities can adapt.
Ideas that help people feel seen rather than managed.
Ideas that remind us that wellbeing is not something we add to education after everything else is finished.
Wellbeing is part of the foundation that makes learning possible.
There have been many moments in my life when the path ahead was anything but clear. I have rebuilt more than once. I have questioned myself. I have wondered whether the ideas living inside me would ever find their place in the world.
And yet I kept building.
I kept learning.
I kept writing.
I kept asking what education might become if we centered dignity, belonging, compassion, creativity, and the whole human experience.
Today, someone answered back:
We see you.
I am deeply grateful to the Elets World Education Awards for this recognition and honored to join the distinguished winners who will be recognized through the Elets World Education Summit 2027.
And to every student, survivor, educator, artist, dreamer, and human being who has ever wondered whether their lived experience could become something meaningful:
Please keep going.
Sometimes the very experiences that once made us question whether we belonged become the experiences that teach us how to create belonging for someone else.
And Momma—
we did it. 💜
— Mylee “Star” Hawk, MAEd
Founder, Mama Star's Healing Circle, LLC
Winner — Excellence in Student & Educator Wellbeing Award (Individual), Elets World Education Awards
