Jameelah Zaahidah Mims is an African American, 17 year old teenage girl who is a senior at Denver School of Science and Technology: Cole High school, in Denver, Colorado. She was born in Paris, Texas and came to Colorado when she was 2 weeks old. “Grow and Glow” was created for a senior project at her school to uplift students with learning disabilities and herself.

Jameelah has been struggling with a learning disability since she was in 4th grade, she has been through the journey of acceptance, self-love and self-growth. Jameelah wanted to share her experience of dealing with her learning disability, and wanted people who also have a learning disability to gain acceptance, self-love and self-growth. Throughout her life, she believed having learning disability means she’s dumb, not smart and can’t do anything in life- she kept that in the back of her mind and it made her learning disability her biggest insecurity. However, with a lot of support and encouragement, Jameelah changed her ways because of her family, friends and the special education group at her school that helped her embrace who she is and believe in herself no matter what.

Jameelah’s favorite hobbies are drawing, painting, photography, reading and writing. While Jameelah was creating this book, she included a lot of visual artwork and creative writing to make this book very interesting and show readers her favorite hobbies. She is currently going to Community College of Denver (CCD) for 2 years to get her Associates degree for Journalism and Fine Arts. Jameelah knows she has a learning disability, but she is never going to let that control what she can do in life, and she believes all people who have a learning disability can and should believe that, too!