Tishauna Mullings – Reignited For Greatness

‘Reigniting A Nation for Greatness’ is the theme of this year’s ‘Jamaica 60’ celebrations.

But for one purpose-driven Jamaican, the reignition in 2022 is quite personal and, like Jamaica, she, too, is poised for greater things.

The name Tishauna Mullings is well-known across some of the most decorated spaces locally and internationally.

A youth leader, community builder, speaker, life coach and entrepreneur, Ms. Mullings exudes an unwavering desire to give of herself in service and make her mark on the world.

The St. Thomas native tells JIS News that she is now ready to “shift and rebrand totally”, and channel her focus into being a social development practitioner.

“The focus is on higher level work, developing projects and programmes that can influence and bring policy from paper to the grassroots,” she says.

“This means bringing in needed funding in the community to make real seismic shifts, rather than just being an inspirational girl; that is great, and it has its place. But I think in this period, my trajectory is to make meaningful material change,” she adds.

Ms Mullings’ list of accolades is as extensive as her passions. The Morant Bay High School alumnus was the 2014 National Farm Queen, the recipient of the Governor-General’s Award for St. Thomas in 2015, and a delegate for President Barack Obama’s Young Leaders of the Americas Initiative in 2016.

She is also a two-time nominee and winner of the Prime Minister’s Youth Award for Community and National Development.

The social innovator was named ‘Top Young Entrepreneur for 2016’ by Television Jamaica’s ‘All Angles’ and in 2019, she was awarded by the Institute of Caribbean Studies for being one of the ‘30 most influential young leaders, under 30, of Caribbean American Heritage’.

She is the founder and manager of NexxStepp Lifelong Educational Services, where she works with over 500 students annually through teaching and mentorship programmes.

Ms. Mullings, who resides in St. Thomas, is influenced by the realities of her community to empower her life decisions. She dismisses the common notion that the parish is “forgotten” but instead says it is “untapped”.

Having travelled across the world to countries, such as Peru, Morocco, Ethiopia, Cuba and the United Kingdom (UK), and observed different aspects of community development, the 31-year-old is sharing what she has learned in an effort to influence change, particularly among young people.

“There’s a term called positive deviance that I learned when I was on the Obama programme, and it’s about when you look around you and you see negatives, you decide that you’re going to deviate in a positive way. The term also has to do with using whatever resources you have access to, to create change,” she explains.

“There’s always a conference or a learning space that I saw as a resource to bring back to my home and introduce things that I’ve never seen in St. Thomas… opportunities that young people are saying, ‘we only see this in [Kingston]’,” Ms. Mullings adds.

She uses her NexxStepp Lifelong Educational Services to offer comprehensive internships to rural youth to “develop themselves and have an idea of what their career paths could look like, going forward.”

Sagicor Foundation scholar and a recent intern, Mikayla Miles, tells JIS News that through the experience, she has been exposed to certain activities such as event planning, public speaking, volunteerism, and community outreach.

“It was a fulfilling experience which aligns with what I see myself doing in the future. It has helped me to develop my soft skills and she [Ms. Mullings] has helped me to see that I have a purpose in life, and I can use my time to help others in society so they can increase the quality of their life,” the University of the West Indies (UWI) student says.

A major project which NexxStepp executes annually is the Little Genius Programme, which targets and provides primary age students with training in areas such as advocacy and public speaking.

This culminates in a grand award show where prizes are offered and a ‘Little Genius’ is crowned.

In a message for the competition’s 2019 staging, Governor General, His Excellency the Most Hon. Sir Patrick Allen, described Ms Mullings’ NexxStepp programme as “ably ensuring that young children are motivated to learn and receive the gift of education, so that their dreams can come true.”

The ‘I Believe’ Ambassador is proud of her journey and speaks confidently of her experiences.

But she says her greatest accomplishment is not any of her numerous accolades but rather, “discovering what my mission on earth is”.

“My thing is about giving value to the world, because I feel like our lifespans are short. That’s how I came into social entrepreneurship, because I want to give value; but I want to survive from doing it,” she tells JIS News.

Ms. Mullings shares, candidly, that she has been working through some personal issues, including the death of her father, which has slowed some of her community work.

She says, however, that in this year of the nation’s diamond jubilee, and after several sabbaticals and rounds of therapy, she is “reignited and ready for high level strategic work that will allow practical shifts in creating a better Jamaica.”

Ms. Mullings’ work, in this regard, includes supporting farmers in building the capacity that will enable them to access financial services, and initiatives to strengthen community-based enterprises in Jamaica.

She is a member of the country’s Social Enterprise Working Group, which has contributed to the successful advocacy for inclusion of social enterprise in Jamaica’s Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) and Entrepreneurship policy.

Ms. Mullings says she wants to make a “formidable impact” on the repositioning of careers and acquisition of jobs, especially for the rural youth.

“I define my work as narrative shifting, gap filling and world changing,” she says. “This is not with a frivolous view but with the view that large scale transformation happens when leaders in their small corners activate their small groups towards large scale change,” she adds.