A Strong Foundation

Building on the Right Blueprint

Adiya Muftawu is building things the world is about to see on television this summer.

She is a union carpenter on the FIFA World Cup preparation crew at MetLife Stadium, part of the team responsible for the media tables, chairs, couches, and staging that hold the press and the players as the world's eyes turn to New Jersey. Her crew has built more than 500 pieces in three weeks. She’s proven her strength among her colleagues.

Two years ago, she was a student at LEAD Charter School, the educational partner of YouthBuild Newark within Opportunity Youth Network (OYN), weighing what kind of future she wanted to create. Before that, she had been out of school for five months after enduring more than 11 hearing-related surgeries. Growing up, she was a kid watching her father leave for work every morning in his construction boots.

All of those parts of her story are the foundation for what she’s building for herself. And foundations, as Adiya will tell you, matter.

Before LEAD
When Adiya walked into LEAD for the first time, she expected to be disappointed. "I just thought it was gonna be any other school or program. I thought they were just going to tell me the same things and not have any faith in me."
She had reasons for the skepticism. She spent stretches of her education outside the classroom, recovering from surgeries that the schools around her were not set up to support. She returned to schools that didn't always know what to do with a student who missed months at a time. She carried a quiet kind of resilience through it all, the kind that says: I am still showing up, even when the path forward seems unclear.

And then she hit a wall. Five months out of school. Failing grades. And, for the first time, the question of whether to keep trying at all. "I did give up at a point. I really did. But I had to re-evaluate and think to myself: is this what I want for the rest of my life, or do I actually wanna be somewhere?"

It was her mother’s presence that set her up for a different blueprint. Adiya's mother had her own quiet strength to draw from, and she had been showing up for Adiya in ways that didn't always look like encouragement on the surface. She kept it real. She told Adiya the truth about what life would ask of her. And Adiya listened.

"It's how she showed up for me. And that's like how I received it. I feel like a lot of people sugarcoat what you need to do and how you're supposed to live in this life. My mom was always keeping it real."
Then a friend told her about LEAD.

What Changed
The thing that surprised Adiya the most about LEAD was the honesty. "They kept it real. In the beginning, they told us, ‘We're here to help you, but we're not gonna force you to get the help. We're gonna help you get your way into success. We're gonna give you the resources.’"
It was the first time school felt like an invitation rather than an obligation. The teachers were not interested in fixing her. They were interested in her. The front desk staff, the counselors, the advisors: they showed up for who she was, not just what she was doing in the building. "Once I realized they were here for me and they were actually showing up for who I was as a person, it just made me more motivated to actually show up for myself."

Construction had always been in her peripheral vision. Her father worked in it all her life, and she was quietly studying him for as long as she could remember. He didn't miss days. He didn't lay around. Even during the pandemic, when there was no job to go to, he found something to do. He showed up.

So when Adiya met Terry Lang, the Construction Instructor at LEAD who graduated with YouthBuild Newark’s inaugural class of 2004, she wasn't intimidated. She was interested. "Everybody was like, oh, you know, he's a little bit tough but caring. I was interested by that because that's how my dad is. And honestly, I needed that. I needed that tough love and that honesty. On a real work site, they're not going to talk to you softly."

Mr. Lang saw what was in her before she fully saw it herself. He pushed her because he knew she could handle the push. He told her she was a leader and had the drive to get where she needed to go. And because the words came from someone who had walked the path, they landed differently than they might have coming from her parents alone. She started thinking before she acted and planning the work before doing it. She started showing up the way her father had taught her to, quietly and without excuse.

On the Site
Construction is still a field that does not always have young women on the crew. Adiya knows this, and she has learned not to spend energy explaining herself - she lets her work speak for itself. "I don't explain myself. I really don't talk about what I can do. I just show up and I show what I can do. Even though some people don't expect much of me, I show them that I can do just as much or even more than what the guys can do."

Now she is a union carpenter, four years into a path that will take her through every certification she can earn. She wants carpentry first, then plumbing, then everything she can carry on top of the electrical work she already knows. She wants to learn the three core trades of construction so she can build a home for her parents, with her own hands. "It's not really gonna be my home. It's really gonna be my parents' home. I'm just gonna squeeze my way up in there. But I wanna build that for them and show them what I learned throughout the years and show them that I actually grew."

What a Foundation Means
Adiya was asked what a strong foundation means to her now. She thought about it for a moment, then answered without hedging. "Having your own morals and what you believe in. But also being able to be open-minded enough to take positive suggestions. Don't just listen to anybody, but also be able to take advice and understand that your way isn't the only way."

The Adiya from three years ago, she said, was motivated but unsure. Worried about being judged. Worried about being wrong. Scared to invest in what she knew was hers to claim. Adiya now would tell that earlier version to trust herself and let go of the judgment.

To other young people who feel stuck in places where they cannot thrive, she has a clear message: don't stay stagnant. Change the environment. Change the habits. Change the people you spend time around. Don't just hold the goal as a dream. Move toward it. Build the steps. "Don't just think about a goal and say, hey, I wanna be rich. How are you gonna get there? What are you gonna do? What are your action steps to get to where you wanna be?"

Adiya has her action steps. They are stacked one on top of another, certification after certification, day after day on the site, year after year of an apprenticeship that will end with her standing on the property where she will build her parents' home.

That is her foundation holding everything else up. It’s what she’s been building all along.