YAYA McBRIDE.

A live student experience
Yamile “Yaya” McBride, M.Ed. · Master Coach, NLP, CHt, TLT®

Student resilience, belonging & leadership experiences students can actually feel

Yaya McBride is an educational leader, keynote speaker, and former school administrator who creates live student experiences focused on resilience, belonging, student engagement, self-awareness, agency, leadership, and navigating life when things get hard.

With 25+ years in public education, Yaya brings real school leadership experience—not another lecture—to students, educators, and communities.

Book Yaya to speak →
Portrait of Yamile "Yaya" McBride, smiling.
25+ years In public education —
former school administrator

Spoken & featured in

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools Lee County Schools McGraw Hill

The reality

The reality students are facing.

Before the experience, it helps to see what students are already quietly carrying into the room every day.

1 in 0

students say they don’t feel like they truly belong at school.

Gallup Student Poll
0%

of teens feel real pressure to get good grades — one of their top-reported stressors.

Pew Research Center, 2025
0%

of high schoolers report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2023

Numbers like these are why the experience has to work as hard as the message does.

The behavior we see is only part of the story

In K–12 schools, stress, frustration, disconnection, and uncertainty can appear as withdrawal, classroom disruption, peer conflict, or a refusal to participate.

Educators work hard to respond to what they see. But expectations and consequences alone may not give students the internal tools to understand what they are experiencing, regulate their responses, and make a different choice.

Students also need opportunities to recognize their strengths, understand what they can control, and discover that a difficult moment does not have to determine who they become.

The experience

Resilience skills for school—and life.

Students don’t simply listen. They participate.

They move. They reflect. They collaborate. They create.

They practice becoming the person they want to be when life gets hard.

Yaya speaking to a room of students.

For schools looking for:

Schools and organizations bring Yaya in when they’re looking for:

  • Student engagement programs
  • Student leadership development
  • Resilience and belonging experiences
  • Social-emotional learning experiences
  • School culture and climate support
  • Student voice and agency
  • Attendance and engagement support
  • Teen leadership experiences
  • Character and life-skills programming
  • Interactive student workshops and assemblies

Why Yaya

An experience that sticks—delivered by an educator who happens to speak.

Yaya meets students where they are — creating a relatable experience that teaches them to embrace hardship and face it head-on.

Yamile "Yaya" McBride speaking to an audience, mid-gesture.

“I don’t come to give students another lecture. I create an experience they can feel.”

Who this is for

Built to fit your school or district.

Whole school

Whole-school assembly

A single 45–60 minute experience for the full student body — the fastest way to reach every student with the same message.

Classroom

Advisory & classroom blocks

A more intimate version sized for advisory periods or individual classrooms, with room for students to actually respond, not just listen.

Leadership

Student leadership days

An extended session for student leadership teams, peer mentors or student council — going deeper into voice, agency and building resilience in others.

Bring Yaya to your school

Who are you becoming—and who shows up when life gets hard?

Bring Resilience: Who Are You Becoming? to your school, district, conference, or youth-serving organization.

Book Yaya for your students → 336-251-5275 All contact options →