Announcing the Ajike Owens PowHERful Scholarship

Ajike (AJ) Owens, photo courtesy Pamela Dias

PowHERful Foundation is proud to present the Ajike Owens PowHERful Scholarship, created in honor of a mother of four who was senselessly murdered by a woman whose defense was Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” laws. 

The story behind Ajike Owens’s murder is the subject of a feature documentary, The Perfect Neighbor, premiering on Netflix Oct 17. Piercing and urgent, the film has already garnered critical acclaim and is sure to spark intense discussion upon its widespread release. It bears witness to how violence often finds its targets in peaceable members of a community, including African Americans like Ajike Owens. For Emmy Award-winning director Geeta Gandbhir and her team at Message Pictures, The Perfect Neighbor was an attempt to transform personal grief into positive action and create a legacy for Ajike Owens and her bereaved family. Through dramatic storytelling and police bodycam footage, the team captures how acts of violence echo through communities, illuminating the difficult intersection of race, legal authority, and the pursuit of justice.

A Message Pictures production, The Perfect Neighbor is a collaborative effort in association with PowHERful Foundation’s founder, Soledad O’Brien, her media production company SO’B Productions, SO’B Producer Rose Arce, and Park Pictures Producer Sam Bisbee. The scholarship itself has arisen from a pressing desire to bring good out of tragedy. Geeta Ghandbir and Message Pictures, Soledad O’Brien, and Park Pictures have teamed up to sponsor the scholarship in support of women who have survived violence and are working through trauma, with the goal of improving their lives and communities through further education.

This year, the Ajike Owens PowHERful Scholarship has been awarded to Ashley Thomas for a two-year graduate program at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY). Ashley completed her undergraduate degree in Social Services and, after several years working in the field as an administrative assistant, began to consider a career in the criminal justice system. So, this fall, she’ll start her studies towards a Masters in Criminal Justice with a specialization in Criminology and Deviance. “My goal,” she says, “is to work for a law enforcement agency.” Ashley’s goal has, in fact, a personal impetus: “In Ajike Owens’s tragic story, I see yet one more example of why I feel driven to understand the complex relationship between law enforcement officers and civilians. While I won’t be studying law, I want to have a better grasp of criminal laws to contribute to reform efforts, not only to make communities safer, but to protect the human rights of civilians.”

PowHERful Foundation is proud of Ashley’s keen concerns and motivation for her Masters in Criminal Justice. There is no stronger reason for optimism about the future of our communities than witnessing the strong moral drive and grounded sense of justice in individuals like Ashley Thomas. She honors Ajike Owens, a woman whose mother, Pamela Dias, recalls lovingly as wanting to have an impact on those around her.  "Ajike said that one day everyone would know her name," Dias often tells people. Now they do.