{"id":16277,"date":"2025-10-31T13:50:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T17:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/?p=16277"},"modified":"2026-05-13T15:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:30:14","slug":"gabrielle-moussas-on-turning-an-idea-into-action-with-the-enlight-fellowship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/gabrielle-moussas-on-turning-an-idea-into-action-with-the-enlight-fellowship\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabrielle Moussas on Turning an Idea into Action with the Enlight Fellowship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U1QjQQqwe14?si=f-5YLK17kkEpsbT4\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before the Enlight Fellowship, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/profile\/gabrielle-moussas\/\">Gabrielle Moussas<\/a> felt stuck. With a big idea in mind and a clear desire to make a difference, she wasn\u2019t sure how to move forward.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;I was unsure about how I would take this big idea and make it something that&#8217;s real.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That changed when she joined Innovate@BU&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/programs-competitions\/enlight-fellowship\/\">Enlight Fellowship<\/a>, a ten-week summer program that pairs BU students with local nonprofits while supporting them in developing their own social impact ventures.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gabrielle, a student in Sargent College, came into the program with a bold concept: a nonprofit initiative grounded in faith and aimed at addressing social anxiety and depression among middle and high school students. Inspired by her own observations and driven by a desire to improve life outcomes for young people, Gabrielle designed her venture, Chosen Youth, to be both empowering and transformative.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;The environment we grow up in strongly influences the way we see the world,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I want to make sure youth get the most positive experience they can.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Through Enlight, Gabrielle was placed at Union Capital Boston, a nonprofit focused on building social capital in underserved communities. The experience gave her a front-row seat to what it takes to run a mission-driven organization: event planning, resource management, funding strategies, and collaborative decision-making.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;It was a very different experience from what I&#8217;m used to,&#8221; she says. &#8220;As a STEM major, going to a nonprofit that&#8217;s dealing with social capital was eye-opening.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The program didn\u2019t just expose Gabrielle to nonprofit logistics\u2014it also gave her a tight-knit cohort of ten fellow student innovators. Though each participant came from a different background, the group quickly became a resource and support system. They shared interview contacts, offered feedback, and pushed one another to keep growing.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;Being surrounded by a cohort of people who had huge ideas that needed support really pushed me in a multitude of ways.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">She also credits the program with helping her build confidence in networking and entrepreneurship\u2014two areas she hadn&#8217;t explored much before. By the end of the summer, she had conducted multiple interviews, refined her venture concept, and, most importantly, found momentum.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;After the Enlight program, I realized there are so many opportunities to innovate, to continue to push on this idea and grow it, even post-graduation.&#8221;<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With renewed clarity and a network of support behind her, Gabrielle is moving forward with Chosen Youth and thinking big about what comes next. The Enlight Fellowship gave her more than a summer project. It gave her the belief that her ideas can take shape, gain traction, and create lasting impact.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before the Enlight Fellowship, Gabrielle Moussas felt stuck. With a big idea in mind and a clear desire to make a difference, she wasn\u2019t sure how to move forward. &#8220;I was unsure about how I would take this big idea and make it something that&#8217;s real.\u201d That changed when she joined Innovate@BU&#8217;s Enlight Fellowship, a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25254,"featured_media":16278,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[120,112,181,178,180,119,87,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16277"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17561,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16277\/revisions\/17561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/innovate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}