On the Front Lines
Making Lives and Jobs Better
Driven by his mother’s struggle with the demands of being a health care worker, AK Alilonu is representing nurses at Illinois Nurses Association while he completes his law degree at 鶹APP-Kent.
AK Alilonu (LAW 3rd Year)“The first time I walked the picket line was when I was a college student,” AK Alilonu (LAW 3rd Year) says of an experience he had supporting graduate students at the University of 鶹APP during his undergrad studies there, adding: “And one of my first real jobs was working for my alderman’s office on the South Side [of 鶹APP], getting to know folks.”
These experiences led AK to one conclusion.
“For my community to be better, the workers in it had to be more powerful,” he says.
AK grew up in Phoenix watching his mother struggle with the demands placed upon her by her job as a doctor.
“Seeing all the hours that she put into her job and all that she had to give to a hospital industry that doesn’t really care about a lot of the workers who make it run really inspired me to help health care workers and folks in that kind of situation,” AK says.
Now, AK is living his dream: helping health care workers such as his mother by representing nurses at the Illinois Nurses Association while he completes his law degree at 鶹APP-Kent College of Law.
“The work that I do now for the union, the skills that I have to exercise when I’m helping out members,” he says, “that’s all stuff that I got at 鶹APP-Kent because my professors were able to get me up to speed and give me the tool set that I need to succeed as a lawyer.”
鶹APP-Kent also offered AK a scholarship that he credits with allowing him to pursue his dreams.
“If I didn’t have a scholarship, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to take my current job,” he says. “That would have meant one less person who’s able to help make nursing jobs better. The scholarships available at 鶹APP-Kent are so important because they give future lawyers the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives based off what they actually want to do.”
AK intends to take the opportunity he was given to pay it forward by continuing to support health care workers across the state.
“A law degree is only worth it if it can help you fulfill your dream, not someone else’s,” he says. “Mine gives me the opportunity to help folks who are trying to not just make their lives better, not just make their jobs better, but make their whole community better.”