Community activist and co-founder of nonprofit One Common Unity Hawah Kasat will be awarded the 2019 John Thompson Jr. Legacy of a Dream award, Georgetown University announced Nov. 20.

Georgetown presents the Legacy of a Dream award annually to an individual who has shown outstanding service consistent with the Jesuit value of women and men for others.

One Common Unity is a nonprofit organization seeking to break the cycle of community violence by promoting music, art and nonviolence education. OCU works to spread its mission among Washington, D.C. children ages 11 to 18, primarily through after-school programming and summer camps.

“We’re using the arts and we’re using education to heal communities and transform people’s lives,” Kasat said in an interview with The Hoya.

Kasat and his co-founders started the organization in 2000 following a string of school shootings, a phenomenon he believes increases the organization’s relevance in the current era.

“Throughout the country, we are being faced with violence in all forms. Gun violence is one of those forms, but there’s so much division and polarization and conflict that’s happening, we require and we need outlets and skills to handle conflict nonviolently,” Kasat said. “It’s really relevant — it’s probably more relevant today than it was even back then.”

In the 2018-2019 school year, OCU’s flagship Fly By Light program is set to serve 5,000 youth in 15 D.C. public schools through a combination of workshops, field trips, performances and nature retreats, all of which have the goal of promoting artistic expression, social-emotional literacy, health and wellness, environmental leadership, social justice and peace education, according to the OCU website.

OCU runs educational programs for local teachers, artists and musicians, encouraging them to promote peace and create student communities built around compassion. OCU’s programs have engaged over 25,000 people in its education and artistic efforts, according to the OCU website.

A recently completed five-year impact survey from OCU reported that 84 percent of their former students graduated high school, while D.C.’s average 2018 high school graduation rate was 60 percent, according to The Washington Post. The same survey showed that zero percent of former OCU program participants spent time in juvenile detention, jail or prison.

The Legacy of a Dream award is named in honor of its first recipient, John Thompson Jr., the influential Georgetown basketball coach emeritus. Throughout his career, Thompson promoted the fair treatment of athletes, particularly athletes of color, in the NCAA.

In the past, recipients of the award have included both domestic and international civil rights leaders. Previous honorees include Rosa Parks, who was given the award posthumously in 2006, and former basketball player and prominent humanitarian Dikembe Mutombo (COL ’91), who was honored in 2010.

Since 2013, the focus of the award has shifted to promote local activism and encourage community leaders in the District, according to Georgetown’s description of the award.

The recipient of the award enters into a yearlong commitment and sustained partnership with the university, aiming to create better recognition and opportunity for their organization and their cause.

Kasat said while he is honored to receive the award, the purpose of his community work has not been to gain recognition.

“This is a great boost and a great opportunity to reflect on what we’ve done, and I feel really grateful to have been chosen,” Kasat said. “My whole life has been dedicated to this work for 20 years, and you don’t do this work to get recognized — I’ve never done this work to get recognized. I’ve been doing this work because it’s my life’s calling, it’s what makes me feel good about looking in the mirror every day and feeling like I’m living a life worth waking up to.”

Kasat is set to be formally presented with the award on Jan. 21, 2019, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, as a part of the free “Let Freedom Ring!” celebration for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.