And sometimes you meet yourself
back where you started, but stronger
yrsa daley-ward | bone
When I applied for the fellowship, I remember writing about how I hope to one day be a compassionate, curious, and mindful human being. Though it has only been a year, I really believe that the fellowship and the people working to power the Miller Center, have given me the support and skills necessary to be exactly that – compassionate, curious, and mindful.
I really can’t believe that a year has gone by since I applied to be a part of the fellowship. It seems like just yesterday, I was sitting across the table from Spencer and Keith – explaining why I wanted to be a Global Social Benefit Fellow. I remember hearing the words, “Empower Generation’s mission is to empower women to power the world…and that’s my where my passion lays, that’s where my heart is,” and thinking how good that felt to say out loud. And how incredibly powerful it felt to say it to supportive people who understood my desperate need to do something good for the world.
As I reflect on how the fellowship has shaped my vocational goals and views on social engagement, I can’t help but to be incredibly grateful. Without the fellowship, I sometimes wonder if I would be the same person I am today. A year ago, I was insecure and unable to articulate what I wanted to do with my life. Now, I can proudly say, “I want to be a badass businesswoman.” But this process wasn’t easy, and it took the team at the Miller Center, the 17 other fellows, and a trip to Nepal to fully come to fruition.
Before leaving for Nepal, I spent a lot of time talking to Keith about my life, and how experiences in my life have shaped me to be the person I am today. I struggled a lot at Santa Clara, understanding what it meant to be a daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Having the support from someone like Keith, one of the most kind, caring, and compassionate people I know, allowed me to heal in ways that gave me the inner strength to go on a trip to Nepal, and hear stories from the women entrepreneurs, and hear about how different and alike their lives are to mine.
When I think back to Nepal, I always think fondly of Priya, Runa’s youngest daughter, and how she wanted to work in the bank. I think about how I might never get the chance to see her again, but how she forever changed the way I viewed my life. In many ways, she inspired me to come back to Santa Clara and find my true purpose. And though I am still not sure exactly what that means, I know that I want to take care of myself, stay well-informed and expand my educational opportunities, and adopt skills and talents that will allow me to be that badass woman – for Priya, for Runa, and for all the strong and incredibly powerful women I met during my time in Nepal.
And when it comes to the entrepreneurial mindset, and ways of addressing the world’s most pressing needs, I’ve come to respect the social entrepreneurship model. When people address problems from the bottom up as opposed to the top down, there is a better understanding of what issues need to be solved. The women working behind Empower Generation saw a need for not only clean energy, but also economic opportunity for women, and they addressed that by providing business training and skills so that women could become their own boss. That kind of agency and economic empowerment allowed these women to feel more confident about themselves and their ability to take on the world. And after seeing that, I know that if I become a badass businesswomen, I will be able to show young girls every where that they can do anything they put their mind to – and that their gender, race, and sexuality should not hinder them from becoming what they want to be.
After this experience with the fellowship, I have so much hope for the future and the world. Being around 17 amazing fellows, Keith, Thane, and Spencer, has really showed me that if we all embrace hope and love, we can absolutely make this world a better place.
I am not the same person I was before the fellowship. And though I may be working a corporate job next year or traveling the world, one thing is for certain – I will always love with my full heart and strive to be a good person, because like social entrepreneurship, change starts from the bottom up.