For the first 18 years of my life, I woke up to the crisp smell of evergreen trees and the
Mt. Hood (Northwest Center for Photography)
view of a stunning sunrise creeping over Mt. Hood. For me, home was Portland, Oregon,
and the outdoors was my cathedral. For those who have spent time in the Pacific Northwest, you will know what I mean when I say there is something divine about it.
Amidst my love of home, however, my life was anything but stationary. My parents engrained in me at a young age that the world was not as big as I had made it out to be and that it was important to go out and experience how other people lived. We spent every summer exploring a new country and culture, and while I didn’t know it at the time, these experiences would be formative in developing my passions for adventure and understanding the tremendous needs of so many people around the world.
A life changing experience came during my freshman year of high school when I heard about a trip our school offered to students interested in teaching English and serving in Thailand. I went home that day and told my parents I would be spending my summer in Thailand. After a little bit of convincing and many visits to the travel clinic, I found myself a few months later in the Portland airport with an oversized backpack on my 5 foot 3 inches frame, my eyes set on seeing Asia. When I reached Bangkok, culture shock set in as I walked on overcrowded streets allowing all of my senses to take in the environment around me. After a few days, we set out for Northeast Thailand to teach English in a public high school, and during our 3 weeks in country, we taught over 2,000 Thai kids.
Teaching English in Northeast Thailand
However, I like to think I learned more from them than they ever did from me. I began to find beauty in the students and the Thai way of life, as I asked people to tell me their life story and why they did the things they did. Perhaps this was my inner anthropologist coming out even though at that time I didn’t have a clue what anthropology was. My love of nature was cultivated in Thailand too. The days were long, but I enjoyed each moment, especially watching the sunrise and sunset over Thailand’s vast expanse of rice paddies. When I came home I knew I wanted to spend my life working for a social cause that might take me overseas.
I had the opportunity to deepen this desire when I raised funds to travel to Rwanda after my junior year of high school. Immersing myself into a cultural context ravaged by a genocide that had exterminated 1/7 of the country’s population was the most eye opening experience of my life. I witnessed a nation of children without parents and heard heart-wrenching testimonies from genocide survivors. A paramount conversation in my life took place with a Rwandan who was around my age. He had lost his parents in the genocide, and I asked him what he was excited about as he looked towards the future. He told me he couldn’t wait to receive an education and see where that would take him. He said that with an education he could dream and pursue a profession.
Our t-shirt design
That conversation changed me! I realized I had been blessed with so much: a loving and supportive family, health, a great education and the resources to make a difference in the world. Being heavily influenced by Jesus and the Bible, the passage from Luke 12:48 came to mind, which says, “to whom much is given, much is expected”. A sense of ownership of power to play a part in fighting poverty and inequality swept over me, as serious social issues were made personal in my life. So when I went home, a good friend and I decided to take some action on behalf of our Rwandan friends. In Rwanda, it only costs $15 to feed a street kid, someone with no parents, lunch for an entire month! When my friend and I thought about this amount, we decided to form a business designing and selling t-shirts to raise funds for these kids. A key part of our plan was to raise funds for all of the production costs so that 100% of the sales price of the t-shirt could be donated to feeding a child. In this way, we connected the t-shirt customer with a child by knowing that they were feeding them for one month. Our goal with this approach was that the sponsor would go beyond this one time purchase and begin to sponsor a child for the long-term. In this way we would be able to achieve sustainable assistance. In a matter of two months we were able to raise support to provide food for 150 street kids. Equally important, the experience gave me a taste of using a business approach to address complex social issues, such as feeding the poor, and gave me confidence that I could make a real difference in the world, which was valuable as I headed off to college.
Santa Clara University Crest
By the time I landed at Santa Clara University, I had witnessed extreme poverty and hunger, the effects of genocide, and a plethora of other social issues from my experiences in Thailand, Rwanda, and Oaxaca. After walking out of a psychology class that didn’t catch my interest, I stumbled into an introductory cultural anthropology course, and found myself a week later in the Student Center declaring the discipline as my major. Conducting qualitative interviews and getting to know peoples’ stories was where my interests met social issues. I was able to spend summer after freshman year living in the inner city of South Chicago. Serving schools and homeless organizations, I saw the deep need we have for change in the United States. One of the most impactful
My team riding the L towards West Chicago
experiences of my life was living homeless in Chicago for a few days to try to gain perspective on the issues homeless people go through. To be honest, I had no idea what to do during this time, so I spent most of it talking with and hearing stories from other homeless people. Walking along Michigan Avenue, I started up a conversation with a woman who had been homeless for nearly a year. When I asked her what the hardest part
of homelessness was, she told me it’s that she feels she never gets heard. Passersby don’t lend an ear and most of society turns a blind eye on these people. From these experiences I learned the joy that comes from living simply, but more importantly I developed a love for people and their stories, and began to see myself playing the role of an advocate and bridge between the voiceless and decision makers.
I am thankful for the way in which Santa Clara is preparing me to pursue these interests. As I move forward, I see myself getting involved in work drawing from cultural anthropology, international business, and public policy. All of these previous experiences
Good World Solutions
and interests contributed towards my desire to participate in the Global Social Benefit Fellowship, and I believe Good World Solutions posits itself a great fit for me in its mission to empower workers without a voice.
As Gandhi once said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” I can’t wait to do my part and jump into this experience with both feet, not knowing exactly where my steps will take me, yet incredibly motivated to do my part in changing the world around me. When I look at the life Jesus led, I realize that he gave his life away for the interest of others. That’s what I want my life to be about, giving back more than I have been given.