"In the spring of 2015, I left the University of Miami to spend a semester in Cape Town. I knew the experience would be exciting and transformative. What I did not anticipate, however, was that I would return to Cape Town for a second semester through IES Abroad a year later, and stay for an additional eight months, traveling the country while working for a South African non-profit organization. I did not foresee that my time abroad would alter my trajectory so fundamentally that I find myself now applying for graduate study that will bring me back to South Africa in order to continue the community development work that I began during my semesters abroad. I certainly did not expect my experience in Cape Town to kick-start a stand-up comedy career that would lead me to perform for South African audiences throughout the city, explaining the cultural confusion I felt as an American living among them. I struggle to articulate how much study abroad changed everything for me fundamentally, without leaning on clichés, but I can say with sincerity that this experience helped me understand my place in the world, and set me on a new path in pursuit of international human rights work.

In addition to studying environmental science and geography from the point of view of the global South at the University of Cape Town, the internships I found abroad were the most meaningful aspects of my experience; they continue to inform my scholarship and the goals I have for the future. During my first semester in Cape Town, I worked at an NGO called Sonke Gender Justice. My work there was most research based–I looked into the country’s current HIV-prevention and gender equality educational programs in order to identify gaps, and then complied program proposals for the South African Department of Health. This work taught me primarily about the dire state of HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa, but also challenged me to approach this problem from different points of entry than I would have otherwise. For example, the organization often worked with young men, educating them about gender issues in order to target the roots of gender-based violence.

During my second semester in Cape Town, and for three months after my time at the University of Cape Town ended, I interned at Community Media Trust–another HIV-prevention NGO–which used a very different point of entry to tackle South Africa’s health problems. My work with Community Media Trust consisted of writing a forty-week curriculum that taught vulnerable young women life skills, ranging from how to open a bank account, to active listening, to performing a breast self-exam. The girls would meet weekly in clubs–led by a mentor from their communities–to learn these skills. The premise of the program was that when young women have social, economic, and cognitive assets, their likelihood of contracting HIV or becoming pregnant as a teenager is much lower. This work took me all around South Africa to recruit small community-based organizations and implement the curriculum in different communities.

Finally, my year in Cape Town was full of smaller, but equally meaningful interactions with the city and culture that I found myself immersed in. Study abroad creates an opportunity for students to experiment with parts of themselves that they might not feel able to in their everyday lives. Stand-up comedy had always been in the back of my mind as something I would like to try, but never would, because it made me too vulnerable. Living abroad inherently makes you vulnerable–it teaches you to embrace vulnerability. Sometimes, the result of this is discomfort. Sometimes, you find yourself performing for a packed house at Cape Town’s biggest comedy club because you stood up at that first open mic night. Experiences like this are what made study abroad such a meaningful and rich part of my life, and why I chose to return to the same city for a second semester.

Now, five months after leaving Cape Town, as I finish my senior year and apply to graduate school for urban planning, I continue to ask the questions-of others and myself–that were raised by my year in South Africa: How do we approach these huge, global problems, like HIV or gender-based violence, in a new way? What have we not tried? What would I do if I weren’t afraid to feel exposed? How could I live in my own city as though I only had one year to experience it? My education, work, and plans for the future have all become about seeking the answers to these questions, and prompting others to do the same. I could never have anticipated that study abroad would give me this new purpose."

"It was on a golden Viennese evening that I was strolling about Bruno Kreisky Park on my way home to Margaretenstrasse. I reckon it must have been a Friday, for there was an undisturbed sense of peace. In one week along with learning about economics, German, and music, I had become so acquainted with myself that I needed nothing more and no one but my own company under the apricot sky, in that park, in that moment. I sat on the grass, and pulled out my notebook.

Right under my notes about European capital integration I began to write, “Hello, my name is I, and I am glad that we could finally say hi”. This rather simplistic verse was one that gave me such a profound moment when I was writing it that its creation has become of my most intense memories in Vienna. I concluded my journey abroad with an original song and production of “My Name is I”, recorded in the studio of my building in Margaretenstrasse that IES Abroad so generously provided, and with a new appreciation of the beauty and meaning in the “insignificant” moments of our every day lives.

This experience was enabled by IES Abroad's very well organized program that gave me an appropriate but extensive amount of work which enabled me to effectively learn and remember what I was being taught, and that also gave me time, a concept not often found on my agenda: time to understand my surroundings, to interact with others from different countries and states, and to connect with myself. In the following paragraphs I will share how my two top academic experiences inspired the creation of an important goal, featuring my once neglected passion, music.

1. “Shifting Global Dynamics: The Impact of the New Greek Direction toward Russia and China,” this was my final research paper for my European Monetary Union and Financial Integration class; it examined the Greek economy through the country’s history and suggested a possible course should the country go forth with its present negotiations. Many a time, before I went to Vienna, I had heard the story,  “studying abroad is easy”; this was of the most challenging- if not the most challenging, papers that I’ve to write. Greece is a powerful shareholder of my heart, to put it in financial terms. Although I was born in America, I lived in Athens until the age of 14. This class gave me the opportunity to explore Greece’s history like never before. From analyzing why Greece is in economic crisis, to proposing marketing tools for Greece to improve its position, and to my final paper, this class abroad gave me knowledge, and the faith that I can do something to help my struggling second home.

2. “Shot U.S.A”, my first instrumental composition written for piano and violin recorded for my final project in my Sound Recording class. What travelling does is that it helps you realize that every country believes in a truth that might be different from your own, and the acceptance of this ‘truth’ requires great open mindedness. When a topic is reoccurring in a society it ceases to be shocking, and can be in danger of becoming unimportant. The past years America has faced challenges with violent gun incidents, and threats directed at schools including my own (2015 threat toward schools near Philadelphia). Seeing the confused reactions of my Hungarian, Italian, and Viennese friends, I saw how the now almost normalized experiences I undergo in America were unimaginable for those in other countries; and I hope that such incidents in particular will be unimaginable in America as well. I sought to address the topic of gun violence through music; my Sound Recording class in Vienna gave me the opportunity to do so. I collaborated with violinist and fellow IES Abroad peer Natasha Janfaza who was on violin, and another student whom I very much looked up to, Tomal Hossain, who gave me valuable tips for recording. It is important to note that this was my first instrumental recording and the fact that it was in Vienna, in a program where students shared the same appreciation from music and where one could learn from one another made all the difference. I could not have received that encouragement and inspiration anywhere else. I also wrote an accompanying poem which I presented to my class.

I spoke of these two academic achievements because they both have the power to influence, and the combination of them led me to want to begin an initiative of music for a cause. More than an initiative, it will be a music publishing company called Strike, a verb used to signify how music can awaken us to different perspectives. In my Sound Recording class I learned that one does not have to be a politician to instigate change, rather one can influence through the most powerful tool, music; and in my EMU and Financial Integration class I received the knowledge needed to begin a musical work about Greece. I am currently also writing a song with the theme of bullying that I will submit to my high school for its annual play, “The Names that Hurt”. This is the extension of my time in Vienna; the tools I learned there affect my life today.

Today, I can trace all this back to that breezy spring evening at the park near my Viennese apartment. That is where I felt most at ease, and where my passion for music and interest for politics and economics united. Vienna has given me the motivation to explore life every day, and the courage to pursue what I was afraid to before. I hope that someday my music can strike others awake with the passion of Greece, the fierceness of America, and the elegance of Vienna. I will eternally be grateful to IES Abroad for this gift of discovery: of a different culture, and of myself."

"My decision to spend the semester in Buenos Aires was made with a clear goal, to go beyond the casual daily classes and city life of study abroad and expand my knowledge through as much cultural engagement as possible. I wanted an academic experience that would take me to places where I could learn first hand about social issues within the country. My semester abroad allowed me to travel to places that I never could have experienced without the determination of a global citizen to experience and learn from another culture. Through these experiences I gained a more in depth and rewarding semester by leaving my comfort zone to pursue new projects and create a cross-cultural exchange of dialogue.

During my semester abroad in Buenos Aires, I chose to participate in the service-learning program through IES Abroad and was paired with an organization called Pilares. This organization works with impoverished communities within the villas of Buenos Aires by organizing several programs that focus on assistance with the families through education and skill building. I chose to volunteer with the education program as a means of improving my Spanish speaking abilities. The education program involved traveling into the villas to work with other volunteers teaching classes and helping with every day activities. Although my initial motivation was to improve my own language skills and provide a community service, I quickly discovered the kinds of applications the education program provided to improve myself as a global citizen.

I started my volunteering about three weeks into my study abroad program, up until then I had only met other Argentines in my neighborhood. Working at the Pilares center was a completely new and drastically different experience. The kids I worked with were full of energy and had an incredible curiosity about who I was. I spent the first two weeks helping the volunteers serve breakfast and lunch while assisting with classes in between. During this period we also spent a great deal of time feeding the curiosity of the kids by answering questions about the USA and our own lives back home. In doing so we created a cross-cultural dialogue with the kids as well as volunteers who were eager to tell us about their experiences if we would share our own in return.

Another IES Abroad student and myself were soon approached by one of the organizers of Pilares and the education program with the idea of starting an English tutoring program at the center. Both myself and the other IES Abroad student were in charge of creating the curriculum and working with the kids with the intent to increase their interest in and display the benefits of learning a popular language such as English. The organizer explained to us that the kids we worked with were already at a disadvantage due to their circumstances of living in the villas. However, the ability to speak, read, and write in English would greatly increase their opportunities for the future. The organizer asked us to create a program that could be continuously taught by new volunteers after we finished our semesters abroad. We spent the next three months testing different methods of teaching English while working with small groups of kids. By the end of our semester we successfully developed a basic English tutoring program for the organization. Since then we have continued to communicate with organizers at Pilares via email to improve the English program and prepare new volunteers who will be teaching the curriculum in the upcoming semester.

Having such a unique opportunity to work with an organization like Pilares really exemplifies the importance and qualities of being a global citizen. By working with Pilares I was able to enter into a community outside of the normal study abroad experience. I was able to create and maintain a series of cross-cultural dialogue with kids and volunteers of the program to increase my own knowledge of a culture and simultaneously teach about my own culture. To further enhance dialogue between communities I worked with another to student to create social network mapping for Pilares to help connect people from different communities around the world and share the Pilares mission and activities. Ultimately I learned to conduct myself independently to develop and take responsibility for a program that was capable of making an impact on a community. It has motivated me to continue my pursuit of understanding cultures and making global connections through language by applying to other intensive language learning programs as well as volunteering with local community based organizations in Los Angeles.

To further enhance my knowledge as a global citizen I wanted to find more ways to engage with the history and indigenous culture of my host country. Having lived in Buenos Aires all semester, my understanding was that Argentina existed as a harmonious culture with Buenos Aires at the center. Professors at the university and even other Argentines living in Buenos Aires previously explained to me that the Patagonia region was mostly for tourism and historically the rights of indigenous people was rarely compromised. This could not have been farther from the truth. By taking the Making of Patagonia class I was able to widen my circle of research on the history of Argentina and learned about the oppression of indigenous culture. I was motivated by the in class readings and lectures to travel to several locations in the Patagonia region with a few other students to visit museums and explore national parks inhabited by remnants of native communities. This experience forced me to ask more questions about how indigenous communities actually perceive the concept of "Patagonia" and what can be done to preserve their culture.

Part of this course involved a field study to Bariloche, a city in the Rio Negro province of Patagonia. During this excursion we were given the unique opportunity to meet with several members of the Mapuche community, an indigenous group of people living in the area of Bariloche. Our dialogue with the members of the community prompted questions about Patagonia and the survival of Mapuche culture in the midst of the increasing tourism of the city. During our dialogue we arrived at key conclusions that completely contradicted the Buenos Aires perceptions of Patagonia. To the Mapuche, the rise of tourism is seen as the "second conquest of the desert". Increased tourism has split the community, forcing them into impoverished areas and increasing the cost of living tremendously. Even more so, when asked about what Patagonia means to the Mapuche, they explained that 'Patagonia' was named by European explorers and is non-existent in their culture.

Upon returning to Buenos Aires, I was surprised to learn that few people perceived the Patagonia region the same way as the indigenous people. However, I began to understand that this is a differing perception that exists between many communities around the world and is something that needs to be met by global citizens who can understand multiple points of view. Being a global citizen requires reaching out to explore multiple perspectives from different communities. In doing so, cultures and customs can be better preserved by disseminating new knowledge and ideas to your own community. Ultimately, I know now that I can actively engage myself with different points of view to better understand a culture or community and in turn apply myself to make the world a better place for all communities."

"Cape Town, South Africa, is a place full of beauty and brokenness, of wealth and poverty, of injustice and the fight towards justice. It is the place that gave me a life altering experience. My name is John Luke Hawkins and my time studying abroad was not that of the typical abroad experience. I had the expectations that I would have a full semester of classes, immerse myself in culture, make South African friends, grow and learn, and have the adventure of a lifetime. In the end, all of that did happen to different extents, but what couldn’t have been predicated, what couldn’t have been foreseen, was a month long shutdown of classes due to protests happening across universities in South Africa. This was a movement of activism that I became swept into as an ally: a person whom knew my place as an American abroad student yet supported the fight for justice that was happening in my context.

This journey began at the start of the semester as I instantaneously saw the lingering effects of colonization and apartheid in South Africa through the wealth verses poverty in Cape Town, the racial segregation and oppression that still existed, and the culture of progression towards equality. Another jumpstart in my journey was taking a sociology class offered at the University of Cape Town called Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality as it completely made me think in a new perspective. This class as well as all the injustice that was happening around me made me for the first time think of my own privilege as a white male. Previously, my worlds, which I realized are predominately white, middle class, heterosexual, and Christian didn’t make me think about what my privilege meant because truthfully, it didn’t affect me as a white male in the context of my worlds. But being in South Africa and taking this sociology class made me ask myself “Who am I and what does my privilege mean?” I started to understand that due to my race, my class, my biological sex, my faith, and my nationality as an American – I held extreme privilege in society. I reflected on what that meant and if I was potentially abusing my privileged place of power.

Just as I was deep into having a new revelation daily about my privilege and the privilege of those around me, protests began. At the University of Cape Town, there were many demands, but the overarching theme was for a fight for a free decolonized education. With this history of colonization and apartheid in South Africa, poverty is highly correlated with race. Since education is key in finding a job and acquiring a comfortable life, the raising fees at the South African universities negatively affect the people from the black communities. Thus the fight for a free education is to remove some obstacles for people of color. In terms of the demand of a decolonized education, it was a movement to return the countries to its roots, to change the euro-centered education to an Afro-centered education. When the Dutch came in and colonized South Africa, white supremacy became very much a part of South African history and education. Thus the demand was to take back some culture that had been overridden through colonization.

For me, personally, I supported the movement in terms of a fight for justice and equality. Yet at first, I did struggle to know if supported the concept of a free education, and even if that concept was possible. In the spirit of immersing myself fully in the culture, I got involved. I read some information on the possibility of free education. I talked to numerous students and citizens about the concept. I eventually came to fully back the fight for a free decolonized education. Throughout the process, I made myself an ally; I knew this fight wasn’t really my personal fight, as I was an American abroad student that would be leaving South Africa in a short couple of months. In understanding the importance of being safe and recognizing that as an white American male, it would be an abuse of my privilege to put myself out there too much, I became an ally. I stayed educated and up to date with what was going on in the protests by going to the public meetings and daily checking twitter and other news sources to understand what was happening from all sides of the aisles. I continuously had conversations about these movements and activism with people, and depending on the person, it was either an opportunity for me to learn more or teach someone what I had been learning. I helped provide food for some of the protesters in order to sustain them during that tiring time. I marched a few times with the protesters to show my support by providing a body, or a number, in the movement. I now proudly say “fees must fall,” not because it gave me a month off of school, but because it is a movement for justice, and I, I stand for justice.

This activism in South Africa wasn’t just a one and done type of situation; when I say my abroad experience was life altering, it was just that. This mentality of activism towards justice, of equality no matter your race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, faith and so forth is something that I am continuing to carry through. Each day, I wake up and look at the world through this new social justice lens and try to make sure I am not abusing my privilege as well as being a healthy and constructive voice in these social movements. On my college campus, I am currently the “Hope College Interfaith Ambassador” which deals with striving to make Hope College, a Christian liberal arts school, a safe place and a place of inclusion for people of all faith/philosophical backgrounds. These new cultural and worldly perspectives gathered from my abroad experience will forever go forth with me in life.

Truthfully, would my involvement made much of a difference in terms of success or failure for the protests? No. But I did have a choice, a choice whether I wanted spend the shutdown like it was a vacation or to immerse myself in what was happening around me. I choose the later. And by doing this, I grew to become more culturally competent and have a bigger heart for justice that will and already has carried through into my return to the United States. My role with activism may have been small in terms of the effect for South Africa, but for me, it released a longing for justice inside like a planted and growing seed, that through my actions, can be planted in others and have those seeds grow as well, so that we, as a society, as people, can yield a beautiful crop of justice and equality."

"In my first year of college I learned about the concept of histories and deconstruct the hegemonic narrative in which most of history has been taught. The first time this was introduced to me was in my Education for Social Change class which was followed by reading Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. This was the first time a professor questioned what I had been learning in school and asked me to do the same. That was the landmark shift in my view of education and in my desire to learn about counter-pedagogy and deconstruct it through an Africana Studies lens. At that time I realized I needed to study abroad in the African Diaspora.

My time studying abroad was the epitome of experiential education because the only way to truly learn is to be immersed in history and people and to challenge history one experience at a time. Not only did I study in South Africa once, but twice, and the second time I had a new vigor for the reason I was going. Studying abroad allowed me to confront what I have learned and to look at things with a sense of skepticism that allows for critical thinking. South Africa’s past is so complex and their recent path of forgiveness and reconciliation is a noble feat that relies on multiple histories in order to create a fondness for the complexities in their diverse people.

Citizenship is based loosely on intersectionalities and privileges that remain untouched by those with an advantage and become unsurmountable by those who are subjugated. Global citizenship regards that silence as oppression and routinely challenges the discourse by which people have become accustomed. Studying abroad challenges the theory of normality and student who study abroad in South Africa are shocked with a country with eleven official languages and more diversity and cultures than most countries.

My first semester abroad with SIT in Spring 2015, I was in Durban studying social and political transformation and completing an independent study project. I participated in an internship and study project with PeacePlayers International, a nonprofit organization, in Durban observing the effectiveness of the program from three different aspects. I focused on a case study at one high school and looked at aspirations, mentorship, and leadership in students participating in the program and compared the results to students who were not. My mentor in this project was a Gettysburg alumnus who I had been put in touch with through our study abroad office at school. This unique opportunity to see the inner workings of an international non-governmental organization was invaluable and, without the opportunity to participate directly with this organization and their students, I would have never been able to gather my data and utilize to evaluate program’s impact. Studying in Durban and focusing specifically on social transformation allowed for my research project to identify the unique role that basketball plays in the lives of these students.

On my return from Durban, I joined the Global Leaders of Gettysburg College (GLGC) and shared my experiences abroad with other students and presented to first year classes about global education and my experiences in South Africa. This GLGC also allows for students who studied all across the globe to come together and discuss ‘global citizenship’ and the active nature of such an endeavor. Routinely I encourage students to go abroad and through my enrollment in the Garthwait Leadership Certificate at Gettysburg I am setting up a Study Abroad Symposium targeting first and second year students to talk with study abroad alumni and our international students about possibilities for experiential learning, focusing specifically on non-traditional areas. Not only am I trying to empower students to travel and see more of the world but I also encourage them to look outside the scope of media and question the stories people have heard. It is vital for students not only to study somewhere other than their home institution but also to be able to utilize it when they come back to school.

My semester at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in Spring of 2016 was a unique opportunity to engage in academic and social discourses which IES Abroad facilitated. Studying abroad twice does not make one a global citizen, but it introduces a way of thinking that breeds a certain level of awareness about the importance of the increasing globalization, especially through technology. The unique part of studying at such a prestigious research institution, was the availability of sources that were missing or inaccessible my Western education databases. The difference in sources and scholars that provide multiple viewpoints challenge the hegemonic narrative that is enforced in Western education and further indicate the weaknesses in global education. However, despite these disconnects I have shared new sources with classmates and professors in order to introduce interacting scholarship. Availability of non-traditional sources is minimal and even less is prevalent regarding South African history.

At UCT I utilized my passion for education in the South African setting to join the Equal Education Society, Disrupting Whiteness Talks, Investment Society, and joined different conversations relating to student activism and unrest regarding both fees and student sexual assault. Not only did IES Abroad encourage joining societies on the campus but the conversations that I had with people in these societies and within my residential hall discussed modes of change. At my residence I made friends with most of the people in both sides of the halls and encouraged the other IES Abroad students to do the same. Because of this, we had the first farewell party to IES Abroad students since 1994, a truly touching moment. My time at UCT was made by the people that I met through the program, my residential hall, and through classes on campus. Without the oversaturation of American prominence, I was able to focus on engaging in discourse and to redefine the purpose of why I was here in each conversation.

The penultimate aspect of my semester at UCT occurred on the flight home when I met a woman whose husband, a founder of mElimu, was working with mobile learning in Kenya and was looking for an intern. The company is a growing social enterprise focused on mobile education and e-Learning technology called mElimu. mElimu is an innovative solution to improve access to quality education with technology driven efficiency based out of India and currently focusing on Sub-Saharan and Eastern Africa. I created a business development internship with mElimu detailing specifications and responsibilities and have now been interning with them for five months. Working on different projects and trying to expand relationships with new companies and people has been the crux of my position. I have worked on a myriad of deals creating spreadsheets, writing letters, methodologies, reaching out to partners, and creating detailed information briefs for potential clients. Most recently I created four scripts that we are putting into production for mElimu campaigns.

For my senior thesis I am looking at the youth bulge in Sub-Saharan Africa, specifically focusing on South Africa and identifying mobile education and e-learning as one solution to low education levels. I am intertwining my time at UCT and the FeesMustFall Movement that I have seen firsthand and my experience with my current internship that creates a university-in-a-box solution for both learners and teachers. For me this culmination of my undergraduate experience is the perfect example of a global education because it started with one professor who taught me that there is more than one history, and I went out to find out what he meant. Then I studied in Durban and Cape Town where I learned through professors, historic sources, personal experiences, and through the beautiful people around me. Finally, I am working with people who value education in Sub-Saharan Africa and I am further exploring the impact such organizations could have on South Africa. I am writing from the Motherland, a coffee shop in Cape Town, and I have every intention of coming back."

"In August 2016, I embarked on my journey abroad. A few short months beforehand I decided that I wanted to make the most out of my experience in Madrid. I wanted to experience Spain in a way that was non-traditional and leave an everlasting footprint on the community in which I was continuing my educational journey. For me, an internship seemed like the perfect opportunity to pursue my passions abroad. While my peers looked for internship opportunities that would compliment their resumes or align with their academic goals, I looked for one that would align with my goals for the future of our youth.

For quite some time I have been passionate about improving the quality of education for the youth in my city. My hometown, Detroit, is a place where many students go without the educational benefits that are awarded to the students in neighboring suburbs, where students aren’t provided adequate books to read, the water sometimes runs brown, and college seems to be an excellent place, but one that is unattainable for inner-city youth. Since last summer, I have made it my life goal to continuously contribute to my community by making sure that youth are not denied their right to an excellent education because of their socioeconomic background; with the IES Abroad Internship program I worked to reverse this stigma and create a generation of youth that would excel.

This past semester I worked with in the Social Services Center of Los Yébenes (a neighborhood in Spain) with a program called Asociación Edúnica where the mission was to encourage students who come from non-traditional families to excel academically by receiving the academic, psychological, and social support necessary to be well-rounded students, because for them, the problem is not that they are incapable of learning or that they don’t want to, but that the obstacles that they are faced with daily sometimes distract them from their education. Therefore, as an after-school tutor and mentor, my goal was to provide them with an environment in which they could express themselves openly and receive help with whatever obstacle stood in their path.

While some people may view an internship of this class as something of minor impact, in my opinion, I have just changed the world. For me, it is not quantity, but quality that matters. Although I may have only worked with twenty kids of Madrid in order to make them better citizens, I have essentially impacted the entire world because I was a part of cultivating the world’s next doctors, brain surgeons, teachers, firemen, soup kitchen volunteers, and global citizens who will use what I have taught them to shape the world of tomorrow. By encouraging one student to become eager instead of discouraged to study, I changed the path of one student and though it may not be many, that one student going down the right path could be the one student that will change lives. While my support may not have been life changing for every student, what will stick with them is that someone cares and supports them in all that they do and with that they will able to accomplish things that will shape their community for the better.

When I sought out to change the lives of children who the world deems less-fortunate (I deem them to be just as fortunate as anyone else), I didn’t realize that mine would be changed too. I didn’t realize that I would find my purpose or that they would inspire me to become a global change agent. After I left Madrid I thought a lot about my experience. I thought about how many of the students expressed to me that they had never had anyone who cared about their future as much I did, how they didn’t have anyone that they could talk to openly, and how their lives had been forever changed. While I missed my students dearly, I thought about how many other students in this world felt the same pain and lived the same struggle: they were born into a life where resources were limited, faith was low, and support was no where to be found. I began to become angry at the thought that children were not receiving the support that they needed due to a situation that they could not control. That is when I realized that being angry about it wouldn’t alter their disadvantage, but doing something about it would! From here on out I decided that I would translate that anger to determination and bring my contribution abroad to my own community - I decided that I would not let global change end there.

This summer, I will be working as a servant leader intern with the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom School, an organization that has dedicated over 100 years of service to ensuring that children around the world are provided with an education that will allow them to achieve their wildest dreams. Working in neighborhoods where children would not normally have the privilege to receive books, I will be nurturing children in order to cultivate their love for reading and encourage them to become leaders and global change agents. Freedom Schools is more than a 6-week opportunity for the children that I will be impacting; for many students it is a place to belong, a place to be appreciated, and a place to be loved despite their day-to-day environment. Through this program I plan to continue to advocate for our youth around the world and teach them that with determination, effort, and compassion they can be anything despite all doubt that they have experienced in the past. In the near future I plan to dedicate my summers to impacting the lives of more and more youth everyday while continuing to volunteer with Asociación Edúnica in the upcoming semester, but ultimately I hope to start a non-profit organization that will give youth who’ve made mistakes, youth who have faced criminal charges, a second chance.  The youth are our future. The youth are my passion. All youth deserve a fair chance. The IES Abroad program taught me this."

My primary academic interests lie in global relations and development, and accordingly, I have tried to structure my academic coursework and internship experiences around these topics. This exploration has led me to a broad range of development economics and health-related classes at my home university, Williams College, in addition to community service work in Haiti and past internships conducting global HIV/AIDS communications and research at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and managing a citizen journalism program in Tel Aviv aimed at empowering young professionals and students across sub-Saharan Africa.

As I have begun to realize my passion for global citizenship, I am keen to equip myself with the skills and knowledge base to most effectively immerse myself in future experiences. Given the increasingly interconnected nature of our world, having young, ambitious students wrestle with pressing, global issues is critical to ensuring our successful future. I want to produce high social impact work and embraced my abroad experience in Vienna as an opportunity to grow as a learner and cosmopolitan. I am unsure of which path will enable me to best develop and utilize my proficiencies, and wanted to make the most out of my time abroad by bolstering my German language ability and cultural immersion through comprehensive internship.

I began work at the European Environmental Bureau in late-September unsure of my specific assignments and what responsibilities I would be entrusted with during my internship. The EEB is an umbrella environmental NGO based out of Brussels which represents the environmental voice of Europe’s civil society and citizenry. Comprising 140 member organizations across all the EU-member states, it intends to agglomerate and champion civil society interests in the environmentally related proceedings, negotiations, and legislation of the European Union. It is clearly an expansive and impactful organization, and accordingly, I was eager to begin work here and hopefully produce material change by helping them reach certain project goals. Yet equally nervous about the learning curve and to what degree I would be familiar with the content to which I was assigned. Upon my arrival, I was asked to help develop their “Circular Economy Platform Austria”, which as a central database and knowledge exchange center, aims to facilitate an Austrian transition to a circular economy through multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral engagement.

A circular economy purpose is to minimize waste at every step of the production and consumption process with hopes of creating a self-sufficient economic system that optimally uses natural resources and commodities. Although several European circular economy initiatives are already underway, the creation of the “Circular Economy Platform Austria” would represent a pioneer effort within Austria and the European Environmental Bureau to create a national platform. This project is primarily concerned with catalyzing the transition in Austria, however, since it draws on a diverse pool of best practice examples and research across Europe, if successful it can hopefully be used as a model for replicative EEB-driven circular economy transitions across the EU. This possibility excites me and has motivated to produce my best work. My work will contribute to a project which through generalization or extrapolation can potentially have wide-reaching consequences for Europe and its future environmental landscape.

Our primary piece of writing for this platform is a twenty-page project description outlining our mission, implementation methods, and cooperation partners, as well as a brief background of a circular economy’s intentions and current application in Europe. This project summary has been used thus far to receive sponsorships to financially aid our platform’s creation and will be the primary information we provide to potential stakeholders and investors in the future. Currently, we only have a German version of this writing, which prevents us from sharing this project and receiving broad support from individuals and organizations in non-German-speaking countries. To increase our outreach within the EEB network and with other societal actors (whether from industry, civil society, or government) invested in a circular economy transition, it is important for us to have a more accessible English version. I was tasked with completing a thorough English translation which would keep the intrinsic value of the German version while reframing the argument to be appropriate yet powerful in English.

After finalizing a distributable version, I switched gears slightly and began working on collecting Europe-wide research on related environmental subfields to help inform the construction of our platform. A concern across Europe in science and specifically in environmental research is that the incongruous and unconnected nature of various undertakings results in research being redundantly replicated or not shared with the necessary audiences. There is a strong push by the EU and European scientific communities to fashion cross-sector, cross-industry platforms and databases to enable greater knowledge sharing and its resultant spillover benefits. My personal gathering of research on the fields of bioeconomy and plastics will hopefully enable us to learn from best practice examples and inform our outreach to and communication with potential stakeholders in this transition.

The culmination of this my internship experience occurred when I was fortunate enough to travel to Edinburgh to attend the EEB’s annual conference, which brought together 400 environmentalists from civil society, academia, and government to discuss the most pressing European environmental issues. This trip was truly incredible and afforded me the ability to more critically consider and interact with the European environmental community. I was able to sit in on lectures and panel discussions held by leading European environmental scientists, national ministers of agriculture and environment, and presidents of the largest environmental NGOs in Europe. I believe I was both the youngest participant and only American at this conference. The ability to experience such a robust gathering of European environmentalists from an outside and unique perspective was profound and unforgettable.

During the semester I began a second internship at European Forum Alpbach (EFA), an Austrian NGO which hosts one of the largest and most diverse annual European political/ socioeconomic conferences. EFA brings together roughly 5,000 individuals from between 70 and 100 countries over a three-weekend convention in late-August. Every year they have eight multi-day symposia spanning a broad range of pressing societal issues, and additionally hold lectures, working groups, and networking events to promote collaboration and European cross-communication. An important component of EFA’s work is the issuing of scholarship and fellowship opportunities for students, journalists, and young professionals to come together and attend this conference. For this organization, I have been trying to improve our outreach capabilities in America to both garner grant funding through American sponsors and to increase the quantity and quality of American scholarship applicants. This undertaking involved researching large American sponsors/funds focused on global development and American-European relations as well as determining ways to most effectively establish contact and partnerships with top American institutions of higher learning. I personally plan on attending this conference by scholarship next year and would love to make this opportunity known and accessible to similarly globally-minded American students.

These experiences were diverse yet similarly valuable. In both, I was able to speak German in a highly professional environment and learn from the cultural differences my coworkers brought forth. However, my primary takeaway from these experiences was not one of concrete language or cultural learning, but instead feeling increasingly connected to a globalizing world and recognizing the role (however small) I can play in solving the diverse, cross-national problems facing our world. I hope to carry these experiences with me as I strive to be an agent for global change in my future endeavors. I realize these internships were only small stops on the road of my hopefully long and impactful career, yet it is through these abroad opportunities that I have solidified my interest in international work and aim to embody a “global citizen". I now plan on taking environmental coursework at Williams, returning to Austria next summer for European Forum Alpbach 2018, and am more confident in my desire to write a global development-related senior thesis and pursue a Master’s Degree in Public Health or Public Administration in International Development.

“Don’t let the patriarchy into the home.” For Domitila Barrios de Chungara, a Bolivian housewife who wrote a testimony against imperialism in 1967, counter narratives and images against systemic “patriarchies” is vital to creating change. Feminism, in this case, is inextricable from discussions about colonialism and race. With Domatila’s words in mind, I left the U.S. in January 2017, seeking to break bread with the women of Spain and Morocco and to learn about the pluralities of feminism around the globe. I knew Granada to be a complex city: situated close to North Africa, histories underlined by fluctuations of racial and religious divisions. And so I became eager to explore beyond the divisions — what did solidarity look like for the women in the Western Mediterranean, with such a variety of perspectives of citizenship? Tangent, a photography essay project, became an opportunity not only to represent the testimonies and voices of local Spaniards and Moroccans, but also to bring together women and thinkers who might not have normally crossed paths. For me, in addition to my academic studies in Spain, I wanted to continue my work as a photographer and writer that would promote an anti-imperialist agenda that might, indeed, prevent the patriarchy from entering the home.

The collection of narratives, as a political means, can incorporate the participants to fully collaborate in the process. She can see her lived experience as validated; what might seem daily and mundane becomes worthy of political movement. The subject becomes an actor. In Cambridge, MA, where I grew up, I began to understand political actors as regular people. The public-school system, although “diverse” by outside standards, suffered from a racialized achievement gap. The administration scarcely discussed this systemic issue beyond closed doors. Any conversation seemed to fall short of incorporating the perspectives of the heterogeneous student population. Working with group of teachers and students who still pushed me to explore questions of social justice deeper, I began to collect and publish testimonies of students from all backgrounds about their experiences in the school. At IES Abroad Granada, I wanted to continue to explore the possibilities of narrative building as a form of resistance. Thus, I spoke with more than fifty local women that a study-abroad student might not normally meet in such a brief semester. The inclusion of voices from different regions, from the “colonizer” of Spain to the “colonized” of Latina America and Northern Africa, was an intentional attempt to underline the multitudes of voices participating in the global “citizenry” of the Western Mediterranean.

Tangent, beginning as a creative arts fellowship from Yale University, looks at the pluralities of roles and voices of women in our local and global communities. Professors of Gemma, a Master ́s program in the Women and Gender Studies department at the University of Granada, I came to know a vast network of women interested in participating in the project. “Do I look oppressed to you?” Munira, a Muslim woman running a Nazari leather shop asked me. “We are tired of being called oppressed.” Along with Munira, I worked on narratives with the only Sephardic Jewish woman raising a family in Granada, Gypsy teenagers who speak about their desire to be seen as more than ‘entertainers’ for the voyeuristic eye, women from Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America selling fruit and clothing at the bustling Saturday market in Zaidin, female intellectuals in Morocco trying to complicate the western idea of feminism in Islamic regions, religious leaders participating in Spain’s largest Catholic processions — these are only a few of the women who welcomed me into their space to talk, learn, and reimagine “feminism” together. Wanting to further explore the multiplicity of perspectives, and to also immerse myself in the geopolitics of Morocco and Spain, I spent the month of Ramadan living with a family in Rabat. Here, I witnessed daily moments of power in the female Islamic household. Not only do Aicha and I continue to share stories of womanhood across the Atlantic, but we also plan to reunite post-graduation to collaborate on giving a series of workshops for young women about sexuality and power. This photo-narrative project, indeed, might have negligible significance. However, both the final product narratives and the less tangible conversations of my work could be part of a slow, yet important paradigm shift for women around the world. These women who I spoke to, who are often misunderstood as apolitical or passive, have shown resistance to stereotypical common ideology. Perhaps one of the women I spoke with, with a new validation that she is a political actor, will be inspired to share her story more with young girls and boys in the future generations. A new cycle can begin: these children, perhaps more able to question anti-feminisms, could go on to be politicians, mothers or fathers, and teachers, participating in powerful webs of critical thinking and cutting-edge storytelling. Perhaps some women, who met each other in Granada or Morocco during our meetings or workshops about my project, will meet again. Thus these initial conversations could formulate new political spaces for women to collaborate, to break bread, across difference. Further, by refusing to reduce all women to a single story in the media and in daily conversations, we can begin the undoing of the patriarchy entering the home.

The process of my work, living and writing with these powerful women, drastically changed my path as a scholar and citizen. Our conversations not only pushed me to explore gender studies within Yale’s Ethnic Studies department, but they also questioned my very intentions of writing and creating art. It is quite difficult to put someone in front of your camera, to ask for her narrative—intimate, but also rendering a power relationship. Who am I, a Yale student from the United States, to make art about women in Morocco? I was asked, each day, to be a better listener; this project was not my own, but rather a product of many interventions and changes by the people involved. Thus, I began learning to become receptive and adaptive to voices in the room. Whether in a court as a lawyer or in the newsroom as a journalist, this series of experiences has inspired me to work alongside with, not above, the communities for whom I hope to affect change. Moreover, having showcased the Tangent project in various classrooms and for the World Fellows Greenberg program at Yale, I continued working with a student photographer on a campus-focused project on female intimacy at Yale. What is intimacy, and what does it look like in contrast to what the media portrays? Through this work, I not only formed priceless relationships with the participants, but I also gained new confidence in art as a power tool to combat pejorative stigmas in society around gender, love, and intimacy. The power of art and narrative has become boundless for many of us involved in the project—for this I look forward to the creative work that the women around me will do to forge political questions. This summer I hope to work with the Institute of Narrative Growth, a social justice organization that promotes cutting-edge stories as agents for groundbreaking change. How do we capacitate low-income communities in cities, or migrant workers new to the U.S., to share their stories of resistance against marginalization? How can we help the stories become more effective as evidence to garner change? Informed by my previous work in New Haven with labor unions and research on race and migration in Peru, Spain, and Argentina, this summer would be more than an eight-week opportunity to work with professionals in my desired field of human rights law. For many groups I would meet day-to-day, these conversations and workshops will become spaces for them to learn about the power of their stories, to validate their lived experiences as political forces. From entering public schools curriculums to newspaper headliners, stories of resistance can change the literal writings of history. And resistance, as I saw with IES in Spain, comes in a multitude of forms. We need more nuanced stories to complicate hegemonic narratives that exist that allow patriarchies in the homes of poor or underprivileged people across the globe. With IES, I learned to listen to powerful histories— closely and slowly—and to see each one as a possible chance to change the world.

Growing up, my parents provided my brother and I with many resources to academically and socially thrive—except they had one rule for us: our path must ultimately help people in some way. Combining my investigative and social passions, I came to study public health, with a focus on maternal health and child malnutrition. In my eyes, malnutrition is one of the direst inequalities we as a world and society must tackle. I believe this focus is critical because nutrition status at a young age impacts future growth, cognitive development, disease risk, mental health, and life quality of the children’s later lives. Despite Argentina’s rich social justice culture and the opportunity to strengthen my Spanish, Argentina’s public health system also called me to study abroad there. Unlike the U.S., Argentina has a universal health care option available to anyone, however, I was still aware that 22% of children are malnourished and the exclusive breastfeeding rate is low at only 33%. The supply of health care but lack of distribution contributed to my desire to volunteer with Fundación CONIN.

As a Global Poverty and Practice Minor, my challenge is to critically analyze all poverty solutions by looking at if the community has a large enough voice, asking if this is a “bandaid” or sustainable solution, or determining if this solution intensified a different problem; however, these complex analyses became frustrating and exhausting to me. I was stuck in a stalemate because each resolution we discussed in GPP or public health classes, had flaws or could do more harm than help, and the passion that led me to combine my public health and global poverty work was slowly being taken over by feelings of hopelessness and defeat. However, despite this stalemate, I went into my study abroad experience with an open mind, and was excited to engage in global poverty work from a perspective outside the classroom.

During my semester abroad to Buenos Aires, Argentina in Spring 2017, I participated in IES Abroad Service Learning and chose Fundación CONIN as my organization to volunteer with weekly. Fundación CONIN is a non-profit that aims to reduce malnutrition in the slums of Buenos Aires by offering free services to mothers and their children. According to the organization, everyone in the villa qualifies socially for these services because of income, employment status, or number of people in the family, but over half of the children also qualify nutritionally because of their malnutrition status. These services include appointments with a pediatrician, social worker, nutritionist, and psychologist, cooking and nutrition education classes, day care for the children during these classes, and free food bags and health supplements. I was thoroughly impressed with the organization, care, compassion, and connection the women who worked at the organization had with women who were being “served” at the organization. I quickly learned that this was a mutual relationship, and that all these women were deeply united. My work here truly pushed me out of my comfort zone as I rode the bus every Wednesday morning for an hour from a secure, privileged metropolitan area, to an immensely poor, and neglected slum, where I entered the organization as an outsider, and had to communicate solely in Spanish. During the beginning weeks of volunteering when my Spanish was still limited and I was unfamiliar with the structure of the organization, my jobs mostly consisted of packing food bags, organizing the office, or sorting donations. I was very intrigued by the services CONIN offered to the women and wanted to be working directly with the mothers, helping with breastfeeding and cooking education; however, I quickly understood I was here at this organization to help in any way possible. I was here not to gain my own experience—although this also occurred—or impose my “knowledge,” but to simply help wherever I was needed! This is where I think changing the world began for me. This organization needed small volunteer help with the simplest of jobs, and I was able to put my selfish desires and public health interests aside, to just simply help. In addition, as my semester continued, I was able to be more involved in the direct services. I assisted with breastfeeding, vaccine, nutrition, and cooking education, and reviewed the nutritional status of the children to determine if the children were underweight, overweight, or stunted. As my Spanish improved and I became more familiar with everyone, I began to build my own connection with the workers, mothers, and the children. To me, this was another huge focus of my greater aspiration to change the world through public health. Without the trust, communication, and participation amongst workers and the families being served, the entire organization and goal to decrease inequalities would fall apart. This trust between a non-governmental organization, and impoverished communities will allow more people to be served, spread more awareness of the accessibility of the services, give the communities a larger voice in future actions, and dismantle the idea that impoverished communities cannot organize or be active themselves. By allowing the mothers to lead in the organization and just helping where I was needed as an outsider, I believe I helped change the world through social organizing in many ways.

While abroad, I often thought back to the times at Berkeley when I was battling that “frustration bump”, feeling that each solution created another problem. My Argentinian experience, however, has brought me peace and an understanding that although no solution or effort put forward will be perfect or solve the entire problem, if I commit my time, work, and career to decreasing disparities, I will be changing the world in some way. Moreover, I came to realize that the low-income minority populations I wish to serve don’t have the privilege to become frustrated and give up on dealing with the inequalities they face, and therefore, I should not have that privilege either. In this current political climate in which minorities, people of low socioeconomic status, and women have a subordinate voice, there is no time to be frustrated and stuck in a stalemate simply because of critical analysis. More than ever, I am passionate and dedicated to standing up against the current political state that is not supporting minority and low-income groups, and is focused on promoting individualism rather than solidarity and collaboration. I am proud to say that this drive and perseverance to change the world is immensely accredited to my experience abroad. Without the work I did with Fundación CONIN, my host family, and learning about Argentinian culture, I would not value community organizing, realize I should help wherever I am needed, and be motivated to continue to work with impoverished communities as much.

To put to action the lessons I have learned abroad and my dedication to underserved populations, I will continue my public health nutrition focus in academia, my work at a community health non-profit in Oakland, and my research in Latin America. I have applied to purse my Masters of Public Health in hopes of dismantling power structures and health inequalities, but will apply for fellowships in Latin America if not accepted. I would like to continue my Child Development in Latin America research I currently do with my professor, but working with the direct research teams through fellowships in Mexico, Colombia, or Chile. With all these future options, I know I will carry with me the lessons IES Abroad Argentina has taught me in order to change the world.

“Look where I’m going, not where I’ve been.” That is a quote that was plastered along the walls of Working Chance, a London based recruitment consultancy for women ex-offenders. That is the mentality Jocelyn Hillman, the CEO, had when she founded the organization at her kitchen table in 2009. That is the passion I discovered when I had the opportunity to intern there the summer of 2017.

My first day started with drowning in my own privilege. I knew the organization chose candidates—the ex-offenders—and aided them in gaining employment, but I did not expect more than half of the agency to also be ex-convicts. It was chuckle-worthy at the time; the office was teeming with what society would label “outsiders”, yet, I was the only one. It was in that moment that I recognized my own privilege. I, at 19, was receiving a college education at a fairly prestigious school in the States, and when I applied, I was accepted without a doubt. I could travel across the pond to intern in a different country, and no one batted an eye. I could apply to any job I wanted, and presuming I had the right qualifications, I wouldn’t be overlooked. The candidates that came into Working Chance, and most of the people that worked there, they didn’t have that privilege. And that, to me, just seemed… unjust. Thus, I became more knowledgeable about my own prejudice and also became a champion for social justice. I vowed to fully immerse myself in this opportunity and change others’ mindsets about “criminals”. I began the MORE campaign.

I claimed that our non-profit was more than an average recruitment agency, and the staff was so receptive to the idea that it became the pitch for the new corporate membership program. I stated that Working Chance is not just an organization that helps women ex-offenders get jobs. Working Chance destroys the stigmas of ‘criminal’ and ‘offender’, and redefines those words completely, as the women that go through our program become MORE: more confident, capable, responsible, and motivated. Working Chance embodies the idea of second chances because every person, no matter what they’ve done or what they’ve gone through, deserves an opportunity to become MORE and believe that they are MORE: more than a conviction, more than a circumstance, more than a label. Working Chance revolutionizes the way people see justice because punishing someone twice—once with incarceration, once with the label—that isn’t justice.

Seeing our candidates, meeting them and getting to know them, became a priority of mine, so I started that campaign. I wanted to inspire others to see these women as more, but I would also have to inspire the candidates to believe that they, themselves, are more than their convictions. That, sometimes, is the biggest battle; prison takes away your freedom and can also take away your sense of self. That is why one of Working Chance’s fundamental goals is to raise the self-confidence of the women we see, whether that is through workshops, employability events, or one to one appointments. I’m proud to say I raised the confidence of at least 20 women while I was an intern at Working Chance.

Inspiring these people—both employees and candidates—cultivated my passion. I initially intended to get an internship in a law firm or within a barrister’s office in London; becoming an attorney was and still is my dream. But before my experience abroad at Working Chance, I didn’t have an answer for why that was. Now I know. It’s to be the difference in restorative and social justice. I’m not just going to change mindsets about “criminals”; I’m going to get rid of the stigma and ensure that these women never feel, as one candidate described, “worthless” or “without hope” ever again.

Since returning to the U.S., I’ve continued my studies at Loyola in forensic science and criminal justice. I continue to follow up on my interest regarding ex-offenders and the justice system by taking as many classes as I can regarding those subjects. I shadow defense attorneys and meet with their clients during school breaks, and I try to watch cases regularly at the courthouse while I attend school- both so I can better learn how to defend “criminals” when I become an attorney. I am an active member of Alpha Phi Sigma, the criminal justice honor society, and the Criminal Justice Organization at my university; we participate in many community service projects regarding ex-offenders. The most notable of those projects is The Summit of Hope, where we aided ex-offenders in the U.S. in getting jobs; I served as a volunteer last year, but hopefully will co-facilitate Loyola’s involvement this year. I also serve as a defense attorney for the Loyola Mock Trial team, where I defend a client who has been accused of attempted murder. Hopefully, one day I’ll be defending real “criminals” and be able to convince others that they’re actually not criminals at all. After all, one should “look where [they’re] going, not where [they’ve] been”.