Vocation

Through my close friend’s recommendation, I decided to attend Harvard’s 24th Global Development Conference, as I have been interested in working for the UN since I first learned about UNICEF in my social studies class in middle school. I hope to pursue the International Planning and Development track for graduate school in Urban Planning at Columbia over the next two years.

The UN Development Programme’s sustainable development goals (SDGs), the goal of addressing poverty, of pursuing equity and sustainability and “leaving no one behind” is imperative, as Achim Steiner, the Administrator of the UNDP shared this morning. It is through collective security, managed risk, and a prevention-oriented lens in which we should make our investments. I went to three sessions today–Silicon Valley meets Philanthropy, Innovations in Financing for Development, The Future of Employment, and had the honor to meet Jenna Nicholas from Impact Experience and Siddhartha Raja from the World Bank. My key takeaway from today is that the private, public, and nonprofit stakeholders all have a role to play in making the world a more equitable place, through the use of diaspora bonds (World Bank), social impact and development impact bonds (Social Finance UK), the socially-conscious, devolved mobile workforce, total shareholder return / total societal impact over corporate social responsibility initiatives (BCG) … the list of possibilities goes on! Various questions brought up today still hover in my mind, and I cannot stop thinking about them– how can we address implicit biases towards minorities, women, and people of color as Jenna brought up? Who is left behind, who has access to technology and information, and how can we help people make more informed choices? What right do people have to intervene and determine who gets aid (what about benchmarks, metrics, the motivation of investors?)? How do we deal with uncertainty, reconcile with depressing but realistic facts and figures, the inglorious / unwritten histories of the past? How do we make time to spotlight the voiceless, to become informed citizens, to slow down, when technological advancements are advancing and fake news is spreading at an accelerated rate? I feel incredibly privileged to be able to think about these issues and pray that God will help sustain the positive momentum, to give me the strength and ability to comprehend what I learned in order to help advance the SDGs.

Finally, I was inspired by Tony Wagner (Learning Policy Institute), who drove home the idea that we must rely on intrinsic rewards, of play, passion, and purpose to shape our own career paths. Education is such a rewarding field! I aspire to become a practitioner and teacher in the future.

Although I feel an overwhelming sense of joy and hope from being exposed to the possibilities of improving the lives of people around the world, I have also been experiencing extreme pain and despair from understanding that a family member’s mental health condition has worsened. I was recently informed that someone I am close to has borderline personality disorder. Just trying to trace the threads of evidence, to comprehend the intense episodes of anger, depression, and anxiety that can last from a few hours to days someone I love is experiencing breaks my heart. It is the incomprehensible nature of mental health and illness, the complex and deep-rooted causes and effects that I do not have the power to change that bothers me. It is at times like these that I am reminded of the importance of prayer as I try to understand how I can best be supportive.