By now, most of you have heard the news...and it's true! I have been granted a unique opportunity to learn more about an issue that I've always held close to my heart, perhaps persuaded, but not solely based upon my gender: Women's Empowerment. While in our own lives, we may feel empowered, free to choose, free to create a livelihood, free to live; unfortunately in other worlds, not so far from our own, exists the opposite. Worlds where women live without the rights to which all people are entitled.
On Christmas Eve, I received an unexpected phone call. The eager voice on the other end notified me that I was the chosen grant recipient of their foundation's award and that my submitted proposal would become a reality...all I had to do was choose to accept. Accept an opportunity that I had personally researched, written and proposed which centered around the wise words of Woodrow Wilson, “We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.”
We are all agents of change. As quoted from my proposal, "Armed with tangible, real-life experience of working as part of another society, one can escape the stifling grasp of a closed mind and stake a claim in the personal interest of individuals across the globe. Millions of miles and stretches of sea diminish as refugees of Rwanda, HIV infected children of Haiti, street children in Sri Lanka and women chastised by the castes of an ancient Indian society transform from faceless numbers to become faces of friends."
Chennai, India will be the first stop on a two-country tour. In Chennai, I will work with a native non-profit organization that has been in operation for over 35 years, back when India's fourth largest city was still known as Madras. The organization centers around a live-in women's facility and community outreach programs where AIDS education, human trafficking, ESL skills, and self-help groups are all pushed into the spotlight. I will be working for two months on a project to help rehabilitate rescued prostitutes and other victims of human trafficking, hidden but not forgotten, throughout the sprawling districts of Chennai. While working with this special population, I will also study; attempting to understand the intricacies and profound issues plaguing women in Southeast Asia.
Armed with the knowledge from this mature organization, I will travel to Kathmandu, Nepal for four months. Nepal although close in physical proximity, remains a distant parallel of India. Although the seeds of Women's Empowerment have been planted, they lack a solid foundation from which to grow. Instability from the insurgency over the past ten years, coupled with the rigid mindset of second-class citizenship have stunted the growth of equal rights and access to education. The lofty goal is to help further develop a fledgling Women's Empowerment Program, while cementing a similar foundation that has stood as a beacon in Chennai for women's rights.
Since the day I clicked submit on my final grant proposal, I felt deep in my heart that I would receive that phone call. I knew this, not because my proposal was superior in any shape, but that I felt divided. Bittersweet is the only adjective to describe my favorite lines from one of my essays, "Halfway along my path, the world pounded at my door disguised as twenty elder refugees who showed me a sliver of what I had thus failed to see in this world. As I taught verb conjugation, prepositions, citizenship and civics, my students taught me about civil war, genocide, freedom and fear." Looking down one avenue, I will be walking toward an issue I have always yearned to explore - women. Down the other avenue, I will be walking away from a path I have grown to love more than anything ever before - refugee elders. Because of this internal conflict, it was inevitable I would need to make a decision. They say, "Sometimes the hardest decision and the right decision are the same." I just hope they are right...
