I have spent a substantial part of my high school and undergraduate career attempting to improve awareness of and response to inequities and abuses that have deeply penetrated our society. The majority of my work has centered around health and wellness, as I have worked to improve interpersonal violence prevention and on-campus mental health resources. I have also worked to improve civil liberties at Georgetown and beyond in my advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights and efforts to aid the DC immigrant community. If you would like to partner with me on any of these issues (or any others!), please do not hesitate to reach out!
Considering the nature of my work, I would like to issue a content warning for mentions of suicide, mental illness, and sexual assault.
I first became interested in mental health advocacy during my sophomore year of high school, when I volunteered for the Out of Darkness Suicide Prevention Walk. Later on, I began fundraising for one of my favorite non-profit organizations, To Write Love on Her Arms. Shortly after transitioning to Georgetown University, I realized that campuses across the country, including my own, had a grossly insufficient number of resources for students struggling with their mental health. After seeing a few of my friends get mistreated or entirely abandoned by the university because of their health, I decided to play a more active role in campus activism to hopefully protect others from these abuses in the future. I was selected to serve as the Mental Health Policy Chair for the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA), our student government, in May 2020. I have led a number of projects and advocacy initiatives, including the following:
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After witnessing my peers endure the humiliation of misguided and often flippant administrative responses to sexual assault, I poured myself into the movement to prevent and educate others on interpersonal violence. At the beginning of my freshman year at Georgetown University, I joined Health Education Services's Sexual Assault Peer Educators (SAPE) program. As a member of SAPE, I worked with student organizations across campus to prepare and facilitate discussions of interpersonal violence, healthy relationships, and proper power dynamics that were tailored to that group's individual needs. Upon realizing how fruitful these hour-long conversations could be, I was hired to serve as a facilitator for Health Education Services's mandatory trainings during my sophomore year. I led five-hour-long bystander intervention trainings that were required for all incoming freshman, as well as three-hour-long trainings that prepared student leaders to prevent, identify, and respond to problematic behavior. I am now also a member of the Sexual Assault and Student Safety Policy Team at Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA), where I have advocated for improved campus resources and partnered with the Black Survivors Coalition and Health Education Services to further improve the mandatory trainings. In addition to the hundreds of discussions and lectures I have facilitated, I have worked on the following projects:
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I worked with the Georgetown University Center for Social Justice from January 2019 to January 2020 to tutor both young children and adults who recently immigrated to the United State are are struggling with English. I first began with the DC School Project's 1-2-1 Chinatown program, for which I spent six hours a week tutoring a fourth grade tutee who had immigrated from China a few years ago. I developed a unique lesson plan for this student each week that incorporated his unique interests and a variety of mediums. I used short stories, movies, games, and other activities to make each tutoring session as engaging as possible. Later on, I also worked with DC School Project's Parent Program, wherein I spent five hours every Saturday to tutor adults in English.
In March 2020, I also had the opportunity to participate in the Alternative Breaks Program to Harlan, Kentucky, where I and twelve other students spent a week immersed in the local culture. We partnered with local non-profit Coap to build sustainable housing for low-income households, and met with a variety of local businesses and government officials to better understand the economic challenges the area faces as a result of the declining coal industry. |
My advocacy for LGBTQ+ equality began during my freshman year at Georgetown University. During my second semester, I had the opportunity to serve as a Deputy of Advocacy for GU Pride, where I worked with a team of six students to advocate for increased awareness of the unique challenges that face the LGBTQ+ community at Georgetown and beyond. During my sophomore year, I also served as the Director of Professional Development for Georgetown LGBTQ+ Mentors & Resources (GLMR). In this role, I continued to advocate for my LGBTQ+ peers, with a particular focus on their professional and career needs. During my time in both positions, I worked on the following projects:
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