My Background Story

I grew up in Armstrong, BC, a small town in the Okanagan Valley. I am currently a student at Capilano University in North Vancouver. I am in my second year of the Global Stewardship program, focused at sustainable development with a grassroots approach.

I am not only an advocate for gender equality, but for a wide range of social and environmental issues as well. It is my life ambition to increase the universal female literacy rate. I believe that through education many other world issues can be solved, so why not ensure everyone has the opportunity to live up to their full potential, decide their own purpose in life and contribute their intelligence to the solutions?

How did I decide on this life-long goal?
When I was nearing the end of my grade 11 year, one afternoon I was sitting in my social studies class and absent-mindedly flipping through the chapters of my textbook that we did not have time to study. By chance I flipped to a page with a bar graph showing the literacy rates of males and females in a variety of countries around the world.By this point in my life I had already developed somewhat of a feminist mindset (although I wasn't always certain about exactly what was unfair about certain gender roles in the world), but what I saw in that graph really hit me.
There were many countries, mostly those in the "developing world" that not only had a low percentage over all, but the female rate was often less than half that of the male rate. I don't know if I was more shocked by the statistics themselves, or by my own ignorance of the world in which I live. How did I not realize this before?
As I continued to look at that graph, I thought, "Maybe I can do something about that?" And that stayed with me for a while, but as grade 11 turned in to 12 I had to start planning my future.
I had no idea how to even attempt such massive dreams. So I decided to go with what I knew, what I was good at in school, and eventually went off to university to study science, but I couldn't do it. I didn't feel right there; I had no ambition to be there. So I left, and those thoughts of that graph came back. That was that, I had to do something about it. I soon found the Global Stewardship program, and I decided it seemed like a good place to start. Now here I am, doing something about it.

I haven't actually shared this story with many people, but I hope as you read this you might gain two things from it. First, I hope you realize just how seriously determined I am about this goal. Second, maybe this story will remind you of something that's been at the back of your mind for a while, something you would love to do, but you're too scared or you don't know how. I think you should try. It feels amazing to do what you really want to do, and if you only did what you know how to do you would never learn anything new.