Youth Voices: Focusing on we, not me.

Twelve thousand kilometers from home, one hundred forty of Ram's meals, fifty-six nights of sleep, five village visits, two daily masala chais, and one once-in-a-lifetime stay in India. This is a peek into my experience as a Borlaug-Ruan Intern in Gurugram, India at the S M Sehgal Foundation.

However, I find it impossible to encapsulate the rich learnings, experiences, and growth I've had here solely through numbers. Likewise, as my internship comes to a close, I feel the pressure of collecting these moments and stories that spill out over post-it notes, notebook margins, and voice messages I've sent back home to try and shove them into three to four sentences for a resume or a new section on my LinkedIn profile. These carefully crafted sentences, book-ended with active verbs and big numbers, are supposed to encapsulate all the skills, accomplishments, and activities I've developed and undertaken here over eight weeks. They read along the lines of look at what I did, or in a nutshell: me, me, me, and me.

Yet, reflecting on my experiences at the foundation and the learnings I acquired along the way, one of my biggest lessons has been that this work isn't centered around me. Actually, it's barely about me. Instead, it's much, much, MUCH bigger than myself.

All the conversations, interactions, and experiences I've had here, whether sitting crisscrossed on a vibrant purple charpai (a traditional woven bed) during an interview with a rural household or scraping off the last bites of yogurt in the dim lighting of the cafeteria long after the start of dinner, have taught me to de-center myself from my work in the climate, food systems, and nonprofit sector. These experiences and lessons didn't happen for me to merely lengthen my CV and casually mention during future interviews. In the face of the threats overwhelming our ecological, social, and political spheres, and the humanity of every person I've met along this journey, how can I merely approach this work as a means to an end for my self-interests? This work is part of something much bigger than every one of us. Challenging ongoing existential threats to our climate and communities around the world requires the collective courage and action of millions aligning themselves with this greater purpose and mission that carries implications for millions, if not billions, of more humans to come...[CONTINUE READING]