Learning to Empower Others at One World Girl

My name is Kelsie Greene, and I am an intern at One World Girl and a senior at Fordham University in the Bronx studying Political Science, Gender Studies, and Arabic language. I was drawn to participate in an internship at One World Girl because of their commitment to empowering girls through arts and community-engagement programming that emphasizes the ability of girls to enact change and the power of diversity and global understanding. At One World Girl, my internship will focus on guiding and mentoring the Youth Advisory Council, assisting with our social media presence, and participating in non-profit management processes like fundraising and event organization. Although it is only my third week as an intern, I am already inspired by the intelligence and commitment of the girls and women I have met at One World Girl.

Originally from Charlotte, North Carolina, my passion for feminism and social justice has been an important aspect of my interests since high school. When I began my undergraduate studies in New York, I decided to pursue an education that would transform my interests in justice and equality into a career focused on empowerment. Selecting Gender Studies as one of my undergraduate majors provided me with the opportunity to develop a perspective of justice that analyzes aspects of identity like gender, race, and class to expose injustice and systemic inequality.

Throughout my time as an undergraduate student, I have tried to broaden my perspective by exposing myself to domestic and international experiences that challenge my point of view. For example, I spent a semester in Amman, Jordan where I studied the Arabic language, policy, and the refugee crisis while participating in an internship at the Center for Women’s Studies. Additionally, I traveled to Kolkata, India to learn about social justice methods addressing poverty and illness and participated in an internship at an anti-human trafficking organization in Charlotte.

During my junior year, I received a fellowship to conduct a research project on the construction of gender and race in Arab and Western media reporting on politically violent women during the Palestinian revolutions of the late 1900s. This project was challenging because it was my first time conducting extensive research independently, but it was incredibly rewarding as well. After holding research positions at my university and the Ms. Foundation for Women during my sophomore and junior years, I was drawn to the One World Girl internship as an opportunity to work directly with girls in my community.

Following graduation, I plan to pursue a master’s degree in International Affairs with Global Gender Policy and Humanitarian Studies concentrations. In my future career, I hope to pursue my commitment to empowerment for women and girls by working as a gender-focused policymaker within humanitarian crises of conflict and displacement. The focal point of the work I hope to engage in is empowering women and girl refugees to build communities that reflect their own ideas of justice, investing in creating more equitable and socially just societies and countries. I also plan to pursue innovative research that exposes injustice and challenges status quos that posit women and girls as passive victims of disasters rather than active agents of change.

I am so excited to spend the semester with the One World Girl community where I can pursue work that I am passionate about, help empower girls to be changemakers, and build skills for a career in the non-profit sector. I will end with a quote from Audre Lorde, in which she defines a commitment to feminism and the eradication of injustice as “learning how to stand alone and make common cause with others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish.” Thank you for taking the time to read about the One World Girl organization and my aspirations for girl and women empowerment.