About
PATHWAY
Nature as a Human Right
In my career, I hope to work toward increasing access to nature for everyone and reducing the barriers to entry for outdoor sports and adventures. Nature has always been a place where I've felt at peace and more connected with myself and many of my most cherished memories from childhood have been in the mountains, at the beach, in the river. But I've been so lucky to be able to enjoy exploring these places of peace, contentment, self-reflection, and happiness that should be available to everyone - because of the places I've lived in, my family's wealth, my ability status, and so on. The extreme lack of diversity in sports like skiing, whitewater kayaking, and backpacking is a symptom of bigger social inequalities which have led to these sports being so heavily dominated by cis white men for so many years. When we forget that, we can ended up blaming these sports and spaces and forget the bigger picture: they are thing everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy, yet so few do.
As I've learned more about nonprofits in college, through classes, volunteering, and internships, I've seen organizations with a wonderful mission and set of values gradually drift from this and succumb to many the same issues in society they're working to fight. But I've also been impressed by all the good a group of people can do when they work together toward something bigger than themselves. Through my pathway, I want to keep educating myself about social issues. (The more I learn, the more I realize how much more I have to learn.) I want to learn how to work together with others better, how we can embrace the diversity in perspectives and ideas that everyone in a group has so we can envision a better world for everyone. The one thing that may change in my pathway is the "nonprofit" part, which is half of the pathway of course, but ultimately it's the social change I most want to learn about and strive toward - and I believe nonprofits have a lot of potential to help us get there.
