Undergraduate / My goal is to help women and protect the environment - Pitzer Supplement [4]

Hey guys, I'm an international student applying to US colleges and I wanted someone besides my academic counselor to go through my supplement essay and tell me what they think about it. It's for ED and the deadline's pretty near. Please feel free to comment/suggest.Your help would be appreciated very very much (the essay is pretty long and a bit over the word limit but I can manage that)

- Incorporating one or more of our core values, how would you contribute to solving a local or global issue of importance to you?

I have grown up in a family where women have had almost equal opportunities as men. But that was not the situation in our community or country. At a young age, little aware of hardships women go through, I fought for women's rights and supported environmental protection simply because our environment was necessary for survival. Until high school, I was not involved in any women or environment-oriented program but I soon understood why people devoted so much time to women empowerment and environment conservation when I got the chance to assist my mother for a weeklong program in Shermathang village of Northern Nepal. T-HELP NEPAL (Trans Himalayan Environment & Livelihood Program), an organization led by my aunt and mother, works to conserve the Himalayan environment while economically empowering vulnerable, underprivileged Himalayan women and improving livelihood opportunities. Although we Nepalese are known for our famous Himalayas, people are seldom aware about the poor socio-economic conditions of the Himalayan families, especially the women. Furthermore, these tourist-attracted places and nearby places have been exploited at such rates that the fragile Himalayan environment and its resources have been wearied. It was not until I got involved in this program that I realized what I truly wanted to contribute to society. I believe that women are active agents of change and development. They say that once a woman is educated, so is her entire family. Once we succeed in empowering women socially and economically, we can teach them to conserve the environment. And in such ways, with joint efforts of the women and her family, they could contribute to conserving the environment. With that in mind, we conducted our program in Shermathang. The visit and interaction gave us an opportunity to understand the socio-economic situation of the women and the region's environment. The women were very keen on learning about sustainable programs such organic farming, vermi-composting, bio briquettes, solar power that would add to livelihood. I was surprised how they were so interested in adopting eco-friendly techniques without noticing that they were actually helping to conserve the fragile environment around them. This gave us hope that our organization could achieve its goal of environment conservation while empowering women. And soon their goal became one of my goals in life too.

In the four years I spend at Pitzer, I believe my knowledge, understanding, awareness and involvement in my course of interest and five-core values will take me a step closer to achieve my goal of helping women and conserving the environment. Among the core values, intercultural understanding will help me the most not just to achieve my goal but for me to be a better person and to know my responsibilities. Living in a global and intercultural community at Pitzer, will add to my ability of understanding, interacting and bonding with people. Since Nepal has such diverse ethnic and cultural groups, intercultural understanding is a quality I feel will help me make a difference. Also, by taking part in the study abroad program, I will be able to explore and experience cultures and places similar and different to Nepal and learn from them. This will help craft and enhance my skill of intercultural understanding in order to be able to travel to regions in my country where I could understand the women closely and plan accordingly as to how to empower them and conserving the environment they live in. In addition, participating in different student clubs at Pitzer will open doors to collective ideas and innovations that could be of great help. By being a part of both the FemCo and Eco Club, I will be able to combine gender, development and environment in such a way that one compliments the other for the better good. With the help of the school, professors, friends and classmates, I hope to learn and bring back something to my country that will help us in women empowerment combined with environment conservation. I believe that my connections with the school will help me throughout my life and my goals even after graduating. "Think locally, act globally" is what I keep in mind and with joint efforts, I know that Pitzer will help me achieve my life-long goal.