Emily Hedin
Application for the 2009 Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship
NARRATIVE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
My endeavors have led me down many paths. I have experienced the trenches of
campaign politics. I have helped Somali refugees acclimate to Midwest culture and
climate. And I have worked alongside Peruvian women as they picked up the pieces of a
generation shattered by terrorism. Yet my experiences are not as disparate as they appear;
the theme of partnership unites them.
My journey began when I met U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone. I shook the Senator’s hand
for the first time on a July afternoon over refried beans at the Burnsville City Bean Feed.
I was not yet old enough to vote, but the Senator’s clarion call for social justice
captivated me, and I began volunteering for his campaign. I stuffed envelopes, knocked
on doors, and registered voters at my high school. Then, on October 25, 2002, just twelve
days before the election, a tiny plane crashed near the small town of Eveleth, killing
Senator Wellstone and members of his family and staff. The Wellstone Campaign invited
me to contribute my skills and valued my participation. I have tried to do the same for
others in subsequent leadership roles.
My commitment to social justice led me next to Macalester College where I sought new
ways to strengthen my community. I began volunteering at the Jane Addams School for
Democracy as a tutor to female Somali immigrants preparing for the citizenship exam. I
quizzed my students on English grammar and U.S. civics. However, the women wanted
something different. More than a flow-chart illustrating the legislative process, they
wanted a guide to help them write this new chapter in their story. I found myself
deciphering report cards, health insurance applications, and bank statements. And when I
stopped thinking of myself as their teacher, I began to learn from them. Our lessons
became cultural exchanges as discussion drifted towards Islam, women’s rights, and the
civil war in Somalia. We walked the path from relocated refugee to United States citizen
together, not as student and teacher, but as learning partners.
As a student at Macalester College, I concentrated my work in political science and
international studies on multiculturalism. While I specialized in Latin America, I also
studied East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. I learned Spanish, French, and Wolof. My
honors thesis analyzed the relationship between leaders of the developed world and
leaders of Sub-Saharan Africa. Using Senegal as a case study, I proposed a theoretical
framework for explaining why African leaders have accepted neoliberalism. I prepared
for a world in which cross-cultural communication would be paramount.
The summer after graduation, I worked with the Comité de Derechos Humanos de Villa
El Salvador, a human rights organization in Lima, Peru. As an Upper Midwest Human
Rights Fellow, I implemented two workshops that addressed terrorist and state-sponsored
violence against women. I initially assumed that our identity as women would cultivate a
safe space for discussion; however, I found that participants identified more as survivors
and as citizens of Villa El Salvador. As a result, I did something I have seen few
community organizers do: I kept quiet. I encouraged participants to facilitate discussion
and determine the workshop’s direction. Participants explored the causes of violence,
shared personal stories, and discussed women’s role in human rights protection. Crowded
into a dark church undercroft next to my compañeras, I encouraged new leaders and built
new partnerships.
I now live in Lima, Peru where I co-direct a community center called the Center for
Development with Dignity in the poor neighborhood of La Encantada. Still under
construction, the center will house grassroots development programs and community
education. The center works on three fronts. First, we forge complementary partnerships
between Peruvians and North Americans. Deviating from the development paradigm that
expects donation from the Global North and cooperation from the Global South, we
encourage our members to propose their own participation. Second, we foster a familyowned community space. One family will live on the second floor and will coordinate the
center. By placing a family in the center, we create a fresh public space that retains
community investment. Third, we empower neighborhood activists. We spark the
leadership necessary to combat La Encantada’s poverty.
From Minnesota to Peru, I have sought new partnerships to address inequality. I am
confident that with time, education, and experience, I will be able to articulate a
philosophy of development that not only embodies my commitment but also manifests
itself in quantifiable, positive change throughout the world.
Prompt: "Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the
world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer
possibilities by the narrowness of their vision." —V.S. Naipaul.
HOW DOES THIS NAIPAUL QUOTE RELATE TO YOUR INTELLECTUAL
AND OTHER PURSUITS? (3,000 CHARACTERS)
Throughout his canon, V.S. Naipaul spoke of freedom and limits with regard to the
formerly colonized world. This particular quote speaks to a concern that has lingered in
my mind as I navigate my path towards a career in international development: that
establishing a niche will do more than limit my freedom, it will leave me unable or
unwilling to understand the multiple and deep-seated effects of my actions. I spent one
year in Senegal as a Fulbright Scholar, studying how the extension of financial services
(microfinance) impacts women. This experience helped me articulate the role
specialization should play in my academic and professional pursuits. I learned that
development work is ineffective unless tightly focused. However, this focus does not
negate the seminal importance of understanding development efforts within a broad
context.
For my Fulbright research, I studied an American-based NGO called Anti-Poverty
Initiative (API) that aimed to reduce poverty by helping women increase their incomes.
They did so by lending money to groups of women who then established small
businesses. My initial research showed success; the women earned markedly higher
incomes through micro-entrepreneurship. Yet, women reported little change in their
living conditions as male family members immediately assumed control over the money.
Moreover, the mental and physical stress of juggling child rearing, house keeping, and
entrepreneurship manifested itself in serious health concerns.
I struggled to understand how a program that so acutely identified its goal could be so
blind to its negative impact. API’s niche was actually its Achilles Heel: by focusing so
narrowly on income, they blinded themselves to other causes of poverty. An increase in
income should result in better living standards, health care, and education; however, the
lack of social and political opportunities for these women negated the positive impact of
their economic empowerment. I concluded that the most effective development worker
understands how economic, political, and social factors influence an individual as well as
how interference of a development project—regardless of its specific focus—will
consequently impact an individual at all three levels.
Since completing my Fulbright research, my belief that specialization should be
understood in light of social, political, and economic factors has continued to drive my
intellectual and professional pursuits. To many, this seems like a tall order; how can one
organization remain so acutely aware of how its work impacts broad questions of
economic, social, and political freedoms? In my current work in Lima, Peru, I try to do so
by keeping human dignity as my core value. For example, the role of income and wealth
is critically important to our understanding of development. However, many development
practitioners (such as API) mistakenly identify wealth as the ends of development. In
doing so, they create a niche that can be counter-productive. We do not value wealth
itself; rather we value the ability of wealth to help us obtain a good life. A development
program concerned with economic development should keep its projects well-defined and
tightly organized. Yet, I propose that such a program should focus not on the
accumulation of wealth but on the enhancement of freedoms that allow people to seek
wealth and obtain the life they value. The role of income and wealth—important as it is—
has to be integrated into a broader and fuller picture of human dignity.
Niapaul wrote during the period of decolonization, when the world was trying to forge a
new order. His words have particular relevance to the development field, whose task, in
part, is to address the deep-seated inequalities fostered by centuries of colonization.
While I disagree that a niche in an inherently limiting entity, Naipaul’s quote reaffirms
my commitment to approaching development with clarity of thought and scrutiny of
intellect. While working in a specific issue, such as women’s microfinance, I strive to
always understand the full impact of my actions for myself and other communities.
SHORT ESSAY #1: EXPLAIN WHY YOU HAVE CHOSEN YOUR FIRSTCHOICE UNIVERSITY FOR YOUR GRADUATE PROGRAM (1500
CHARACTERS)
When I began my graduate school search, the University of Oxford immediately stood
out. The mission of the Queen Elizabeth House (Oxford’s Department of Development
Studies) complements and supports my academic and professional goals. First, Oxford
emphasizes an inter-disciplinary approach to development; complex issues such as
poverty cannot be explained by one discipline alone. I am drawn to Oxford’s interdisciplinary research initiatives and the inter-disciplinary core courses of the development
studies curriculum. Second, I share the commitment of the Queen Elizabeth House to
study the social impacts of development, understanding the consequences of development
work on the lives it touches. I will contribute to this dialogue by sharing my own research
on female empowerment in West Africa with Oxford’s International Gender Studies
Centre. I will continue to address gender and poverty with Dr. Barbara Harriss-White as
well as Dr. Zakki Wahaj, who has agreed to supervise my MPhil thesis. Finally, the
Queen Elizabeth House is committed to building development models that focus on
human well-being. I plan to use my graduate degree to guide my life’s work in poverty
alleviation and human development. Programs such as the Oxford Poverty and Human
Development Initiative assure me that Oxford will provide the education to propel me
into a career of ethical and effective development leadership.
SHORT ESSAY #2: EXPLAIN THE REASONS FOR YOUR STUDY AND
CAREER CHOICE (1500 CHARACTERS)
I have three principle goals in pursuing an MPhil in development studies. First, I aim to
better understand the diverse causes of poverty. In today’s globalized world, immense
wealth and dire poverty exist in all countries; antiquated classifications of First World
and Third World no longer adequately reflect the distribution of global inequalities. To be
an effective development leader, I must be able to identify the shifting causes of poverty
within, as well as across, national boundaries. Second, I want to use this understanding of
poverty to build development models that promote human well-being. Previous
development policies that focus heavily on macroeconomic growth have ignored the
catastrophic impacts drastic economic reform can have on vulnerable communities. The
giants of development—such as the United States Agency for International
Development—have begun to institute decentralized projects, using community
involvement and empowerment as a vehicle for growth. While reducing the opportunities
for exploitation of the poor, these programs can be difficult to manage. I will focus my
study of development on the potential, as well as the pitfalls, of empowerment-based
development programs. Third, I am studying development in order to test and strengthen
my own development philosophy, specifically my belief that innovative partnerships
ought to be the focal point of development. While development programs are
encouraging decentralization, I believe there is more to be done in identifying, utilizing,
and encouraging the unique skills of target community members. An education that
fulfills these three goals will prepare me to be a leader in programs that fight poverty,
first as an development project field director and later as an international development
project coordinator.
SHORT ESSAY #3: WHAT ARE YOUR LONG-TERM CAREER PLANS?
My long-term career goal is to work in an international development organization,
designing and promoting empowerment-based development programs. I plan to begin as
a field director for projects in my two regions of interest (South America and West
Africa) and then as an international coordinator for such programs. I am currently the codirector of a community center—the Center for Development with Dignity—in the
southern slums of Lima, Peru. The center operationalizes a development model based on
innovative partnerships, family involvement in the community, and empowerment of
neighborhood activists. One example of our work is leadership workshops that employ
the experiences of seasoned community leaders to prepare a new generation of activists.
The skills of program coordinators (such as myself) are used to complement, not to
dominate, the skills of other community members. Upon completion of my degree, I will
expand the work of the Center for Development with Dignity. I will then seek
opportunities to work with similar empowerment-based development projects. I am
especially interested in programs for women that combine microfinance (the provision of
small loans and other financial services) with health services and education. This
fieldwork will lay the foundation for working with an international body, such as the
World Bank. The Center for Development with Dignity upholds the protection and
promotion of human dignity as both the means and the ends of development. While our
programs reflect the specific population we live among, this value has global relevance.
Once I have molded “development with dignity” into a model with solid theoretical
foundations as well as practical applications, I will seek the opportunity to reproduce it in
other parts of the world.