BELLA CHURCH

The Change I Want to Bring to the World

Early in my college career, I enrolled in a transformative course titled “Gender Issues in the Workplace” led by Dr. Elizabeth Dickinson at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. This course provided a semester-long glimpse into the harrowing realities of inequities in the workplace. As an incoming marketer at a large global corporation and a budding changemaker, I seek to promote a safe and empowering workplace for all. Aside from advocacy and mentorship, I hope to offer easily accessible professional development workshops and consulting services to women and to help fund and support female-founded startups. Drawing on inspiration from female leaders in business, I want to leverage my own imagination to pursue my visions and to continue to level the playing field for women in the workplace.

How I’ve Been Involved in Changemaking So Far

In 2019, I was introduced to The Female Quotient (FQ), a career organization designed to promote gender equity in the workplace, when a chapter started at my college. Hungry to get involved in the community as a college sophomore, I joined FQ@UNC as an executive team member. In this role, my teammates and I coordinated networking events and professional development workshops designed to inform and to empower women across all areas of study and industries. In this role, I led a LinkedIn workshop, compiling a presentation of best practices and key profile elements, for 30+ collegiate women. Leading this workshop not only allowed me to equip young women with tangible tips to build robust profiles and to encourage them to make meaningful connections with each other but also further illuminated my passion for mentorship.

What Drew Me to This Fellowship

I am at an inflection point in my life: leaving behind the comforting consistency of college and embarking upon my professional career. The uncertainty of a new life chapter feels daunting, yet I am optimistic for the opportunities ahead. Although I am grateful for the “hard” and “soft” skills I have developed thus far, as a lifelong learner, I want to continue bolstering my leadership toolkit, growing as a young professional and person. Never content with the status quo, I want to spark meaningful change in each organization and community of which I am a part. While it may be easy to feel jaded by the conflict and chaos of our modern world, I am hopeful for a future in which we can break down silos and unite over commonalities. I want to leverage my inner transformation to build bridges in our complex, interdependent world.

The opportunity to be surrounded by a community of like-minded learners from various disciplines and with diverse experiences will both challenge and inspire my worldview. I hope to gain from this program lifelong connections even after the program concludes. I feel confident that the Mentora Youth Changemaker Fellowship will equip me with a toolkit of competencies I can bring to future organizations I become a part of, to drive outer change.