Monday, 25 November 2013
Soraya and the McCain Institute: who I am and why I do what I do
The following is an extract of my application interview conducted in Feb 2013. I explain how I decided to stop suffering and become a Development actor.
I am from a little marginalised community, enclaved at the center of the African continent. My community has been tagged as a minority in the Congo with only 2500 adult individuals registered in the last census. People in this part of the world have suffered a little bit more of what other Congolese have experienced in the past century: Slave trades, brutal colonisation, dictatorship, wars, displacement, epidemics, extreme poverty etc.
I have lived some of these and have decided that more than a hundred years of suffering was enough and things must change. My goal for the next ten years is to participate in the economic and human development of people living not only in Ubwari but in the entire eastern region of the Congo.I went to the only private schools of the district, and in times of war, when most of my friends had to wait for peace to return I completed highschool in the private Congolese school run by the DRC embassy in Burundi. I later completed a law degree in the best University of the South Kivu Province but quickly realised that knowledge in law would not help me change things, but merely name the culprits and extend blames. By then the country was in the middle of the civil war that brought more than 11 countries in the Congolese soil. I went in Kenya for a MA in International Relation, conflict resolution.
I came back and started making an impact for people back home and was recognised as Miss Leadership DRC for 2011. This provided the opportunity for a British Chevening Scholarship which I seized. In 2012, Isuccessfully completed a MA in Development Studies at the University of Sussex and then came back to continue my development work. I am a very optimistic and pragmatic person who believes that change starts with one person who is able to communicate his vision, meet other person sharing the same aspiration and motivate his or her surrounding to shape their destinies in the best possible way for them and the future generations.
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