Sarah

As an Alaskan-Hawaiian, I suppose going as far away as France for my undergraduate degree was not completely out of the ordinary because it already felt like I was living extremes on a daily basis. I attribute the experience of growing up in distant Alaska to what fueled my drive to discover a new and unfamiliar place (not to mention language as well!). I really had no idea what to expect when I arrived in Paris back in the fall of 1996 and walked into orientation at AUP. In the end, what I found in my four years at AUP was a community so diverse and intriguing and an experience so rich with opportunity. It is that community that inspired me to be where I am today.

For over 8 years I have been working for the International NGO, Oxfam, and currently as a Senior Advisor for Gender and Regional Policy in our Private Sector Department. In that role my primary focus is to identify and promote programmatic linkages in Oxfam’s target regions where the private sector and markets can be leveraged by poor communities for social change. In addition, I lead on the gender equality index that scores companies on policies and practices for Oxfam’s Behind the Brands Campaign and manage the Community Based Human Rights Assessment Initiative. My path to international development was definitely unconventional but it provided me with a unique outlook and creative advantage in the sector.

At AUP I pursued my degree in Art History which led me to exciting internships at the Louvre and Magnum Photos. But throughout that time, I always had the desire to bridge those pursuits with a social mission.  Some of that groundwork was being laid when several of us created a pioneer recycling program at AUP. The last time I visited campus several years ago, I was pleasantly surprised to see that everything had “gone green.”

After graduation, I went on to the Peace Corps in Côte d’Ivoire to put my fluent French and social change mission to work. From there I went on to pursue my Masters in Sustainable International Development and conducted my thesis research on Fair Trade cocoa with indigenous communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon. I joined Oxfam shortly after graduation.

During my tenure at Oxfam, I have had the opportunity to march alongside farmworker advocates to push for workers’ rights in the US, speak at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva and Ethiopia on the need for community-driven solutions to due diligence processes, and work with companies to push them further to improve conditions for women in their supply chains through our Behind the Brands Campaign.

Many years and continents later, I am settled in Boston, MA with my husband and 18-month old boy, Keanu. It all started with that wild idea to leave Alaska for AUP and I am so grateful I took that chance. AUP and Paris last for what now feels like a blink of the eye but those moments truly shape you for a lifetime.