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A portion of Amber's winning essay:
Everyone has a story. Who we are is defined by the stories we tell. My archetypal profession is story telling. Modern story telling translates into filmmaking, marketing, fundraising and communications. At the root of who I am is my story. And like most stories, it begins with a genesis. I began my education with Environmental Science and Pre-Law majors at the University of Oregon. However my interests took me into the realm of exploring issues of globalization and cross-cultural communications. I took the opportunity to study abroad at the Technological Institute of Monterrey in Guadalajara Mexico and at the Jesuit Pontific Catholic University of Ecuador, in Quito. I also volunteered in Quito with multiple NGOs while researching my thesis about prostitution. I spent 7 months in the red light district interviewing sex-workers. I found myself “in the right place at the right time” when the Sex Worker’s Federation marched naked in front of the capital protesting the violation of their right to work in the historic district of the city. I titled the thesis: The Power of La Puta: The Empowerment of Sex Workers in the Historic District of Quito, Ecuador. The day before I left Quito Ecuador, two children died on the streets from starvation and exposure to the cold, at the tender ages of seven and five. It broke my heart. I wondered to myself . . . “how did this happen?” How could people let these children die? As I flew back to the United States, I was re-routed through Las Vegas, due to bad weather. As soon as I landed in Las Vegas, I understood how these two children could die on the streets of Ecuador. They weren’t valuable to the global economy. Their lives weren’t important enough for someone to spend the little bit of money to feed and protect them. This became overwhelmingly apparent as I walked through the Las Vegas airport. Everything I saw was focused on money. I saw people with dark circles under their eyes sitting at slot machines, mindlessly dropping their money into the belly of Las Vegas. The level of excess made me nauseous. I asked myself, “How does money become more valuable than human life?” Feeling a sense of loss, I returned to finish my last semester of school. I presented my thesis in the summer of 2002 and received my BA, cum laude with dual majors in International Studies and Spanish, focusing on sustainable development in Latin America, and a minor in Women’s Studies. Due to my experiences in Ecuador, I rejected the idea of going to work for lots of money. So immediately after graduation, I worked for an educational non-profit that provided jobs and taught at-risk youth in wilderness settings. I spent 24 hours per day 7 days per week, miles in the wilderness, as the teacher, manager, counselor and primary care giver for 10 adolescents with serious problems. Within 3 months I was ready to move on in my career as an educator and accepted a job teaching Spanish in a public high school in Anchorage, AK. My vision was to dedicate my life to young people in need. I thought that I would be able to make a difference and change the world. But my idealism began to fade as I found that my ability to create change was limited by the bureaucracy of the public school system and the lack of support for teachers. Anchorage is the 2nd most diverse city in the USA, after Honolulu Hawaii. There are over 86 different languages spoken in the Anchorage School District. Poverty, alcoholism and drug addiction are epidemics in the community. I had over 150 teenagers per day in my classroom and most of them had serious problems relating to abuse, poverty and drug addition. I poured my heart into work. I spent all my free time at the school, giving extra tutoring and counseling and still I couldn’t help them. After one of my students committed suicide and another died from mal-nutrition, I left teaching in 2004. Since then, I have been working in the educational and non-profit sectors, developing my skills in communication and leadership. I have had roles in curriculum writing, project management, communications, mass media campaigns, event planning, fundraising, marketing and filmmaking. I have been working for groups such as TreePeople and Friends of the Urban Forest. I free-lance and volunteer for causes, organizations and small businesses that I know make the world a cleaner, safer, healthier and more sustainable place to live. Through this work, I learned that grassroots organizations with powerful messages and access to media are the most effective in creating change. This has inspired me towards a career in communications; and thus eager to start my own business helping small businesses and non-profits develop communication strategies. The media is the one of the most powerful tools for teaching on a mass scale. Film in particular, has the capacity to build public opinion and inspire change. My goal is to start a multi-media production and consulting company that works with sustainable businesses and non-profits to help them market and advertise their services and products, as well as create campaigns for social change. I already have started this. For the past year, I have been creating short viral marketing videos for small businesses and non-profits. I have also created an independent film, Gotta Go, about issues that immigrant day laborers face in San Francisco. I hope to expand these types of projects into a business that takes a holistic approach to communications and marketing, incorporating all elements of how to spread a message from the grassroots to the billboards. The Presidio School of Business is the perfect fit for what I want to create. It will not only teach me the appropriate skills to operate my own business, but it can enable me to guide others in their businesses as well.
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