Gender, Education, & Social Justice: Local & Global Changemakers

AMB. MELANNE VERVEER

We met the politcal changemaker, Amb. Melanne Verveer, Executive Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS). She is a changemaker in the sense that she advocated for an increase in women's participation in politics and was a leader in the development of the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. President Obama also appointed her as the U.S. Representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. She has an impressive record and that extended into the room as she asked each and every one of us where we were from, and she never failed to know and talk about each and every country and what role she played in them. I aim to be as well-versed as she is on the international state of affairs.

LAURA FRIGENTI

Next, we visited The World Bank and engaged in a discussion with Laura Frigenti, CEO The Global Partnership for Education, The World Bank. She worked for The World Bank for 20 years and focused her work towards education.

This was evident in our meeting with her where she emphasized the importance of education, and she mentioned various groups and the standard of education that must be attributed. She spoke of the necessity of education being attained by women, refugees, and other groups who are often not given the chance to complete or even start their education. She also advocates for the highest quality of education being provided and stresses the importance of being educated. Education is a tool that serves more than the 4 walls of the classroom, and her passion and dedication to education remind me how privileged I am to have an education and to attain it at a high level.