Get to Know Your COA: Samantha Butisingh
Here’s Samantha
Hi everyone! My name is Samantha Butisingh. I am the Campus Outreach Ambassador (COA) for Maryland and Delaware and pretty soon, my home state of New Jersey.
I am also co-founder and the current president of our local ONE Chapter at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. I am a junior, double majoring in political science and psychology with a side of Russian. After graduation, I plan to attend grad school pursuing a master’s degree in Foreign Service, but before that, I want to work for the FBI for a couple years. Later on in my life, I also plan to pursue a doctoral degree in clinical psychology.
I have seen what living in extreme poverty is like through my many visits to Haiti and my birth country, Guyana. Guyana has improved significantly since I left, but is nevertheless still burdened by widespread poverty. My family members that remain there are considered the lucky ones – they can afford to have dinner on their table every night. Others are not as fortunate. However, it was my trip to Haiti on vacation that showed me a face of poverty that I have never seen. Unlike on my trips to Guyana, in Haiti I seized an opportunity to interact one on one with its most impoverished citizens. My mother and I had met a French couple who did humanitarian work. They took us around to shantytowns in the surrounding areas of Port au Prince. There I had gotten to see and speak with people who lived there. With no easy access to food and clean water, everyday life was a struggle for them. The stories of their everyday struggle to survive will stay with me forever. It is these stories that have inspired me to join in the fight against extreme poverty.
I was drawn to the ONE because of its belief in the political process and that with the right policies we can eradicate poverty and give relief to AIDS victims in the developing world. I believe that the political process can work, and if we unite as one with our fellow citizens nationally and globally, we can bring about real change. It takes political motivation at the highest levels to bring about the most dramatic change, and it is through the ONE that politicians can be pressured to take governmental policies in the right direction. Through the ONE, my voice has finally become part of this process.
I leave you with a quote from an inspiring humanitarian, former President William J. Clinton: “we cannot build our own future without helping others to build theirs.”
-Samantha Butisingh
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