Emma Moran
Emma Moran learned life lessons in Australia, the Dominican Republic and Colombia, where she participated in peace-building activities of a charitable organization.
Emma Moran, from Arvada, Colorado, challenged her own worldview in Sydney, Australia, and encountered the challenges of sustainable development in the Dominican Republic. But it wasn’t until she arrived in Colombia for a two-month stay that she resolved some important doubts about some nonprofits and NGOs.
The resolution, she said, came through an internship with Sembrandopaz, an organization that builds sustainable peace across Montes de María, an isolated group of mountains near the northern coast of Colombia that was at the time heavily affected by Colombia's armed conflict.
These are profound experiences for a college student pursuing a major in cultural anthropology and a double minor in international relations and Spanish, and they came to her courtesy of Creighton University’s Global Scholars Program.
The program is designed to blend international study and travel into a four-year curriculum aimed at building global citizens.
Students live and study among a variety of cultures and people, study languages, complete specialized coursework and research and participate in internships while experiencing the unique social and service life of each location.
With Sembrandopaz, Moran says, she encountered an organization that focused on accompaniment rather than taking a solutions-oriented approach.
“I learned that by focusing on interpersonal relationships and embracing the complexity that peace-building, or any kind of community-building brings, an organization can stay rooted in the needs of the people they are working with, rather than straying towards profit or a power imbalance that belittles the original mission of the organization.
“I have always wanted to work in the non-profit/NGO sector after graduation, but I battled with the ethical implications of how some of the organizations were run,” Moran says. “Sembrandopaz takes a multi-dimensional approach to peacebuilding, focusing not just on political advocacy, but also sustainability, the arts, and spirituality.”
These experiences led to Moran’s capstone project, which describes how environmental sustainability and peacebuilding work together in the context of the farm and nature reserve she experienced in Colombia.
“Global Scholars was very affirming in my own career path and has helped me discern how I want to approach any kind of work I might do in the future,” she says.
