To be honest, when I applied to the Rotary Peace Fellow program, I didn’t think I would be accepted on my first try. My sponsor club gave me the expectation that most applicants are accepted on their 2nd or 3rd try, so I felt incredibly lucky and surprised to be accepted to RPF Class 16. I applied to become a Peace Fellow because I wanted to continue my education in social and environmental justice, and international relations, with the support of an organization that could help me pursue my professional and humanitarian goals after graduating. I chose International Christian University as my #1 choice among the peace centers because of their focus on research and critical approach to issues on development and peacebuilding.
 
At ICU, my concentration was Peace and International Relations. I studied part of the cosmovision of the native peoples of the Andean region, in southern Colombia and northern Ecuador. My thesis focused on what their worldview has to tell us about peace and security, and the implications that this has for how governments and other actors should address issues of security in that area, as well as globally. My research suggests that in our modern world, where a predominant view of security as “national security” is imposed by the state upon the lives of
many indigenous people, cosmovivencias are a source a more holistic security. By including cosmovivencias in our thinking on security, we can understand it differently, as a product of relationality and the agency of all human beings to exist on their own terms.
 
While in Japan, I also had the opportunity to explore much of Tokyo and the rest of Japan. I had the opportunity to visit Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hokkaido, Akita, Iwate, Kyoto, Kanazawa, and Kyuushuu. I absolutely loved the country, its culture, and the Japanese people. I especially loved that Japan is so volcanic – I visited at least 30 different onsen! After talking to my Japanese friends, it sounds like that is more onsen than most of them have ever visited in their entire lives, so I consider that a big achievement in just 2 years.
 
Throughout the program, I always thought that I was so incredibly lucky to have been chosen to participate. I learned so much through my studies at ICU, during my field research, and through visiting sites so important to international discussions of peace and historic memory in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I also felt I was incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic community supporting me. Moving to Japan is very easy in some ways – the infrastructure is fantastic, and the people are incredibly welcoming and helpful. But it is also difficult at times because the language barrier and cultural barriers take time to overcome and for Japan to feel like home. The ICU, RPF, and Rotary community was so helpful and supportive, and I was so thankful to everyone who helped me get through writing my thesis!
 
Currently, I am living in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I work for the Institute for Economics and Peace. IEP is a think tank dedicated to analyzing peace and quantifying its economic value. They publish the annual Global Peace Index and Positive Peace Index reports, and the data they produce is used by governments, academic institutions, think tanks, non-governmental organisations and by intergovernmental institutions such as the OECD, the World Bank and the United Nations.
 
In addition to my work for IEP, I am also working to build a social enterprise focused around cacao – with the goal of providing programs the local community around the cacao farm in Colombia on healing, sustainable common-economy, active-researching, creative mobilization in defense of collective rights and strengthening of social fabric.