MISSION

As a scholar studying Philanthropy and Human Rights at Teachers College, Columbia University, I incorporated my work in Operation Merienda as the focal point in my study of global civics. As the founder of this organization, I am tasked with fundraising and networking in New York, while running the operation through digital tools online. I organize teams and women entrepreneurs online to fulfil civic engagement duties that I fundraise for here in the United States. I primarily use Facebook and Remitly to operate the various community-based projects and educational advancement endeavors I design through Operation Merienda. When I think about the innovative mechanisms of global civics that I am trying to fulfil through Operation Merienda, I think of the histories of objectification that routinely reduces the story of a people to a narrow understanding of suffering. Of a people in need of saving. Of a people objectified to a past without any acknowledgement of their capacities in the present. Development, like the state of education today, operates in a disinterested and transactional way. The measure of radical progressive impact in my work through Operation Merienda may appear as an endeavor drenched in heightened idealism at first. I say this because one can probe further and question my meaning when it comes to understanding abstract concepts like "spreading love" and "sharing joy". But these are objectives that do not require much explanation. What I aim to demonstrate here is that the prescriptions of social advocacy and impact are not solely based on one's monetary capacity. Rather, the human experience is an action of co-creating social realities that defy the narratives of suffering assigned by mainstream ideologies which paint complex stories of resilience and value as null in service of an oversimplified fiction. The idea of global civics is accessible to anyone regardless of our background if we are invested in creating actionable paths to social uplift while leveraging existing technological and human infrastructure to progress towards a more equal world.