This past summer I participated in a job shadow at the World Food Programme USA. There, I spoke with different members of the communications, marketing, outreach, and grassroots branches of the organization to understand how the nonprofit works to successfully get out their message. Additionally, I created my own presentation on ways the Zero Hunger Generation initiative can improve their outreach and get the youth involved in the organization.
Out of all the people I met over my two short weeks, Cynthia Yue was the person who had the most influential impact on me. She was young, smart, and most importantly passionate about the cause she worked for. She was the Advocacy and Engagement manager and had just launched the Zero Hunger Generation initiative; a program dedicated to getting the younger generation involved in preventing food insecurity and becoming passionate about the cause. In my interview, I asked her to explain the background that got her where she is today. My intention with this question was to hear about the internships, school, and previous work experiences she had had, but instead she said “the path is less about professional development, and more about the passion that stemmed from my immigrant family,”. She talked about how she came from one of the poorest regions in the US, one that left many families rationing food and going to bed hungry. Yue talked about her passion to help other families in high school even though her family was not financially stable either. Unlike many, she took action on the need she observed in her community, beginning her journey of making a difference in the crisis of hunger.
As the interview continued, I shifted to asking questions focused on her day to day work. We talked about the skills necessary to work in the non-profit space and what it means to work in an organization similar to the World Food Programme USA. She mentioned that the skills she learned in her classes were not the ones she found the most helpful in her day to day life, but more the ‘soft skills’: kindness, relationship building, and innovative thinking. She described the process she suggested when finding a job, saying that “it is important to find a skill you are good at and then find a job that aligns with your passions that you would contribute to.” I thought this was smart advice, and made sure to ask about her own personal experience with juggling passion versus paycheck.
Besides her work, I was curious about their mission. What were misconceptions people had about global hunger? What are the limiting factors? Cynthia explained how global hunger “is our world’s most solvable problem and how the drivers of hunger are conflict, climate crisis, and equality”. Now, something I found interesting about this is that none of these issues involved money. There is enough food in the world to feed everybody. As Cynthia said, “you could feed the entire population in the world w size of land of ethiopia!” It is within poor policy choices that lead to extreme hunger.
Lastly, I asked Cynthia if she could give her younger self any advice what it would be. She took some time to think about the question and then responded “Passion. Passion should be what drives you. It is okay to have a work life balance, prioritzing mental and physical health, but in order to get through the difficult hurdles of a career you need to be passionate”.
As I walked to the metro after my last day shadowing at World Food Program USA, I thought about my overall experience, especially my interview with Cynthia Yue. This experience made me realize that even though I am not positive about what I want to do for work when I am older, I should have a different perspective. So now, instead of chasing internships or jobs, as resume building items, I think about how I can dive deeper into the topics I am interested in. I think about what I am good at and what skills I enjoy doing. And most importantly, I think about dedication and the opportunities that open with a positive mindset.
