This year our featured United Planet Scholarship Essay Winner is Laurie Lundeen. Her all-encompassing vision and desire to expand the world for her students captured our hearts and we think you’ll see why. Laurie applied to the Chile Quest prior to the recent earthquake. Her time and efforts there
now are even more important.
Photo taken from Kenny_maths, Flickr
We wish her luck on her Quest and are happy she can make a contribution on behalf of United Planet and her country. This is her winning Volunteer Abroad Scholarship submission.
A United Planet: Serving Others with Love
Growing up in the Midwestern part of the United States in the 1980’s, I had very little exposure to cultures other than my own. When I began studying Spanish in high school, however, my view of different cultures started to change and expand. As a Spanish teacher today, one of my goals is to raise my students’ awareness and appreciation of other cultures.
To me, a United Planet is when people of diverse ethnic backgrounds, cultures, and religions put aside their differences to come together on behalf of the greater good. A United Planet sees that we are all connected by the beat of our hearts and by the breath from our lungs. A United Planet knows that we are all one kind-human kind.
People of a United Planet see beyond borders. They restrain from making judgments about how others live. These people strive to make lives better around the world and in their own communities. Lives are improved in simple ways such as telling a child that you believe in him or even on a grand scale such as building a medical facility to help provide basic medial care for those living in squalor.
A United Planet is full of possibilities.
We can work towards achieving a United Planet by listening to what others have to say, by sharing our talents and gifts, and by respecting each other even if we don’t agree with others’ beliefs. By listening to our hearts, we will know who needs help and how to help them. By acting out of love instead of out of fear, we will build bridges across cultures. Love enables us to see people through new eyes, and it heals wounds created through prejudices and a lack of understanding.
By serving others, we learn about ourselves. We gain insight into our own strengths and weaknesses. We grow as human beings, living up to our true potential and expanding our connections to others. When others allow us to serve them, they are giving us a gift more powerful than our own service-the gift of acceptance.
On a personal note, my gift is teaching, and that is what I feel called to share through a United Planet Chilean Quest. I love working with children, and I value education. I know that it is through education that children will gain a broader understanding about the world in which they live and will be provided with more opportunities in their own lives. Through my United Planet’s Chile Quest, I want to share the culture of my students with the culture of students in Chile. In return, as many of my students will not have the opportunity to travel abroad, I will share Chilean culture with them. I hope to expand their horizons and to help them see how they are connected to others living in a country that is vastly different from the state of Indiana and the country of the United States.
For a chance to win a free United Planet Quest this year, apply to our 2010 UP Day Writing & Photo Contest.
ABOUT UNITED PLANET
United Planet is a non-profit organization with a mission to create a global community, one relationship at a time. Established in 2001, United Planet offers volunteer abroad, virtual internships, internships abroad, gap year volunteering, and global virtual exchange in more than 40 countries.
