I have been watching conflict for a very long time.
“There has to be a better way.”
I grew up watching conflict up close. I watched my parents argue, physically fight, and eventually divorce. I also watched people step in to help. Sometimes they helped. But sometimes it seemed they simply did not have the tools, understanding, or intentions needed to truly change what was happening.
That question stayed with me. Life would give me more opportunities to understand it—through my own marriage, divorce and eventual remarriage, and through what I witnessed in families and communities.
Through volunteering in East Africa, immigrant communities and hospitals, and later through my life in the United States, I continued to see the effects of unresolved conflict. I began to realize that what I had witnessed growing up was not an isolated family story.
Conflict was everywhere.
And too often, people were trying to navigate it without the tools they needed.
My search for those tools eventually led me to law. I wanted to understand systems, rights, responsibility, advocacy, and the ways people navigate difficult situations.
While volunteering with refugees and supporting them in hospital settings, I became increasingly aware of another kind of inequity. I saw people who were underrepresented and underserved, and that experience led me toward clinical research and a desire to contribute to better outcomes for people living with sickle cell disease.
In immigrant communities, I watched families struggle as cultures, expectations, gender roles, parenting styles, and ideas about marriage collided. Families were changing. Some were breaking apart. And it broke my heart.
Because I could see that many of these families were not necessarily lacking love. Sometimes they were lacking tools.
“If we start by understanding conflict, we can begin to build a better world.”