Carla Koppell: Making a Difference in the World

By Amanda Daley

Carla Koppell’s lecture in Friends Hall gave me a new understanding of global sustainability and women’s empowerment. I found her talk to be extremely interesting and it really opened my eyes.

Carla Koppell is Senior Coordinator for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and also Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the United States Agency for International Development. Her main objective is to focus US development assistance on fostering gender equality and women’s empowerment throughout the world.

The most important thing that she said was, “Be bold and be shameless.” I think that those 5 words alone made her entire speech. I am not the type of person that would stand up in front of a group of people and do something that I am not comfortable doing. By being bold and shameless you can accomplish so much even if it’s out of your comfort zone.

Another thing that I found interesting was when she said that what she is doing now isn’t what she wanted to do when she was younger. She said that she took on new challenges and tried different things to get to where she is now. I can relate to that because when going into college and getting to where I am now, I changed my major five times before I finally decided that journalism is what I wanted to do. I went from wanting to be an elementary school teacher, to being a radio broadcaster, to wanting to save the environment, to wanting to own a business, to wanting to write to make a difference. I also went to a different school before deciding that Ramapo was the right college for me. I think that it is important to try different things before you pick just one thing that you want to do for the rest of your life.

I also found it to be amazing that many countries, including our own, have little involvement from women. And when women did get involved in the government they found many flaws and made the laws better.

I think that talks like these are important to have at colleges, especially at a school that is centered on being more sustainable. Ramapo students can learn a lot from this lecture because everyone wants to make a difference and Carla Koppell is making a difference on making the world a more sustainable and women-empowered place.