While studying at Columbia, I had the pleasure of studying under Professor Yumi Shimabukuro, Director of Urban & Social Policy at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
Professor Yumi is such a kind and optimistic professional and educator. She works tirelessly on systemic policy design and analysis to help marginalized populations around the world—people who are stuck in cycles of poverty or experiencing slow or stalled economic and social mobility.
As one example of what it was like to attend her Comparative Social Welfare (U6228) course, we conducted an exercise to illustrate the value of caretakers. Yumi had us hand-draw figures of caretakers from our past on large poster paper and tape the posters to the wall. Then, we were instructed to draw arrows pointing to the parts of the figures that we most valued or remembered about our caretakers.
An interesting exercise for adult grad students, but a meaningful and memorable one nonetheless. When it was my turn, I drew lines on the figure to the heart and the mind and talked about how smart and caring my Aunt Bea—my mom’s sister, who took care of me while both my parents worked—was.
This story reminded me of two things: first, none of our success or accomplishments in life happen on their own. We all need help from caretakers, family, friends, peers, colleagues, or perhaps even strangers, at some point in our lives. Second, there are so many people working in public service, nonprofits, and academia who are thinking about and working daily to find solutions to help the most vulnerable among us. We can’t give up on those doing the work, and we have to keep doing what we can to make the world a bit better, day by day. If not for us, then for our kids, our grandkids, and the generations to come.