South Africa Emzingo Internship Jessica Nadolski

Excerpts from Jessica Nadolski's "MBAs Beyond Borders: The Emzingo Experience in South Africa"

 

"How the Emzingo Experience Changes You

Emzingo has helped us have a powerful and practical experience during our MBA.  We have made our "International MBA" truly international.  Through the structure of the team, the cultural and educational sessions, and the personal experience of addressing social issues in a 3rd world country, we are now fully engaged in changing ourselves to become change agents out in the world.  Emzingo has created a program that delivers the opportunity and the power to learn, experience, and grow into a global leader.  

The first day in South Africa, Andrew took us to the Apartheid Museum.  I think for many of our generation, it is sometimes hard to understand how people can hate so much based on so little.  For most of us, we read about things like Apartheid, the Holocaust, and we wonder how it can happen, and how it can take so long to stop it.  In the world that we are living in now, there seems to be no excuse to not be informed or to not take action against what is wrong.  But we as we learn about events from the past, I am hopeful that we will develop enough courage and respect for all people and cultures to avoid future events of such magnitude.  So that our children never have to set foot in a museum designed to educate them about the horrors and actions of their parents.  But then you begin to think about the smaller things, like what we are seeing today in South Africa. How do we address it?  How do we change it?  How do we begin to engage others to want to change it?  How will we lead ourselves, our companies, our communities to have a global impact?

Many people around the globe sit in such impoverished conditions, yet we all go about our daily lives unaffected.  Its not to say that we don't care, or aren't concerned.  But we tend to develop an "out-of sight, out-of-mind" mindset.  You get up, go to work, take care of children and the house, run errands, maybe support a local NGO or charitable organization - but the situations that are facing millions of people around the globe, such as poverty, poor health, lack of resources, lack of proper medication, violence - do not become part of your own reality.  The experience with Emzingo has begun to change that mindset.  We are living in this reality, working directly with the people facing these situations.  Without this first-hand experience, would we ever have really been able to take it all in the same way?  Personal experience and social interaction is so powerful.
 

Emzingo has made this experience personal, powerful, and hopefully perpetual - something that we will all take with us when we go.  We will take a new view of each other, a new view of the reality of the world in which we live and our role in changing it, a new perspective of the social sector, and a new mindset that will enable us to jump head-first into the ocean of possibilities and challenges of bridging the roles of private and public sectors.  I have faith that we will all engage this new mindset in whatever job we hold, in whatever company we work, and in our interactions with others so that this personal experience goes global and the change becomes viral."

  - Jessica Nadolski