"I worked mainly on further developing Lumiere’s partnership with the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission in Zimbabwe. At the beginning of the summer, co-founder Eric Stone traveled to Zimbabwe for a week to lead capacitation training on trauma with UN Women and University of Oxford Women’s Narrative Project. The comprehensive module that I helped create included lectures, multimedia case studies, simulations, and academic research and literature. Afterwards, we continued to strengthen the partnership by working to establish innovative solutions to the NPRC’s mission of supporting long-term healing, safe spaces, and micro-financing opportunities for local communities and villages.

Lumiere also handles pro bono consulting work through Weill Cornell Medicine's Center for Human Rights, providing legal affidavits and mental health evaluations for asylum seekers and refugees. In this capacity, I worked within client management, delivering basic aid and helping secure health insurance resources and school services. The third project I worked on was Lumiere Rx Prescription Discount Card. I saw it from inception to implementation. This involved a great deal of industry research and work, but at the end of the summer, I was able to finally distribute it to one of the clients I worked with. Through her local hospital, I obtained her full medical coverage from 05/01/2021 to 10/31/2021, and the Lumiere Rx card lowered her prescription costs by approximately 70%. Lumiere’s mission is to champion forced migrants and asylum seekers, as well as address the connections between social inequality and negative health outcomes, so all three of these projects were directly aligned with their values. Seeing the real-life impact was very rewarding and furthered my passion for this work.

As a student at CSSW, I learned a lot about how systems affect the individual. CSSW provides a holistic education from the micro (establishing therapeutic relationships, psychopathology, etc.) to the macro (policy work, inequality research, etc.). At Lumiere, we worked within both spheres. From the international work in Zimbabwe on trauma intervention and safe space initiatives to our client management and prescription discount card, I worked within both the individual and the collective to create change. By helping a client gain asylum status in court while also meeting their therapeutic needs outside of it, Lumiere is constantly examining the big picture.

Working with international clients presents obvious language and cultural barriers. In my role of client management, I had to have another associate at our organization translate my phone calls and emails from English to Spanish. This experience encouraged me to work on improving my own Spanish comprehension and has fueled my desire to eventually become fluent. I also saw firsthand how important cultural knowledge is to international work. It is essential to strengthen existing social supports and listen to what the client needs and wants out of the interaction, rather than bring your own preconceived notions to the conversation.

Lumiere International Inc. is a very inspiring place to work. Every step of the way, I felt encouraged by the progress we were making every day in both small and big steps. One of the many lessons that Lumiere taught me is the value of collaboration. When you bring experts together and brainstorm solutions from different angles — from psychological support to economic empowerment and health care outcomes — you can create genuine, lasting growth and change. I feel encouraged to continue pursuing my goals within mental health care, including the process of destigmatizing mental illness. My first book, The Perfect Other, will be released on 03/15/2021 with HarperCollins. It covers a range of topics, including neuroscience, grief, and loss, but at its core, I see it mostly as a story about love. I hope that by continuing to talk publicly about mental health and by working within organizations like Lumiere, I will be able to bring this vision of acceptance to a larger audience, spreading awareness and compassion."