What am I going to do with this?

Any money that I raise will go to the Malala Foundation.

Who are you?

My name is Alejandra. Some of you may know me, whether as the Hubbub intern, or a classmate at Columbia. I'm a rising junior studying economics and political science at Columbia University in the City of New York, and I am working at Hubbub for the summer as a market research intern.

My story

My parents have always believe that education was everything. We went to the United States of America from Colombia because my parents wanted me to have a better future. They wanted me to have access to a good education, and the United States had public schools that didn't cost anything and challenged kids to grow.

When we got to the United States, and I started learning English, I realized that education really did open doors, because my life was changing everyday. That, combined with my endless thirst for knowledge, made me a great student throughout my secondary education. I had access to everything my parents had wished for me and I took full advantage of it. I got accepted  to Columbia University as a QuestBridge scholar two and half years ago, and my life hasn't been the same since. But my journey didn't start at Columbia, its merely continued there. It started when I was five and getting on a school bus for the first time and my dad told me how important school was.

My education has given me so many opportunities. I am at Hubbub as a Columbia Exploration Overseas intern. The CEO program is a Columbia University program that allows students to gain international experience at an internship in a couple of locations worldwide. I applied to work at Hubbub over the summer, and have spent the last couple of weeks working in their London office.

Two years ago, I wouldn't have imagined this is how I'd be spending my summer. Three years ago, I didn't know where I was going to go to college. Six years ago, I was worried about how hard high school was going to be.

But I am one of the lucky ones. There are 130 million girls out of school whose future looks radically different from my own because of the simple fact that they've gotten locked out of having an education. We need to work together to ensure that girls across the world get the same opportunities I did, because together, we can change the world.

I'd like to put my education to good use and help others see everything the world has to offer. This is my chance to do that.

Why am I doing this?

I'm doing this as part of my internship at Hubbub, the organization which hosts this platform. The team wants to see how we can better the platform for crowdfunders in the future, so I'm giving it a run-through. That means starting the project from the ground up and while you can use Hubbub.org for a plethora of reasons, I couldn't think of a better organization than the Malala Foundation to receive any funds I gather. Plus, I really admire Malala's work.

Where will the money go?

However much money I raise I will donate to the Malala Foundation.

Rewards

Check out the rewards on the right side of the page for more information!

Find me here

Check out my Twitter @AlyMilena for more frequent updates! You can also checkout my Wordpress for blog updates about my time as a CEO intern in London.

Spread the world!

If you find this a worthy cause, please donate whatever you can! And share with your friends!