My Life My Choice (Written by Kiara Davis)

So I'll start off by mentioning how great of an organization My Life My Choice is. through our grant proposal process, we as a class got to learn in depth about the amazing work these human trafficking survivor mentors are providing to youth who are being sexually exploited. It is no wonder the bus ride down to Boston from campus was a ride full of chatter and excitement. We were finally at the place where we could go in person and talk with the wonderful people who created My Life My Choice.

During our site visit, it quickly became evident that the organization was covering a topic that none of us could imagine to see or deal with on a regular basis. Hearing from a survivor herself, who now mentors children was very profound and left an impression on me. The two women who created My Life My Choice were very open to sharing what they do, how they got started and the success they have been privileged to be apart of. 

Through the entire meeting with the ladies I had to keep in the back of my mind that every organization is going to sound wonderful but there are two others I will have to compare this one to. Honestly, the fact that we were talking about Human Trafficking... in children made it very difficult for me to imagine any other organization being more in need of our funding. I believe that a few of my classmates have also struggled with remaining objective when it comes to critiquing the proposals and organizations, the exact thing we were there to do.

Even so, our site visit to My Life My Choice was an important part of this course as a whole and I feel as though it provided something that we otherwise would not have gotten. Something intangible that I can't even put into words but will stay with everyone for a very long time. I feel like it would be impossible for anyone to take this exact same course and come out the same as they were prior. 

On the bus ride back from the site visit Dr Ira, our professor mentioned to us once again, that we should keep in mind this was only the first site visit and our feelings about it may change as time goes on and as we continue to the other two site visits. I find it so unfortunate to have to make such a significant decision of allocating funds to an organization based solely on how well they're presentation fits our RFP requirements. During conversation with my peers on the ride back I found that many others were disappointed with this as well. 

I will say I have definitely learned first hand how difficult it is to make decisions based more so on rationality, than emotions. I can now imagine what it must be like not only in the business world, but also in the philanthropy world where people are dealing with such sensitive issues and touch decisions on a regular basis.

I do find that the exposure to such experiences has been incredibly valuable to my personal education and life experiences. i look forward to discussing the site visit in class discussion when it comes time. Stay tuned for what that's like!