Ready to Make Something Better
Kapila Narayanan Chandramouli was just a third grader when he travelled to Chennai, India, to learn how to craft a veena, a traditional string instrument,
Tag: portland
Say Goodbye to All Your Problems
It’s 2010 and Johana Amani is 10 years old. She is speeding through the Congo in the middle of the night on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle. She and […]
A Rabbi After All: Fulfilling a Calling
By the time he was seven, Eliezer Schwartz had already learned that if he ran fast enough and threw a lot of stones, he could protect himself from the schoolyard […]
There Is a Hopeful Tomorrow
Things were going well for Jenny Munezero in Portland, Oregon. She was working in a rewarding career and engaged to a man she adored.
Tending a Garden and Her Dreams
Salsabel Al Masri’s garden was the center of her world. She and her five brothers spent every day after school chasing each other among the olive, orange, apple,
When I’m Playing, I’m Just Heat
The first time Denzel Mendoza came out as undocumented he was on stage in front of a crowd of strangers. That night, he didn’t just play his trombone,
Giving Back to Move Forward
Ferrer has always had a driven mentality that leads him to make the best out of each situation that comes his way. “I can always learn
A Doctor with No Cure for His Country
The rigid, highly competitive public education system of Syria sent Hisham Amin Bismar into engineering. Leaving his country and then watching it
A Social Media Post’s Resonance
Three pizzas from Dominos—that’s what Aishwarya Sreenivasan expected to donate to hospital workers fighting Covid-19. In late March, the Portland mother of two
A Triumph of Human Resilience
In an isolation cell at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), 27-year-old Gayathri Ramprasad wondered, “Am I crazy or is the world crazy?”
Lighting the Way with Journalism
Super Typhoon Soudelor hit Saipan on Aug. 2, 2015, and the island went dark. At the time, Rachel Ramirez was studying at the University of Portland in Oregon.
From Homeless to a Grammy Award Win
For Denzel Mendoza, music has been what ties his life together. Mendoza was born in Singapore in 1996 and the family moved to the U.S. a few years later for […]
Writing Your Way Toward Who You Are
“That was when I became myself,” says Ramiza Koya, remembering the backpacking trip she took in India when she was 25 years old.
From Zim Kid to COVID-19 Advisor
When Bukhosi Dube recently took a big pay cut to work as a physician at the Multnomah County Health Department, his goal was to ultimately find work in public
Saying “Yes” to Both Career and Family
Three times, Lilia Boteva-Ayzoukian has received a violin. Each time the gift has been a link between, the two most important things in her life: