Our Peace Fellow at the United Nations

This is the sixth in our series of D5110 involvement’s with RI’s Peace Fellowship Program. Each year, Rotary awards up to 130 fully funded fellowships for dedicated leaders from around the world to study at one of our seven peace centers. They now number over 1700
Megan L. Smith of Eugene was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Eugene Metropolitan. As the International Programs Coordinator for Mobility International USA, this amazing young woman had already accomplished more personally and professionally than many do in a lifetime. She had traveled and worked in over 30 countries. Wise and experienced beyond her years, she is fully committed to alleviating violence, disenfranchisement because of gender inequality as well as marginalization because of disability, those conditions which rob individuals of dignity and put them at risk. Well educated and informed, she is tangibly compassionate. Megan began her master’s degree studies at the University of Queensland Rotary Peace Center in February 2015 and completed a four-month applied field experience with UNICEF in Cambodia before graduating in June 2016. She was recently instructing in Iceland but is now back in the states.
On August 25, 2024, Megan wrote to Carol Fellows:
Dear Carol,
Thank you so much for your email and I’m so very sorry for my delayed reply. It’s also wonderful to hear from you. I am still based in New York and I work for the United Nations in the Executive Office of Secretary General, which is all at once stressful but also extremely interesting as you can imagine! My work is mostly focused on coordinating the implementation of the United Nations disability inclusion strategy which supports the UN to be more disability inclusive. It’s a fascinating job and we get to work across the UN system, though it doesn’t leave a lot of time to do much else!
I do miss Iceland though, I am still working on my PhD as I left for the job before finishing and as you can imagine I’m much slower now completing my dissertation! I’m so happy that you have another peace fellow in Brisbane. I can’t tell you what a remarkable experience it was and how much I valued it. How are you both doing? I always think of you and of course I’m so horrible at writing, really apologize!
So much love and really look forward to connecting more,
Megan