Humanitarianism - Seeing a better world

"It is an awesome thing to stand in the middle of utter destruction and hear the joyous sounds of children laughing and playing together," wrote Katie Roland ’99 in a blog detailing her visit to the Balakot region of Pakistan, where three months earlier a devastating earthquake had killed 87,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless.

She was there to help out with relief efforts and to raise awareness about the continuing need for aid.

Roland is director of marketing and communications for the New York office of World Vision, a Christian relief and development organization dedicated to helping children and their families worldwide reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty.

World Vision was already working in Pakistan before the earthquake hit, so the organization was able to respond quickly with food, shelter, and medical care, Roland says.

In addition, World Vision soon built 15 Child Friendly Spaces where school-aged youngsters could play, laugh, and recover. An estimated 700 children have visited the facilities.

“The children who weren’t killed themselves saw a friend, family member, or teacher die,” Roland says.

Many are too traumatized to return to school, so Child Friendly Spaces are built near schools to draw the children back.

Roland also spent a night in one of the tent encampments. “You just can’t imagine what these people are experiencing,” she says. “They have no privacy. Sanitation is a problem, and diseases are starting to spread. And it was so cold at night. I was freezing, even though I wore five layers of clothing. The next morning, I saw a young boy dressed in a thin sweater wearing a scarf on his head as a hat and with his hands in his pockets. He must have been so much colder than me. Both of his parents had died in the earthquake.”

After graduating from Bucknell, Roland entered a management training program at the Gap, but she soon left for the opportunity to help establish a San Francisco nonprofit, involveX. She joined World Vision in 2003 and has since has traveled to the Dominican Republic, Rwanda, and Uganda.

“It’s incredible to go into a community where World Vision works and to see the difference between that community and others,” she says.

That perspective helps Roland tremendously in her efforts to communicate to donors and the media the impact that World Vision can have.