There are many examples online about how to write a mission statement when you want to apply for a college or university. Many student struggles on what to write and what not to write ? Mission statement is like your entrance exam where they give a bunch of questions and you have to write to impress . I also had a hard time writing it down to make it to the universities aboard. So, I design this sample for you to make a reference and start writing the most powerful statement the university has ever seen. Good Luck !
1. Personal Statement
Born in a family of writers and teachers in the Himalayan capital, Kathmandu, Nepal, I grew up listening to the stories of how during my birth by the sheer grace of God, I was saved from fatal disabilities. Had the pregnancy been mishandled, I would have been crippled for the rest of my life. In the light of this crucial event, my lifetime’s resolve has been to help and heals the children with disabilities and young girls subject to exploitation along with societal socio-psychological dysfunction. During my work with different NGOs as a St. Xavier College’s Undergrad Trainee and Intern, I became actively involved in these aspects of Social Work. By seeking a higher degree in Social Work in the US, I want to empower myself to make a tangible difference in the lives of neglected children in South Asia.
Since childhood, I have cherished a dream to seek admission for my MSW in the US because the Social Work education has the validity under Council on Social Work Education there. Nepal is a great destination for NGOs and INGOs for social workers and missionaries from all over the world. No wonder Nepal has the largest number of non-profits in the world at the moment. The situation is aggravated by Nepal’s position as a small landlocked country sandwiched between two giants, China and India. In the 90s there was a decade-long Maoist insurgency that caused over ten thousand fatalities and made many more women and children homeless, subject to exploitation. Nepal’s struggle to overthrow Monarchy and establish a Democratic Republic has also caused immense suffering to its people. Finally, the situation was worsened with the 2015 Earthquakes. Besides, Nepal has been considered to be cursed by a Satti, a young widow, meaning it’s destined to endless suffering due to known and unknown, social and geological, human and divine factors. This youngest republic needs attention from the world and its own people to redress its wounds. Hence, my MSSA degree at Mandel School will give me enough expertise to deal with the issues of charity and mismanagement of Foreign Aid and help me induce like-minded people in the areas to work more systematically to help innocent children and displaced men and women.
In addition, even a short stay in the Kathmandu valley will make one understand how critical the challenge of environmental degradation is at the moment. The current plight with the recurrence of drought, forest fires, flooding and earthquakes will only get magnified in the coming decades due to rapid climate change. In Nepal, as suggested by recent Environmental researchers, the recent changes in the Monsoon patterns have greatly aggravated poverty and inequalities of opportunities. While many are coping with the current predicament on a personal basis, the country must design and implement effective strategies to attain economic and social progress. Adapting to long and short-term climate-related problems needs creative engagement between the Government, the market actors and the civic movements. Also, the massive migration from rural to urban areas has largely contributed to the increase in pollution, unmanaged wastages in the Himalayan cities, especially, Kathmandu.
During my childhood, I lived in a quiet Shangri-La surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Today, the Kathmandu valley has turned into a miserable den of smoke and dust, a shanty town. In addition, due to the dearth of proper road infrastructure resulting out of the mismanagement of funds, the people are forced suffer from the dust-clouds stirred by endless road constructions along with smoke from uncontrollable vehicles plying on these unrepaired roads. This has made people suffer and develop diseases like asthma and other allergies, accelerating health hazards, especially infant mortality rate.
Climate change problem is crucial in Nepal to protect our fragile Himalayan eco-systems that are subjected to nefarious human encroachment and senseless modernization. As a social worker, it’s our ultimate mission to protect our beloved earth from harmful human activities. In our Hindu-Buddhist world, the Earth is compared to a Holy Cow, also a mother goddess. These days, the moment I step out of my house, I witness multiple piles of unmanaged wastage along the roads. The debris from road construction is everywhere. It has affected most of the inhabitants of the valley. For example, fearing I might develop dust allergy, I can’t travel long distance without a mask. The Nepalese seasons have also been affected by such hazardous activities. In last two decades, most of the trees in the valley have been chopped down and rice fields turned into residential colonies to meet the land requirement as everyone in Nepal wants a house in the capital, Kathmandu. Someone has to stop this before the situation turns beyond repair.
In this light, I believe a social worker has to first identify the problem and proceed to conduct research, employing different methodologies. The next challenge would be to address the people and explore the possibilities of action leading to a positive outcome and tangible results. Also, the Government will be urged to form policies to forge a bridge between people and the policy- makers to take a collective action. This way, we can address a problem and seek a solution by running nature-friendly programs to solve our problems. However, the social workers are making some progress in this context. Some NGOs are recycling the waste and making schools in remote areas for the underprivileged children and using local organic materials to teach the children in a practical way i.e. vegetables and poultry farming and the training them in an eco-friendly manner. Such new innovative ideas are currently trending among NGOs, making people aware of the ecological issues and its ethics. Thus, social workers in the NGOs are aspiring to use their resources and ideology to make a difference and meaningfully respond to the social issues in the Himalayan nation.
Moreover, in the US, Social Work Undergraduate and Master’s programs are accredited by the CSWE-accredited degree required to become a state-licensed social worker. Allowing social worker to professionally execute one’s duties as professionals will be of crucial significance. It is also preferable for the higher quality of education in terms of knowledge and professionalism. I am also interested in their practices and unique way of implementation from micro-meso-macro level intervention on the community, individual and family level. The universities in the States have a direct systematic theoretical framework of different sections of Social Work that is implemented under CSWE. In South Asia, Social Work has not been legalized as a profession. During my involvement, I would bring my innovation, creativity and new skills through the use of personal and local resources from different pieces of training and local expertise so that they can learn and implement the strategies to achieve desired goals.
As an international student from the little nation on the edge of the world that is still fighting for an all-inclusive and stable democracy, I feel the opportunity to seek admission in a prestigious Mandel School is a blessing for me. It’s a harsh truth that most of the scholars related to Social Work in my country don’t have proper access to the research material and information. I sometimes wish a large US institute like Case Western University Reserve had an outlet in Kathmandu to connect their resource and expertise to further cause of Social Work and justice in this Himalayan nation.
The Social Work in Nepal is at its early stage and has not been justly recognized like other professions in the country. Due to the continuous political instability and major political parties’ narrow, myopic and monopolized strategies, the distribution of the fruits of Foreign Aid and local support remains limited to loyal party cadres only. In addition, as most of the works of Non-Profits are primarily based in the Capital, only a drop trickles down to real Nepalese people. The violent incidents in recent elections also have affected the social workers as human rights defenders, because there were several disruptive incidents before the election and the human rights experts remained focused on the easily accessible parts of the capital only. Moreover, social workers are following the trend of seeking jobs only in INGOS for secure payment and position.
As a genuine social worker one has to work on the major issues of the marginalized grass root level problems. I am sure my opportunity to study at Mandel School will also help me share my vision with fellow researchers and students. It’s my dream to open a nonprofit after my study in the States to make social work reach the remotest corner of the inaccessible mountainous region. As for the understanding, my application and the undergraduate record, I would like to collect thoughts and fieldwork of my future Mandel colleagues and compile them into one place to make it a casebook for social workers in Nepal and elsewhere. In my part of the world, a student of Social Work doesn’t have a recognized identity as in the West and no reservoir of research material to forge his path to work in the field. This topic was much debated among my friends and teachers during my study at St. Xavier’s College, Kathmandu University. In fact, the topic was so important that it was the first choice of our seminar paper that in the final year of our study in Nepal.
2. Social justice Issue
In addition to the endless political instability, the Nepalese social structure is entrapped in the Middle Ages. The caste system is heavily prevalent in the Nepalese society; the malpractices of a traditional feudal society dominate the life patterns of our world. In spite the façade of modernity seen in major Nepalese cities, remote mountain regions and rural Terai belts remain entrapped in the clutches of an Orthodox worldview. This not only hinders the path towards proper political stability, it also encourages discrimination among the people, especially low caste, women and marginalizes ethnicities. Since the dawn of Democracy in 1990, the issue of formation of a New Constitution has caused upheaval and unrest in the social structure of the country where diverse groups have coexisted for centuries. This aspect of Nepalese society is of a great concern to me because it raises the issue of social justice and the rights required for the deprived people, especially women and low castes.
Besides, Nepal is diverse in many ways. This cultural and ethnic diversity can be a boon as well as a curse. A perpetuation of Old orthodox value system will ultimately lead to an unequal distribution of power in the country. The various ethnic groups find it hard to coexist with the dominance of the upper caste oligarchs. With the dawn of democracy, there seems to be a lot of conflict between various factions of the society. Due to this, Nepalese democracy sometimes appears to be moving on a razor’s edge. A strong democratic system with an equal opportunity to all regardless of class and creed is crucial to the harmony in the Nepalese society.
The main cause of this problem lies with the education system and the socio-cultural roots that the people are living with. The education system has not reached the rural areas and is focused in the urban areas only. Education will not only bring women empowerment but awareness of the larger vision of humanity that has for centuries shaped the ethos of the Western world.
If I have power as a social worker, I would use it to mobilize my resource to reduce the illiteracy rate in the inaccessible regions of Nepal. I will also channelize my infrastructure to promote women empowerment and break the cycle of discrimination in work division of the rigid social structure that we live in. I will initiate projects that will spread awareness and help people in widening their knowledge on such issues of gender discrimination, literacy of the girl child and economic and social injustice. I will open an NGO where I will invest my resources in providing access to the education to all regardless of the work, creed or color. I would also advocate the cause by playing a role as a modest mediator between the marginalized people and the Governmental agencies.
However, it is easier said than done. To connect with the people in the remote Himalayan regions, I will need to bring solid programs to help people in health and education sector. But the major challenges lie in corruption and unhealthy manipulation due to a nexus between Social Organizations and Government related bodies. This makes a Social Worker’s functioning impossible. If I can overcome this challenge, using my connections earned at home and abroad along with my expertise after my Degree at Mandel, I will be able to find a platform of genuine workers and non-profits that can operate to benefit the society and show them the path of modern democratic and just order where we can all progress collectively and harmoniously.
Due to the increase in unaccountability and lack of transparency of the governmental bodies in the public eye, the genuine functioning of Social Workers and Non- Profits will be a great help, acting as a mediator or catalyst between government and public to win the trust of the people and bring desired changes in the society. Thus the main problem a social worker faces in the country is the prevalent unstable and muddled polity that is affecting everyday life of general public. Only genuine support and functioning of Social Workers can bring dynamic change and required justice that the nation needs today.
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Sukrity Sharma 