Maria Carolina Melo

  • Nationality:
    Colombia
  • Graduation year:
    Graduation year: 2011
  • Current job:
    Gender and Vulnerable Population Expert, Human Rights Program - USAID, Colombia
  • Study track:
    YORK-IBEI track

After almost 8 years of rewarding work on social policy and development in my home country I felt it was time to go back to study and get additional tools to be able to design and implement strategies that would contribute to improve the standard of living of vulnerable populations in a context where poverty, violence and inequality were a big part of the equation.

What I got from the Mundus MAPP experience changed my life in many ways: The chance to live and travel throughout Europe for 2 years, the opportunity to meet wonderful people from all over the world that rapidly became family and whom I still consider my best friends and the possibility of getting to know new ways of seeing life.

Now that I am back home I face my professional and personal life with a new, renovated and broad perspective, and I guess it has enriched my approach to work and what needs to be done to take people out of the violence, poverty and vulnerability circles.

So, for those in search of intellectually challenging, life changing and exciting opportunities, I would definitely recommend this Program.