New Eyes

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." My inspiration derived from these wise words; first spoken by Marcel Proust, and later quoted by Adam Braun, the author of the book, The Promise of a Pencil.

I am your typical teenage girl; I attend high school, work my job, and enjoy spending my free-time going on adventures with my friends and family. Just like many adolescence my age, I am in the oh-so-glorious years of self-discovery. However, I differ from a large portion of my peers in the way that my self-identity crisis has been less about the desire to dye my hair different colors, and rebelliously pierce every part of my body. Instead, my inner-most, self-seeking, thoughts have always haunted me with the idea that I have a purpose much bigger than myself. Rather than my mind questioning me on who I am supposed to be, it constantly questioned me on what my purpose was to be. After lots of self-reflection, I discovered that I have a severe case of wanderlust. As defined by Websters Dictionary, wanderlust is the desire to travel. Fully aware of this intense craving to experience everything the world has to offer (first hand, of course) and the violent fire inside me for finding my purpose, my mom presented me perhaps, the most thoughtful and life-changing gift I will ever receive; the book, The Promise of a Pencil.

Without ever leaving my bedroom, I traveled all over the world, learned the importance of an education, and felt a passion so strong that it pulsated through every part of my body. I knew with each turn of a page that this was exactly what I had been so desperately yearning for. In summary, this autobiography takes you on Adam Braun's journey of world travel and the start up of his for-purpose organization, "Pencils of Promise." As a college student, Adam had an amazing opportunity to travel the world through the program; Semester at Sea (after lots of research, this has become a huge point of interest for me as well, and something I look forward to pursuing at some point in my college career.) Semester at Sea, or SAS for short, differs from your traditional Study Abroad programs because instead of spending your semester in ONE other country, you spend your semester traveling through many, and on a ship no less. This opportunity gives you the chance to experience much of the developing world, and Adam decided he would use this chance to make some kind of a difference. He started by asking underprivileged children in the different destinations his voyage with SAS traveled to, one simple question; if they could have anything in the world, what would it be? When a boy in South Asia answered that his greatest wish in the world was a pencil, Adam had the epiphany that he could really do something to help world-education, and when he got back to the USA, he decided to start Pencils of Promise. Now, what started with the goal of building just one school back in 2008, has turned into (*spoiler alert*) over 300 schools built as of this year, 2015.

After reading this book, I became incredibly passionate about world education. In fact, I discovered that education alone is what will change virtually any world problem out there, and I will publish more on my thoughts about this later on. With my newly-found excitement, I decided I needed to do something. At my high-school there is a class called iQuest, where instead of sitting in a classroom for 100 minutes, you get to live what you're learning through an off-campus internship. After interviewing into this class and securing an internship in the field I hope to go into (Business, specifically Marketing), I instead decided to take on a project that I will be using this blog to record for the next year.

Through Adam's foundation, there is an opportunity to fund-raise $25,000 and build a school in the destination of your choice (they work in Ghana, Guatemala, Laos, and Nicaragua).  I have made the decision to take on this challenge of "the impossible." This next year I plan to fund-raise, hold events, and launch my online campaign to accomplish this goal. This blog will be dedicated to the process, progress, and every step toward the end goal of producing a quality school, and a sustainable education, for children worldwide, that are hungry for a better and brighter future.

Though my landscape never changed, the stories of these children gave me new eyes, and I can't wait to spend my year trying to make a difference for them!


If you would like to get involved, and help with the efforts of my campaign, please feel free to share any input at: nicoleallport@yahoo.com and if you would like to donate please visit my campaign site: Sharpening New Generations