Emma Saloranta

Emma Saloranta joined the Graduate Program in International Affairs in 2009 from her native country, Finland, where she had obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Services from the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. Due to her interest on socio-economic development, poverty, equality and the intersection between development and human rights,the Development-concentration offered her an ideal way to explore those topics further and deepen her understanding of the definitions, theories and complexities around the often very loaded concept of development, particularly development beyond mere economic growth. She examined these topics through, for example, classes such as Human Rights and Poverty Case studies with Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Conflict and Development with David Gold, and State, Market and emmaDevelopment in Latin America with Michael Cohen, all offering nuanced and different approaches and insights into the broad and multifaceted notion of development from the perspective of an interdisciplinary approach.

As a student at GPIA, Emma worked for Alberto Minujin as the Website and Content Manager for professor Minujin’s online initiative, Equity for Children. During her last semester, she did an internship with UNICEF’s Gender and Rights unit in New York, and continued to work as a consultant for the Gender team after graduating in May 2011. She stayed with UNICEF for a year working on issues regarding gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment and rights, until relocating to Bangalore, India, in August 2012. In Bangalore, Emma continued to work on gender equality issues as a researcher for a local civil society organization IT for Change, focusing on the role of technology and internet in promoting women’s rights and social change. Her studies at GPIA have been extremely valuable in navigating the professional word. For example, the analytical skills obtained from classes such as Human Rights and Poverty as well as writing her thesis, and the ability to understand the different roles of the state and the marked in development, as in State, Market and Development in Latin America, have supported the work she has engaged in since graduation and given her the self-confidence to both address and examine, as well as at times question and criticize, broadly accepted notions and ideas of development, human rights and equality.

 

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *