Shift the Cieling

As a high school senior choosing a potential major, I’ve spent considerable time thinking about who I want to become. Internships and independent research at the intersection of technology and medicine have helped me narrow my interests: I hope to study bioengineering and design devices and software that are more accessible and affordable around the world. But as a young woman preparing to enter engineering, I’ve also started thinking about the obstacles I might encounter along the way.

This summer, I volunteered at The Shift Chateau during Wimbledon, which brought together women from different industries and generations to discuss the barriers they had faced. I was excited to be in a room with women whose accomplishments I admired, and Equity Shiftmaker recipient Yusra Mardini’s story particularly stood out.

In 2015, while fleeing Syria, Yusra and her sister helped guide a failing dinghy carrying fellow refugees to safety, swimming beside it for hours. A year later, she competed at the Rio Olympics on the first Refugee Olympic Team. Her determination mattered, but so did the International Olympic Committee’s decision to create a team for refugee athletes. She later became a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, using her platform to pave the way for other refugees. I have heard the term ‘glass ceiling’ described as something women must break, but Yusra’s experience made me wonder whether we focus too much on the individual who breaks through and too little on the institutional changes that could open opportunities for many more. Yusra broke through the glass, then strategically shifted it so others could follow.

While volunteering at Jaipur Foot, a nonprofit in India that provides prosthetic limbs and mobility aids, I watched a low-cost prosthetic custom-fitted in a single day. I watched as people came in unable to walk and then left on their own feet. What stayed with me even more was a twenty-year-old woman who had lost both feet in an accident. The nonprofit helped her buy a tricycle with a basket so she could earn an income. For a young woman, that tricycle meant independence that would otherwise have been out of reach. Like the Refugee Olympic Team, Jaipur Foot’s support addressed a barrier that determination alone could not remove. As a future bioengineer, I want to understand not only how a device works, but what it enables someone to do.

Yusra’s story inspired me to rethink how I want to approach the barriers ahead. Although completely different fields, Yusra faced obstacles and paved a way for herself and her community. Looking ahead, my own first instinct is to look for ways to shift a ceiling, creating room for others as well as myself. When it refuses to move, I’ll be ready to break through.

Photography by Jason Sanders for The Shift