and her activism in general, which she regards as her true field. “I don’t want to leave without feeling confident that the


Emerge Lanka Foundation is going to be economically sustainable locally,” she says, and that will only happen when “Sri Lankans have an awareness and feel more responsibility toward solving this issue.” Tat’s why she spends so many of her working hours away


from her desk. “I don’t want to be a manager siting at a computer eight


hours a day,” she says. “I want to meet new people every day, anywhere people will listen. I’m constantly building relationships; that’s the part of my job that is most enjoyable to me and that I’m prety good at. Not everybody can give money, but if I tell five people at dinner, and they tell two other people, that’s how we become socially aware. Tat’s the biggest thing.”


V


an Dort keeps her own awareness alive with regular visits to the young women served by the program. Most of them have borne children aſter being raped, usually by a family member or someone else


they should have been able to trust, and they’re in protective custody because they’ve been brave enough to press charges against their atackers. “It takes enormous courage to be publicly shamed and


disowned by your family for someone else’s crime,” she says. “Teir stories themselves are enough for me to work day and night. Tey remind me why I’m doing what I’m doing. It’s not a task that I take lightly.” And she takes her thoughts about the task well outside the


proverbial box. “When I go to sleep at night, I think about how many girls


are being violated tonight, how many girls are wondering if their uncle is going to come in,” Van Dort says. “At the end of the day, anyone working for a cause has to look at how that trauma occurred initially and what we can do to keep that from happening again. “I don’t want to take away anything from the Emerge


program, it’s an amazing program, any program that tries to help people is noble, but at the same time, if you’re really an activist and looking logically and analytically at a problem, how do we reduce these incidents from happening?” Locally, that’s where spreading awareness comes into play,


the kind of awareness that could eventually change cultural norms that put victims in custody while perpetrators go free. It’s also a mater of awareness globally; in Van Dort’s view, its absence is oſten self-inflicted. “I get frustrated with people who throw up their hands and


say the world is this or that and there’s nothing we can do,” she says. “We can do anything that we put our mind to. One big


thing I really see lacking in America is young people taking the time to understand politics. Public policy is what shapes how we live. How do you want to live? Te only way you can live in society and contribute to society is to know what’s going on in society.” Although her degree itself isn’t specifically relevant to


her job, Van Dort has no doubt that her overall educational experience at Eastern was invaluable. “My professors knew me so well that they were able to take


my strengths and build off those strengths and shape me into a confident professional,” she says. “Tey said you’re good at this, you’re good at that, try this, try that, be on this commitee, do this research, present at this symposium. I would never have done any of those things. I would have gone to class and gone home if it weren’t for my professors.” One of the things she did, as a freshman, was found the


Exercise Science Organization, a club for students in her major. “We had two members when we started and almost 150 by the time I graduated,” she says. “You’d be surprised how litle effort it takes to get people together if you have the right person and the right approach. Tat’s been one of my skills: geting people organized and motivated and working together toward a common goal.” Her first meeting with Assistant Professor Shel Levine,


coordinator of Eastern’s Exercise Science Program, set the tone. “When I got up to leave, he said, ‘You know, there’s


something different about you. What do you want to do here?’ I said, ‘Te most that I can,’ ” Van Dort recalls. “I told my roommate, ‘Te head of the department thinks I can be a really great student. He talked to me for 20 minutes. He didn’t even answer his phone.’ She was like, ‘What are you going to do?’ I said, ‘I’m going to go for it. If he thinks I can do it, I’m going to do it.’ I believed in myself because my professors believed in me.”


Now she believes in her own youthful charges. “In the long


term, change isn’t going to come from me or Emerge Global or any other foreign body,” she says. “It’s going to come from the girls when they leave here.” And what does Van Dort have in mind for herself when she


leaves there? “I hope to pursue graduate studies in the next few years,”


she says. “I’m interested in International Relations, specifically Humanitarian Law. Ideally, I would like to work as an international diplomat, or even ambassador. But as long as I’m directly working with social issues and making a difference, I’ll be satisfied.” 3


Visit emergeglobal.org for more information about the organization. Eastern | WINTER 2012 19


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