It was this pivotal moment that pushed AlShehaili to apply for the global Acumen Fellowship. Through Acumen, AlShehaili got to know Grillon. The latter would visit her in India where they would trade experiences that would eventually give birth to what is now, project JUST. “Natalie was working with an organic cotton company in northern Uganda and she told me this beautiful story of impact, of how engagement in organic farming and fair trade has given the farmers better wages, better lives, and basically lifted the community up from poverty during what is, ultimately, a post civil war. And in the end, it got us wondering, wouldn’t shoppers want to know about this?” A few weeks later, Rana Plaza, a building that housed multiple garment factories in Bangladesh collapsed. The tragedy took the lives of 1,129 people. The devastating death toll could have easily been avoided if workers weren’t ordered to come in after the building was declared unsafe for people. Ethical fashion leads to happy lives.
her MBA from John Hopkins, Maryland. Towards the end of her program, AlShehaili went to Rwanda where she would come face to face for the first time with the challenges of impacting change. It was an episode of selfdoubt that led her to read “Blue Sweater,” a memoir by the Global Acumen founder, Jacqueline Novagratz. It would
ignite her spirit to forge on in making a difference regardless of how muddled it can be along the way. “One of the important lessons that I keep coming back to from the book was that in doing our work to alleviate poverty; one must have the humility to see the world for what it really is and the audacity to imagine it (the world), as it should be.”
This incident really served as a wake up call for AlShehaili, who recalled,
“It got down to something as simple as, here I am, sitting in India, doing my work to supposedly help alleviate poverty, wherein fact; the very shirt on my back can very well be made of injustice. It just didn’t make sense.” A year and a half since its establishment, JUST has DESTINATIONRYD.COM 19