Growing up in Hanover, Germany, Rahel Meyer witnessed many of the ongoing difficulties faced by some of the 2.5 million refugees displaced to her country.1 “If I was in their shoes, I would love to have somebody who cares for me enough to change policies,” Meyer says. Now as an MPA student at the BYU Marriott School of Business, Meyer is preparing herself to make the difference she wants to see.
Meyer credits her mom for helping her get involved with refugees. As a teacher, Meyer’s mom worked with many refugee students as part of her school’s integrated refugee program, and she encouraged Meyer to help too. Meyer started working with two siblings from Afghanistan as they learned German and adjusted to their new community. As she got to know their family, she wished she could remove some of the barriers they faced, such as navigating the legal system and getting jobs they were qualified for.
Later, while she served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France and Switzerland, Meyer worked with more refugees as she taught language classes, participated in organized service, and shared the gospel. “The more I worked with refugees, the more I saw them experiencing the same problems,” Meyer says. Feeling that her passion made her responsible to improve the situation, Meyer began looking for ways to make a difference.
While Meyer was an undergraduate student at BYU–Hawaii, one of her professors encouraged her to consider earning an MPA at BYU Marriott. “I went to the info session and felt like the people who do the MPA program really make an impact,” Meyer says. She decided to enroll in the MPA program, hoping to transform her real-world experiences with refugees into a broader, more applicable skillset.
As an MPA student, Meyer joined Grantwell, an experiential learning program at BYU Marriott that gives students opportunities to consult nonprofit and philanthropic organizations. Meyer partnered with Black14, an organization—founded by former collegiate athletes who faced racial discrimination—that lifts underserved communities and promotes racial equity in sports. She helped the nonprofit with board administration, marketing, and paralegal services. “Their whole vision resonated with me. It had this element of taking something from the past and making something beautiful out of it,” Meyer says.
In addition to gaining practical experience with nonprofits, Meyer has been excited to learn more about program evaluation, consultancy, and the workings of nonprofits. She has also seen that many organizations, including those that help refugees, have “good people with good intentions trying to do good things—they just need some added skills and help to become the version of themselves that they could be.”
Despite all she has enjoyed learning, there have also been times when Meyer felt inadequate or worried that she wasn’t speaking English perfectly. “I’m an international student, and I always felt that inhibited me. But going through the MPA program, I can see how that actually makes me more versatile,” says Meyer. “Because of my experiences, I can empathize with other people.”
She understands the difficulty of learning a new language and living in a new place: She learned French while serving a mission in France and Switzerland and has practiced speaking English while attending school in the United States. Despite the challenges of living abroad, Meyer feels she has truly gotten to know people by living in their countries and learning their languages, which has also helped her develop empathy for those living far from home.
Meyer’s goal is to one day return to Switzerland—Geneva, in particular—and work with the United Nations Refugee Agency, becoming the best global citizen she can be and helping people from around the world. “That’s why I’m here in the MPA program,” Meyer says, “because it gives me all the tools, skills, experiences, and networking opportunities that I’ll need to make a difference.”
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Written by Elizabeth Walker
Notes
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Germany. https://reporting.unhcr.org/donors/germany.
