MyImpact Challenge Winner Promotes Equality, Breaking Down Cultural Barriers

Growing up in Albany, Ore., Caroline Gao saw a great opportunity to help connect kids from different cultural backgrounds. 

She rolled up her sleeves and went to work, and has now taken home the $10,000 grand prize in the Bill of Rights Institute’s MyImpact Challenge.

Gao created The World In Us – a nonprofit organization that to date, helped connect roughly 1,700 young people from 26 countries to promote cross-cultural education and understanding.

The World in Us has run camps for young children and an intercultural exchange program for teens. The exchange program helps teens connect with peers from other cultures and countries to build friendships, learn languages, and more.

Gao started The World in Us as a local initiative, partnering with organizations such as the Greater Albany Public Schools District, the local Boys & Girls Club, and Oregon State University. Now, The World in Us has spread around the country—and the world.

“Everyone deserves to feel welcome in every environment they’re in, regardless of their background,” Gao said.

MyImpact Challenge is BRI’s civic engagement contest, which encourages students to develop service projects that benefit their local communities and promote constitutional principles such as liberty, equality, and justice.

“We seek to empower every young person to not only care about but also proactively work to defend the equal rights, dignity, and liberty of all human beings,” Gao wrote in her MyImpact Challenge application.

While participating in MyImpact Challenge, Gao learned how much progress her community was making in advancing cross-cultural dialogue and what citizenship means to her.

“It is about how you contribute to the communities you’re a part of and the ones you’re around,” she said.

Gao added that her work with The World In Us makes her feel more connected to her local community, gives her a sense of pride and ownership in being an American citizen, and makes her realize how fortunate she is to be a part of the American educational system.

“It gave me a lot more appreciation for just how much Founding principles and civic virtues of the U.S. are really ingrained in my own values and beliefs,” Gao said of her work. “It helps me realize a lot of foundational American ideals are also my own foundational ideals.”

Gao recently graduated from West Albany High School and plans to attend Harvard University in the fall. She advised her fellow students who are considering signing up for MyImpact Challenge to think deeply about the problem they want to solve and the resources and networks they’re already tied into.

“Make sure it’s tied to your skillsets and use those for your strategy and approach,” Gao said. “The purpose of your service is to serve your community and to have a genuine story behind what you’re doing.”