KATHLEEN MALLARI CEDAR CREST COLLEGE

My name is Kathleen Mallari. I was born in Quezon City, Philippines and currently live in Yonkers, NY. The US-Asia Institute and the Philippine Embassy have graciously donated their time and dedication to the inaugural cohort for the IMPACT! Program. I want to give my sincerest gratitude to the USAI staff, Zev and Temi, for their unrivaled planning and execution of the cohort’s orientation week that jam-packed with meetings from His Excellency, Ambassador Romualdez, to congressional staffers on the Hill and research analysts at CSIS. Another sincere thank you to Mary Sue and Marlon for making this possible.

I am a recent graduate from Cedar Crest College, a women’s liberal arts college in Allentown, PA. I graduated Cum Laude with a BA in Global Studies. I like to think that I am great at Googling, but never did I come across any program regarding political affairs for Filipino-Americans specifically. I am the type of person to always be on the lookout for opportunity and one early morning I found myself scrolling through my Instagram stories no less, and found a post by the Philippine Consulate in New York regarding the IMPACT! Program. With only less than a week to send in my application materials  —and that one week just happened to be the week leading up to the events that we have all come to know as the COVID-19 public health crises— I was able to submit in time. 

I was accepted into the IMPACT! Program and couldn’t believe it! I had searched high and low to find opportunities to follow my graduation and despite all else, I was given this opportunity. The first week of orientation truly was a rigorous one, but delightful nonetheless. I bonded closely with my cohort in between meetings with individuals working in all sorts of organizations and federal agencies in D.C. The IMPACT! Program also provided us an amazing opportunity to partner with the Environmental Protection Agency for our Community Engagement Project, where we surveyed and presented our findings regarding college students and the Impacts of COVID-19 on Higher Education. Our other project allowed us some creative freedom and we wrote and designed our own cookbook filled with healthy and environmentally friendly alternatives to our favorite Filipino food. 

As for my internship placement, I was placed at a non-profit based in D.C. called the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL) as the Development and Alumni Engagement intern. The 8 weeks at CAPAL truly has made for an impactful summer. I researched and created portfolios for possible internship placement partners and funders, as well as start on the process of better utilizing CAPAL’s CRM. Besides my work as an office intern, I was matched with a mentor through CAPAL’s mentorship program, attended career coaching sessions, and worked on yet another Community Engagement Project, but with Act to Change. My work with Act to Change allowed me to meet Vivek Murthy, the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, as well as develop and execute an anti-racism campaign on Act to Change’s Instagram page. My team and I worked very hard in creating an anti-racism campaign particularly as it relates to the AAPI community. Replete with information pertaining to AAPI advocacy, history of racism, and allyship, the toolkit has gone live on the Act to Change’s website and has overall increased Act to Change’s Instagram engagement by more than double!

All in all, the IMPACT! Program and USAI have inevitably served as a powerful force in directing me towards individuals and organizations that have absolutely increased my marketability as a recent graduate and ultimately help land my first job. Most importantly, it has connected me to a network of organizations that I proudly call myself apart of. I came into this program in June worried about not “having my foot in the door,” but after only just 2 months, I leave the program feeling as if I have the world open to me. Thank you again to USAI, the Philippine Embassy, and USAI’s placement partner, CAPAL, for hosting me and making this a summer I will never forget