The giant Mercedes bounced around the uneven earth as we sped towards the enormous house on the corner.

Tinted windows sheltered us from the bodies sprawled across the dirty roadside, desperately trying to seek shelter from the scorching Indian summer. Once we reached the safety of my grandparents’ mansion, servants rushed to our car to unload our suitcases. Inside were three servants in the kitchen, two cleaning the floor and one taking care of my baby cousin.

I was 12 when a trip to India changed my life and determined the direction it would head in. I had been to India before as a very young child but was too young for anything to register. As we travelled around the bustling streets of Delhi and took trips to Amritsar (where my ancestors are from), the contrasting lives of my rich family and that of the poverty that infected the streets of India slapped me in the face. Seeing my baby cousin’s room bursting with toys and then looking across the street and seeing a family of five stuffed into a tiny tent across the road just didn’t sit right with me.

During the trip we visited a temple that is very sacred to my family and their religion, the Golden Temple, and there was a girl there who was standing in ragged clothing with a crying baby in her hands and with whom I can only assume was her sister. With me I had only half a banana and offered it to them – the look of happiness on their face was indescribable. I looked into the girls eyes – she seemed about the same age as me – and was hit with how different our lives had been up until this point and how different they would continue to be. I was still a child and ahead of me I had an education and my biggest worries entering puberty would be pimples and boys – this girl had had her childhood stripped from her many years ago and needless to say, had very different worries.

As such a young child it was very obvious to me when I arrived back in Melbourne that something was wrong – there was something that was deeply unfair with the world and I could not accept it.

Arriving back I felt the need to do something so I began volunteering with The Oaktree Foundation through my school and then went on to volunteer with Oxfam and the Red Cross.

During my primary and high school years I also experienced bullying and racism due to my skin being darker than that of all my peers. I was one of the only coloured kids in the year level. I would always get picked on, never had a lot of friends – even though I consider myself to be a pretty good friend and care a lot about people. I was always outspoken and stood up for myself though which I think made the other kids uncomfortable because I wasn’t too interested in conforming. Even so, I think everyone still feels like they want to belong.

However I feel that although this experience resulted in many years of depression, it also made me a very accepting person, more aware of others and strengthened my drive to make a difference in the world.

My drive to make a difference, combined with my pursuit of an Engineering career has led me to volunteer for two organisations – Sudanese Australia Integrated Learning (SAIL) and Engineers Without Borders. SAIL is an organisation that I volunteer with on Saturday mornings, tutoring young Sudanese refugees English. Although I have only been there for a few months, this organisation has significantly changed my outlook on the world and is something I look forward to every week. Most of the girls I tutor have been bullied as well and I believe being a mentor for them and teaching them it is okay to be different is something that is important, especially hearing it from someone who is not an authority figure like a parent or teacher.

I volunteer for Engineers Without Borders as this is where I believe my life is heading – using my skillset to make long term, sustainable change in developing communities.

During my high school years and late teens I would always get very upset about the unfairness in the world and overwhelmed with a desire to change the world and a feeling of insignificance of the difference I was making. However it was after a story I heard at a conference I realized that I may not have the power or ability to change the entire world but I do have the power to change lives and impact communities and should not accept any form of failure. It is this youthful idealism that drives me and that has driven me ever since I realized I could not accept this unfairness in the world and that I have to make a difference.

This is the story:

“A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.

She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, ‘Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!’

The girl bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied,

‘Well, I made a difference to that one!’

The old man looked at the girl inquisitively and thought about what she had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little girl in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved.”