Throughout my upbringing, I have always been raised to believe that your time and energy to do good is never wasted. As the saying goes in Arabic, ‘fiha khayr’ – “There is goodness in it’. I aspire to ground my philanthropy in unconditional goodness, harnessing the power of education to support underprivileged communities. I am deeply blessed and honored to join the giving pledge. As I grow older, I will intentionally ground my philanthropy to be sustainable and self-sustaining. With love, solidarity, and salam (peace), Lamis

This class has dismantled the notion to me that only certain elites, like Bill Gates, are “philanthropists,” thus instilling a preconceived notion that philanthropy is a convoluted and impersonal practice. What this class has done is, in fact, shown me that everyone can be a philanthropist, and the practice of philanthropy is not purely financial. Philanthropy is an active effort in your daily life to always be open to learning, expanding your perspectives, and giving your time and heart (and financial means) to a cause. This is my giving goal in life. That being said, my hope is that once I am financially independent, I can set a personal goal for myself to give away 10% of my salary. This is simply a bare minimum, a checks and balances for myself to ensure giving can and should always be a part of my life.

My giving goal surrounds evaluating and acting upon the ‘Post-Roe’ impact of reproductive/sexual healthcare access in areas of limited resources and geological accessibility (mostly southern/rural areas). I intend on advocating for efforts in aiding women in abortion-ban areas in travel expenses, using the class resources in an immediate fashion. I want to continue to search for a specific organization(s) that perform these services directly. My goal prioritizes women in areas/states in southern/rural areas for a variety of reasons, including the confirmation and reality that resources, exterior to access to affordable and necessary reproductive/sexual healthcare, are often curtailed. Examples include a drastic difference in minimum wage (abortion-ban states often have a lower minimum wage, matching the federal requirement of 7.25 dollars an hour), employment guarantees and benefits, a wider gender pay gap, etc. Direct objectives that do include or revolve around reproductive/sexual healthcare (and it’s accessibility level) and it’s variation in difference by states (often) along party lines encompass friendliness (or unfriendliness) in paid leave for pregnancies or parental/medical concerns, difference in education quality and substance, variations in affordable daycare or head-start resources, etc. For example, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and West Virginia are all total abortion ban states; they also all sit nearly at the bottom of state education rankings. I believe that my target prospective locations will include residents who require some form of reproductive/sexual healthcare in states with the farthest distance from a healthcare provider or center, such as a nearby (or closed possible) Planned Parenthood that provides the necessary services. These states will most likely include Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Oklahoma. The majority of residents in Texas, with the exception of 2-3 counties, who desire this specific type of healthcare must travel over 200 miles out-of-state. To conclude, my goal is, in short, to provide and aid women in states without convenient geographical and financial access to reproductive/sexual healthcare (primarily abortion travel expenses and Plan-B affordance) money and/or relief to travel/find/access these out-of-state providers. Long-term, I would be interested in seeing how these women, who successfully gained access to this healthcare through this class’ funding, transire professionally, academically, and personally, though I acknowledge this may violate personal patient confidentiality.