By Kayla O’Neill
We were delighted to learn last month that Northeastern University journalism major Aneri Pattani is the 2017 winner of the New York Times‘ Win a Trip Contest with Nicholas Kristof. She will accompany Nick Kristof on an all-expenses-paid trip, likely to Liberia, this June. Pattani’s winning essay spoke to her eye-opening experiences interviewing residents of unincorporated settlements in Texas near the Mexican border. She has an expressed interest in other issues, including mental health and women’s health. She’ll have big shoes to fill: previous winners have gone on to pay it forward by applying their skills through health innovation, social justice journalism, activism, and more.
Kristof is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist, and author. He is known for his weekly op-ed in the New York Times and for books such as Half the Sky that he co-authored with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn. Kristof and WuDunn spoke at Northeastern’s Blackman Auditorium in April 2014 for an event hosted by the Social Enterprise Institute.
Pattani is asking all the right questions. She says, “I think there are lots of skills and knowledge I will gain during the course of the trip. First and foremost is the content knowledge of the issues we will be exploring. What works and doesn’t work for education systems in West Africa? How does poverty affect healthcare? What solutions are governments and non-profits trying? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? How can these be used in other places? What can West African countries learn from other countries?”
She told the Northeastern College of Arts, Media and Design, “I feel very fortunate to have this type of opportunity. I think most journalists go into the field because they want to make a difference. They want to give a voice to the oppressed and call attention to important issues of the day. That’s certainly what I hope to do with my career, and I feel this is a great starting point to learn how to approach it from someone who has made such an impact with his work, Nick Kristof.”
In her winning application essay, Pattani shared her hopes for what the trip will provide to her and others. She wrote, “Through journalism, I hope to eradicate my own ignorance and hopefully enlighten a few others too.”
