This is the student. These are the beads. And these are the girls they help.
MIT senior Alia Whitney-Johnson painted one wall of her tiny college living quarters a tropical hot fuchsia, covered her bed in island green, and draped a hot pink feather boa near the window. Then there are the lights. Loads of them sprinkled everywhere. Even on a nasty, rainy day, this room is an inviting, cheery retreat.
It's also the worldwide headquarters of Emerge, a nonprofit organization that makes and sells jewelry as a form of economic and psychological redemption for teenage survivors of rape and incest living in Sri Lanka. How did this willowy 21-year-old blonde in the cobalt blue minidress come to create and fund a global charity? It all started with a childhood hobby.
"I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, on a horse farm," says Whitney-Johnson, with no hint of a Southern accent. "My dad leads retreats and encourages everyone to pursue something they find intensely beautiful."
So at age 7, she started making beaded jewelry. Not the kind mothers fawn over and then bury in the back of their drawers, but fashionable baubles that stylish women would actually pay for.
After apprenticing with a nationally known jeweler, the then-12-year-old entrepreneur started selling her wares at craft fairs and taking commissions. "I had quite a profitable business," she says.
It helped that she was really good at math. Add a natural affinity for science, and it's no wonder she wound up at MIT.
During freshman year, the environmental engineering major noticed a school sign with the headline "Looking for a summer job? Apply to the public service center." She was, so she did.
"Before I knew it, I was off to Sri Lanka to work in a tsunami relief camp," says Whitney-Johnson.
Because jewelry making was a favorite pastime, she thought it might be nice to host a beading workshop during the trip to offer victims a diversion. So she applied for and received a small grant enabling her to bring loads of beading supplies.
Then came a life-changing visit to a Sri Lankan facility housing child-mothers as young as 10, whose toddlers were the result of rape, many by their own fathers.
"Nothing could have prepared me for the wave of emotions that swept through my body when I first visited Ma-Sevana," says Whitney-Johnson, her voice cracking. "Working with the victims of the tsunami was very different. They had lost their homes and material things, but people pulled together. Here there was no sense of community. No one talked to each other."
That's when Whitney-Johnson pulled out her beads.
"The girls all started out extremely shy, asking for permission when they picked up every single bead. I told them through an interpreter, 'It's about what's beautiful to you.' Then they started making their own bracelets."
The change in the young mothers was profound and almost instantaneous. For many, this was the first time they were able to be creative and control their own destiny in any way. They beaded with babies on their laps. Girls who rarely spoke grew animated. They became a community.
"As soon as I got home, I started telling people the story about these kids and so many wanted to help and buy their products," says Whitney-Johnson. What happened next was quite remarkable.
Whitney-Johnson created Emerge for the girls of Sri Lanka. She secured a grant from the World Bank, recruited sponsors, and opened individual bank accounts for each of her beaders, who now also include the disabled and economically deprived. The current goal is to raise $500,000 to build a women's cooperative center in Sri Lanka as a place where abused girls can live safely and thrive.
Whitney-Johnson's enthusiasm has won over 10 pro bono lawyers and 22 fellow MIT students who volunteer their time for the cause. MIT junior Dilini Warnakulasuriyarachchi is one of them. A native Sri Lankan, she read about Emerge in a college news bulletin. Last year she visited Ma-Sevana with the organization's founder.
"The girls light up when they see Alia," says the electrical engineering major. "For many, she's their only family."
Warnakulasuriyarachchi was also bowled over by the inspired color mixes the girls selected for their jewelry. "They don't get to choose their clothes. They're given to them," she explains.
For business advice, Whitney-Johnson has consulted with executives in the fashion industry, beginning with the CEO of a lingerie apparel factory she met in Sri Lanka.
"He invited me to his office. Everything in Sri Lanka is so run-down. I wasn't prepared for this meeting in this beautiful place," she recalls. "There were marble floors, palm trees, and beautiful posters of Victoria's Secret models."
Back home, Whitney-Johnson expanded her fashion mentors to include Shauna Mei, an MIT alumna and partner in the Aronsson Group, a luxury-brand private investment firm in New York City.
To make Emerge a global company, Mei says "the product needs to speak for itself and be beautiful in addition to the incredible story." She feels the jewelry scores high on both counts, describing it as "colorful and filled with diversity. You can see the ethnic side of it, but there's also a modern twist."
Last June, it was Whitney-Johnson's turn to be fussed over and made to feel special when she was named one of Glamour magazine's top 10 college women and flew to New York for a celebrity-worthy photo shoot.
"Fashion can be considered superficial," she acknowledges. "But it's actually a reflection of one's personal sense of beauty and aesthetics."
Covered in Sri Lankan jewelry, this walking billboard likes to spread that message around. For her, the highlight of appearing in Glamour was the joy on the faces of the Ma-Sevana girls when they saw their creations modeled by their hero and friend in a fashion magazine worlds away.
For information about Emerge, visit emergeglobal.org
