The son of a diplomat, Gabriel knows much more than the average ninth grader about the disparities of the world and our impact on others. He wants to lead others to change their perspective, and he is confident in our ability to change the world.
My mom is a diplomat, and that means my family moves a lot. I was born in Switzerland, and when I was three I moved to Mexico City. Four years ago I moved here to Boston. Each place gives me a new way to look at life, and a new perspective on the way the world works. It was hard moving around at such a young age, but I learned to see the brighter side of it — that I will always be able to think about the people that I met and how each decision we make can influence them. I’m going to try to make sure that everyone knows how life is for those people. I want to spread the word.
Most of the memories I can remember are from Mexico. There are really rich parts and really poor parts, and they all are extremely important. Going to those places, I learned a lot about poverty, inequality, and about the way that certain people are affected by certain actions and are not able to progress higher in life because of the past. I would love to be the kind of person that can solve these kinds of problems. And I’d love for other people to do that too, because there's nothing bad that comes from that. I think we started doing that, with documentaries and news reports from different parts of the world that people don't know about, and it’s good... but it’s not good enough. There's still some work to do, but I do believe we can do it.
EXPLO is the kind of place that is trying to progress these ideas, because here you meet a lot of people from different backgrounds, which allows you to widen your horizons and to think about it the way a person like me would. I hope that people can start seeing the world the way that I’ve seen it, and think more about how the decisions they make aren’t just for a certain group of people — they're for everyone.
Casey Kim