Melissa Lee: how will education help create a sustainable future?
The GREEN Program (TGP) is an experiential educational program that focuses on the world’s most pressing issues in sustainability. Melissa Lee, CEO and founder of The GREEN Program sat down with Global Engineering Futures to discuss the inception of the program, sustainable education, environmental justice, and the impact of the current pandemic on the future of The GREEN Program.
Melissa Lee started The GREEN Program at only 19 years old. As a second-year student at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Melissa had no idea how a typical classroom setting was going to help her, her peers, and the future generation in their search for a career. Melissa is a first-generation American, whose parents were born in Malaysia. Whilst growing up, she had the privilege of traveling back and forth between the US and Malaysia, seeing different cultures, experiencing different worldviews, and ultimately having more of a global perspective. Many of her classmates on the other hand, had never even left the state. A realisation dawned upon her where she wanted to get people out into the world and share her experiences.
“How do you find a career that does some good for this world? There were a lot of gaps that I was immediately picking up on and noticing that a lot of my colleagues and friends were going about university unsure about the careers their degrees would lead to.”
The idea for The GREEN Program was born out of a trip to Costa Rica in 2009, where Melissa, who would go on to major in organisation leadership and communication, chanced on the opportunity to have a guided tour of a rural wind farm. It struck Melissa that green technology was out there, and in reach, however so few of her classmates had ever interacted with it up close and personal. From here, TGP has grown to offer four fully accredited international study abroad experiences in Peru, Nepal, Iceland and Japan - all focusing on connecting students to real world sustainability issues and solutions. It is this approach - of shifting the model for what is attainable for students, at a fraction of the cost - and broadening the horizons of every participant, that has made TGP the success it is today. Students have the opportunity to gain internships, keep in touch through the TGP network and participate in hackathons through TGP partnerships.
“If it wasn’t for curiosity, living in the moment, and just going for something and chasing our ambition, this would have never existed.”
Prior to pandemic, all of the programs were in person. Since the pandemic has hit, TGP has transitioned their programs into two versions. One, which allows for students to learn now when they were scheduled to learn but with an online delivery. They will then be able to go abroad later once it is safe to travel. The other program allows for two-week online courses on a new topic. Instead of credit, deliverable for students is a Smart Certificate. The certificate uses machine learning to connect the skillsets they acquire from the course to jobs available today.
When asked about her definition of sustainability, Melissa stated that in terms of human history, the term sustainability is relatively new. Today, people want to know more about it, corporations now have departments set up to address its challenges, and countries around the world are putting together plans of action to achieve sustainable development. For Melissa, sustainability is rooted in a lot of indigenous cultures, a lot of immigrant cultures, and the concept of preserving. She states we should think how we preserve our resources, not deplete them, and not abuse them, whilst ensuring future generations are in mind when we are using resources.
Melissa furthers that exposure to nature is really important. She recounts a story of when she was eleven-years old and she did her first underwater open dive off a very remote island in Malaysia. She realised creating experiences where people have an opportunity to connect to nature and the environment will innately allow you to find desire to protect it. Melissa is also inspired by the idea of potential. It excites her when she thinks about all the challenges in the world, instead of running away from them, we should educate ourselves on sustainability. Whether that is environmental justice or other pressing issues around the world. We should ask ourselves how we can do a better job co-existing with the rest of the world, not deplete it. Melissa therefore, hopes that the future of sustainability education starts young. She argues that the next generation of leaders are taking action to become more educated, and the lessons of sustainability will be something that they pass on to future generations.
A TGP expedition high in the mountains
Melissa aims for the idea of progress not perfection. One of her biggest fears is for her students being fearful and overwhelmed by the concept of sustainability. It is such a big and daunting topic that the easier, or the route to opt into is to do nothing. What she hopes to expose is that the beauty of sustainability is that there is no income bracket, or no knowledge level needed to have impact in sustainability. It is open and accessible to everyone. There are various ways to approach it. TGP is focusing in on the gap an individual's career and their education.
During Melissa’s interview with Global Engineering Futures, she argued for the importance of environmental justice and the connection between sustainability and diversity. When asked why environmental justice is important in the conversation of climate change, Melissa answered that we need to think about it from a local sense. Many communities are dealing with environmental justice in different ways. She explains that in a broad sense it is important the conversation ties history, policy, and climate change with community developments and corporate engagements. For students, Melissa believes sustainable development is a fascinating multi-level, interdisciplinary topic for students to dive into complex issues. She implores us to use this as an opportunity to ask how we can do better. On the premise of how it is connected, Melissa would maintain that we should all have equal opportunity to live, play, and work in a safe and clean environment. She debates that we must realise that many communities are built on racially systemic foundations that have oppressed generations of communities.
“There’s so much more room for individuals and organisations to play a role in improving the future, The GREEN Program included. Higher education and the sustainability sector are not very diverse. So much of sustainability is inherently rooted from indigenous cultures and we need to strive for a more human-centric approach in education and remind ourselves of that connection again. I think it is important for us all to also acknowledge where the knowledge comes from.”
With such a demanding job, as CEO and Founder of The GREEN Program, Melissa was asked how she maintained a balance between work and life. Her answer? Creating boundaries and exploring other passions to help make her a better person. Melissa explains how TGP has been an exciting challenge. It has been a journey that she wants to continue for TGP and what she wants alumni to continue for the world. Melissa has been leading TGP since she was 19, she has since learned to differentiate between work and leisure, which has been a self-development process.
“11 years later, and I still love what I do, the people I work with, and am inspired to continue this journey”
Melissa’s advice to young ambitious people looking to start-up is mentorship is key. With that said, she implores us to be stubborn with the end goal but open and flexible with the method of getting there. Bring in mentorship, get more knowledge and more advice from everyone in the field to see what else is needed. Listen to your target audience, listen to your stakeholders, ask them good questions because you want to get better - according to Melissa, that is the key. TGP was built by students for students and they continue to engage their students to make sure that they are providing the best possible service to them.
“Start small then let’s grow impact. Progress not perfection.”
It has now been a little over a decade since the inception of The GREEN Program and they continue to grow and thrive in the field of sustainability. TGP plans to continue sustainability education for students, as well as corporate programming. Additionally, they are researching how to produce a program that helps train future healthcare workers. Melissa argues that if we have learnt anything from the current situation, it’s how do we pivot and learn with what we have right now? The current global pandemic has forced TGP to alter and rethink their strategy on the educational programs they offer. TGP thus hopes to look at things that are very current and place them in the hands of people who can do amazing things to help more people become our world’s future sustainability leaders.
Find out more here: https://thegreenprogram.com