Different contexts, common aspirations: what working with refugee women taught me about health, opportunity and systems
One of the most important lessons I have taken from my work in sexual and reproductive health is this:
Availability does not always equal access.
I came to understand this more deeply through my research and community engagement with refugee women in Austria. Healthcare services may exist and information may be available, yet women can still face barriers that prevent them from accessing the care they need.
This moved my thinking beyond “Does the service exist?” to a more important question:
“Can the person who needs it actually reach and benefit from it?”
That question extends beyond healthcare to education, employment, leadership and development. An opportunity can exist and still remain out of reach.
An opportunity that expanded my world
Today, I am also reflecting on an opportunity that became an important part of my own journey: being selected as a 2022 Global Citizen Scholar of the Ban Ki-moon Foundation.
The Ban Ki-moon Foundation is a Vienna-based organization founded by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It works to advance the Sustainable Development Goals and support young people and changemakers contributing to a more sustainable and inclusive world. Through initiatives such as the Global Citizen Scholarship, the Foundation creates opportunities for young leaders to develop their skills, expand their networks and turn ideas into meaningful action.
For me, the scholarship became more than an opportunity to pursue a Master’s degree in International Health and Social Management.
It expanded my world.
It introduced me to new perspectives, networks and conversations and strengthened my confidence to participate in discussions about health, development and the challenges facing communities.
Years later, I can see how that opportunity became part of the foundation for the work I continue to build across health systems, women’s health, sustainable development and leadership.
And perhaps that is why the question of access resonates so strongly with me.
I know what it can mean when an opportunity becomes reachable.
A feature published for International Youth Day
Today, in commemoration of International Youth Day 2026, the Ban Ki-moon Foundation has published a feature reflecting on my journey as a Global Citizen Scholar and some of the work that has followed that opportunity.
Seeing this chapter of my journey reflected on International Youth Day feels particularly meaningful because the day’s theme speaks to something I have encountered repeatedly in my own work: people can come from very different contexts and still share common aspirations for opportunity, dignity, participation and a better future.
My feature appears on page 19.
What access means to me now
My work has increasingly taught me that creating impact is not only about making resources available.
It is about making them reachable, usable and meaningful to the people they are intended to serve.
That is a lesson I carry from working with refugee women into the broader questions I now ask about health systems, development and leadership.
Because sometimes the most important question is not:
“Is it available?”
It is:
“Who can actually access it?”
And perhaps that is one way we move from common aspirations to shared opportunity.
Different contexts. Common aspirations. And a responsibility to make access possible.
