Photo above: Hannah Moseman (left).
Major: Global studies
During her freshman year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Hannah Moseman was introduced to a non-profit called The Hope Venture by her Resident Assistant (RA). The then agricultural education major decided to embark on a lifechanging trip to Kenya where she found her true passion of helping others through cross-cultural communication.
The Hope Venture is a nonprofit aimed at bringing hope and dignity to the most disadvantaged people in the world. Each year, the organization leads trips to their ongoing health and education projects in India, Kenya, and Uganda.
Moseman applied for and went on the Kenya trip in the summer of 2021 at the encouragement of her RA, whose mother founded The Hope Venture. During the trip, Moseman said she started to gain a sense of calling as she got to experience cross-cultural communication for the first time.
“I don’t want to say that it was like, easy, but cross-cultural communication just came very naturally for me, which was kind of new to me,” Moseman said. “With it being such a new and very far away from home experience. I feel like it could have been very nerve wracking or made me very anxious, but for some reason, it just came very naturally to me.”
After returning from the trip, Moseman was given the opportunity to become the student sponsorship intern with The Hope Venture. In this role, Moseman was responsible for helping students get sponsored overseas and got the opportunity to connect with their international partners. Then, in January of 2022, she was promoted to Student Coordinator.
Moseman said that after working more with The Hope Venture, she started to wonder if her desired career path was changing.
“I was like maybe I want to do something with a nonprofit, globally and help with economic development, or something like that,” Moseman said. “And global studies just really interest me. So, then I changed my major to that and The Hope Venture played a huge role in helping me make that decision.”
Even though she was far along her in her education and changing majors would mean losing her scholarship, Moseman said she knew global studies was the right path for her. She also included that the support she received from the Teachers Scholars Academy to follow her passions made the transition easier.
“They told me that I would obviously still always be a part of the family and if I still wanted to come to visit I could,” Mosemann said. “I still felt very welcomed and supported. Ultimately, I figured that even though I still had, like a year and a half left, I knew that my interest and growth in a new major that I was passionate about was more worth it than the financial hardship.”
And it’s not just Moseman who recognizes that making a global impact is what she was meant to do. Cynci Petersen is the executive director of The Hope Venture. She said she’s had a front row seat to Moseman’s blossoming non-profit career.
“I’ve watched her understand the needs overseas”, Petersen said. “We work with extreme poverty overseas and you don’t see that every day here in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her ability to care about people beyond what her limited view was of that before coming here has expanded and grown. She’s got the passion to do this job, but also the skills.”
This year, Moseman will lead the trip to Kenya and have the opportunity to go on the trip with more responsibilities.
“I’m really excited to see from a different lens this year,” Moseman said. “It’s going to be a lot more logistics and kind of running the show, along with my other co-leader. I get to work with our partners year-round as student coordinator so I’m excited to work with them more closely, leading right next to them.”
Now feeling excited and engaged in her first semester of global studies courses, Moseman said she is excited to continue in the non-profit field in the future and continue making a global impact through cross-cultural communication.
“The tangible progress that we can accomplish through nonprofits is really, really exciting,” Moseman said. “There’s so much opportunity to work with locals overseas and help serve them and how they see best. They’re telling us what they need, and we’re just helping them achieve that.”
By Bailey Herrera
