Kristen Youngs

Kristen Youngs is a graduate of the University of North Texas. She majored in Applied Arts and Sciences with concentrations in nonprofit management and anthropology. She is passionate about international nonprofit work, which helped influenced her degree choice. Kristen is an avid traveler and loves outdoor sports. Her research focus areas while at the SISGI Group were international LGBT issues, education development in impoverished and rural areas, and global women’s rights.

Most commented posts

  1. Will Bras End Sex Trafficking? — 6 comments
  2. Improving our Future by Outdating Gender Roles — 4 comments
  3. Ending Human Trafficking in the Mekong Delta — 2 comments
  4. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Six Months Later — 1 comment

Author's posts

May 09

Why Haitian Women are Living in Fear

Two years after a devastating earthquake tore Haiti apart, the damage is still widespread. Hundreds of tent communities cover miles of land and the Haitians living in them suffer from the stresses of day to day living. Of the one and a half million people who were displaced by the earthquake, about five hundred thousand …

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May 07

Putting an End to Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes constantly limit the amount of progress and development that we see in our world today. Unfortunately, they are also engraved within society as an absolute norm. This video shines light on how gender stereotypes are driven into peoples’ minds from a very young age. It is meant to educate viewers on the effect …

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May 03

Improving Rural Education in the United States

One out of every five students in the United States is enrolled in a rural school, and that number has showed a trend of growth in the past. The word “rural” in reference to education is typically defined as a school district with less than 600 students in total. To put this into perspective, my …

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Apr 30

Ending Human Trafficking in the Mekong Delta

I recently read a story on CNN about a community in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam that resides in and around a waste dump. Parents and their children spend hours a day, from when they wake to when they finally go to sleep, picking through trash for items that will keep them alive- food, …

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Apr 25

Should Wearing Anti-homophobic Shirts be Banned in Schools?

Earlier this month a high school student from Ohio was banned from wearing a t-shirt that was meant to be supportive of National Day of Silence, an event created to draw attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools. Maverick Couch is one of the only openly gay students  at his …

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Apr 23

International Development through Education, Women, and Social Media

If you’ve had the chance to read my most recent posts, you know that the International Development Conference was held at Harvard earlier this month. I’ve written about some of the key takeaways from the education and women in development panels, but I wanted to write something about the overall conference and what I took …

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Apr 18

Connecting Women with Development

In my post on Monday I discussed the key takeaway that I got from sitting in on the education and development panel at the International Development Conference last Saturday. I also had the opportunity to listen to a panel of esteemed speakers talk about women in relation to international development. A quote that was noted …

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Apr 16

Education and the International Development Conference

Harvard’s 18th annual International Development Conference was held in Cambridge on Saturday. I had the opportunity to attend and sit in on some great panels about education, women, and corruption- all related to development. Speakers from the UN, the World Bank, USAID, and even one of Time Magazine’s top 100 most influential people in the …

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Apr 11

A Change in Jenna Talackova’s Miss Universe Disqualification

Last month, Jenna Talackova was banned from competing in the Miss Universe competition due to the fact that she is transgender. After finding out about her past, officials promptly took Jenna out of the running, causing uproars along the way. Social media websites devoured the story, news sources kept people constantly updated, and gay rights …

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Apr 09

Using the Index of Women’s Economic Opportunity to Improve the Global Economy

As stated in the 2012 version of the Index of Women’s Economic Opportunity, “women are the key driver of economic growth.” Research has shown that in the United States alone, women have added 2 percentage points per year to the overall economic growth. Similar or even better numbers have been seen in numerous countries all …

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