Leah Petit

I support WorldOregon because I have spent my career working across countries and cultures, and I know firsthand that the connections we build across borders are not abstractions. They save lives, solve problems, and make us better at everything we do at home. WorldOregon brings that same conviction to Oregon, and that is something worth showing up for.

I am excited about WorldOregon's future because the work of building connection across cultures has never mattered more. We are living through a moment that is testing our willingness to see each other as part of the same story, and WorldOregon is one of the organizations actively refusing to let division have the last word. That is not a small thing. That is the kind of work that gives me hope.

Other places I've worked: In 18 years I have never had a boring job. I have worked with traditional birth attendants in Cameroon, led research teams in northern Nigeria, developed digital health systems in Tanzania and Kenya, and worked at USAID to support the meaningful transition of services from US funding to local ownership.

A person who inspires me: Elizabeth Glaser. After contracting HIV through a blood transfusion during childbirth, she learned that both of her children had also been infected. She refused to accept that there was no treatment for children living with the disease. She founded the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and through her determination and the people who stood alongside her, she pushed forward research that saved her son and countless other children. She and her daughter did not survive, but her refusal to accept the status quo did. I worked for the Foundation she built, and I think about her often. She is one of a long line of people, women and men, who looked at the world and said we can do better, and then worked until it was. Those are the people who inspire me.

Why Oregon means the world to me: Because it is home. I grew up in Oregon, and I am grateful every day that my childhood was shaped by nature and by a community that believed the environment matters, that people need each other, and that strong networks are what hold us together when things get hard. Those values did not stay in Oregon. They came with me everywhere I have worked in the world.