My Personal Story

When I was a young girl, I would lie on my stomach on sun-warmed grass covering the hills of Southern Wisconsin and absorb stories. I was shy and preferred to run away from the ordinary chaos of our family’s old farmhouse into the ancient rolling fields. As long as I can remember, I have always wanted to “see” the truths of the human experience, even if it meant terrible pain. But the burning questions that would carry me to the last page were “What now?” “What is the way forward?”

As I grew older, my knowledge of the world’s suffering grew larger than my child’s imagination could ever hold. I knew, for example, that millions of people, especially girls, were born and die, beaten down in spirit and body, never knowing that they could dream. I wondered more urgently: “How can we ever heal?”

At the age of 18 I left home to work as a freelance journalist covering indigenous movements and ethnic cleansing in Southeast Asia. By 23, I was living and working in Thailand, near the Burma border as an undercover journalist, searching for clues to understanding one of the world's most enduring and heartbreaking tragedies. I already knew many of the tales I would hear—the agony these women, young and old, felt while fleeing grinding poverty, rape, and ethnic cleansing. At night, I tossed and turned knowing that many would end up like the tens of thousands of women and girls from Burma in underground brothel death traps.

I daydreamed of time-stopping the perpetrators—the troop movements frozen. I envisioned the women and girls stepping out from their dark lairs, tentatively poking their heads into the quiet streets, grasping hands, finally free. I saw them congregating, reuniting, embracing, talking, and crying, building small communities to heal and care for each other. I heard them eagerly discussing and creating blueprints for a society where the horrors they had faced would never again take place.

When I returned to the US, I longed to start a media company that would broadcast the voices of the women leaders and refugees I had met. Their voices endlessly pulsed in my mind. But I was terrified—my own voice somehow caught in my throat. It took me years to gather the courage and strength to step forward and find the help I needed to give this World Pulse life. I drew from my experiences as an international journalist witnessing the unsung Gandhis, Aung San Suu Kyis, and Martin Luther Kings moving forward in country after country, sometimes risking their lives to speak their truth. These are ordinary people like you and me, who simply said to themselves and others—\"It's possible.\"

Today I am proud to bring you a media enterprise that illuminates the world around you. With coverage that transports you to the streets and villages of distant lands. Exposing us all to the human forces creating courageous solutions for our future and beckoning you to join us.