Bridges Across Borders
about us
Bridges Across Borders is a nonprofit organization founded by three good friends, Melody Xu, Ronika Medagam, and Sheena Cao, who attend Downingtown STEM Academy. With a shared passion for promoting cultural diversity, they are dedicated to bridging gaps and fostering understanding among communities. Being from Asian immigrant families, they bonded over their shared cultural values and found themselves frequently discussing about the hardships they experienced. These discussions quickly fueled a passion to help embrace diversity in today's interconnected world and strive to celebrate and value cultural differences.
READ OUR FULL MISSION STATEMENT
OUR THREE PILLARS
Learn more about us as well as our 3 pillars (AWARENESS, EXPRESSION, and SELF-ACCEPTANCE) below!
Ronika Medagam
Awareness
Hi guys! My name is Ronika Medagam and I am a junior at the Downingtown STEM Academy. As a second generation immigrant from India, I experienced a lot of the beautiful aspects of my cultural heritage in my private life. From wearing fancy saris and heavy gold jewelry to Diwali parties to learning how to make samosas myself, some of my favorite moments in life are deeply intertwined with Hindu traditions. However, I never got the chance to celebrate these same traditions in other aspects of my life, such as with my friends or at my school, for fear of ridicule and shame.
One of the most vivid memories is likely a shared experience by all immigrant children. I was 12 years old, super excited because my mom had cooked my favorite dum biryani and packed it in my lunchbox. The spicy, rich and aromatic flavors of the rice, however, was not well appreciated by my lunch table. “EW! Who just stunk up the entire cafeteria… gross!”. My heart sank, and I grabbed my lunch and packed it back up without eating a single bite. When the end of lunch came, I threw my lunch away.
After four more years of, well life, I’ve realized that kids are not to blame at all. They don't know better! But if we continue to keep kids culturally ignorant, it can damage the bridges we’ve worked so hard to build. That's why as an organization, we aim to increase cultural awareness within our communities. We aim to lift people up, and we can only do so with your help.
Melody Xu
Expression
Hello, my name is Melody Xu! I am a current junior at the Downingtown STEM Academy. Coming from a Chinese immigrant family, my life was influenced by many features of my Chinese culture. Rejoicing with my family over hearty 饺子 (jiao zi, dumplings), and celebrating Lunar New Year with my local Chinese school, my Chinese identity has expressed itself into my everyday life.
However, throughout my childhood, I did not like expressing this alternate identity of mine. Whenever my mom would pick me up from elementary school, I would request her to not call me by my Chinese name. I believed that my culture was weird, and this was later reinforced by stereotypical depictions of Chinese characters in media. It was often disheartening to see characters that looked like me be used as opportunities to spin in jokes.
As I entered 8th grade though, I slowly began to cherish this separate identity of mine. I believe that having a community of people that embraces each others’ differences and creates an accepting environment of self expression is so important for anyone, regardless of who you are.
Somewhere in this time, this separate identity of my Chinese culture had immersed itself into the person I want to show to the world.
This is what Bridges Across Borders wants to accomplish. We want to create an accepting environment for people to express themselves freely. By participating in our cause, we can cultivate a stronger community.
