In a world of­ten char­ac­terised by tur­bu­lence and un­cer­tain­ty, a bea­con of hope of­ten emerges from some of the most un­ex­pect­ed places. Unit­ed Na­tions Am­bas­sador Natas­sia Wright’s over­com­ing of chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances in her child­hood to emerge as a glob­al force for good ex­em­pli­fies the trans­for­ma­tive pow­er of self-be­lief, re­silience, and dogged com­mit­ment to mak­ing a dif­fer­ence.

Wright grew up in the rough com­mu­ni­ty of All­man Town, Kingston, Ja­maica. All­man Town was rid­dled with vi­o­lence, pover­ty, and crime, which can quite of­ten sub­sume chil­dren and af­fect their chances of suc­cess. Wright armed her­self with ba­sic sur­vival skills by evad­ing vi­o­lence in the com­mu­ni­ty. At age ten, her house was de­stroyed by fire from an elec­tri­cal is­sue. That same year, tragedy struck again, and her fa­ther, a po­lice of­fi­cer, died in the line of du­ty.

At age 16, while Wright was in the throes of sit­ting the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) ex­ams, her moth­er died from an asth­ma at­tack. Now left on Earth with­out both par­ents as a teenag­er, she was placed in the care of her grand­moth­er. Her grand­moth­er, who was rais­ing her and her broth­er, died short­ly af­ter from a can­cer­ous tu­mour.

This painful past did not char­ac­terise Wright’s fu­ture. Now a wife and moth­er, Wright re­called trekking down a rough road to self-re­demp­tion. “Al­though I was a grate­ful child, liv­ing in pover­ty isn’t the eas­i­est. It was tough, but I did well in school,” she said.

Years lat­er, Wright has made an in­ten­tion­al ef­fort to change the gen­er­a­tional tra­jec­to­ry of pover­ty for her fam­i­ly. Along with her hus­band, Ja­mar Wright, whom she some­times jok­ing­ly calls “Mr Wright”, they are the founders and own­ers of Mind Food In­ter­na­tion­al, con­sid­ered among Ja­maica and the Caribbean’s pre­mier cor­po­rate lead­er­ship train­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions.

To date, they have trained thou­sands of man­agers, ex­ec­u­tives, and oth­er clients at the cor­po­rate lev­el; in gov­ern­ment, and oth­er sec­tors across the globe. Through net­work­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties and train­ing, the or­gan­i­sa­tion has suc­cess­ful­ly cre­at­ed a link for many Ja­maicans and Caribbean peo­ple in the di­as­po­ra and en­cour­aged hun­dreds of mi­grants to forge stronger con­nec­tions with like-mind­ed peo­ple and en­ti­ties in their is­land homes.

At the heart of the com­pa­ny’s mis­sion lies a pro­found com­mit­ment to peo­ple. Through ex­ec­u­tive train­ing, sem­i­nars, and a range of HR ser­vices, in­clud­ing re­cruit­ment and suc­ces­sion plan­ning, the Wrights equip lead­ers with the skills and in­sights need­ed to nav­i­gate to­day’s com­plex chal­lenges suc­cess­ful­ly.

Wright re­called the be­gin­ning of their course when she want­ed to in­spire oth­ers to take the chal­lenges in life and turn them in­to op­por­tu­ni­ties for growth, just as she did.

“We start­ed all this from the con­fines of our home,” she re­calls. “We be­gan send­ing out in­spi­ra­tional mes­sages and emails called Mind Food, and it took off! God is good.”

No doubt, what be­gan as a mod­est en­deav­our for the cou­ple has since be­come a thriv­ing en­ter­prise with a rapid­ly ex­pand­ing team. Mind Food In­ter­na­tion­al stands as a tes­ta­ment to its un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to em­pow­er­ing lead­ers and fos­ter­ing hu­man de­vel­op­ment on a glob­al scale.

Wright’s de­sire to cre­ate waves of im­pact was so­lid­i­fied by her role as a Unit­ed Na­tions Am­bas­sador for an NGO. Her tire­less ef­forts in ad­vo­cat­ing for so­cio-eco­nom­ic change have earned her recog­ni­tion and re­spect on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage. Re­cent­ly pro­mot­ed to Deputy Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al for the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment of a Con­sul­ta­tive Body with­in the Unit­ed Na­tions, Wright con­tin­ues to dri­ve for­ward ef­forts for pos­i­tive trans­for­ma­tion.

Wright’s ded­i­ca­tion to serv­ing her com­mu­ni­ty has not wa­vered in the face of suc­cess and the growth of her or­gan­i­sa­tion. She was award­ed the 2019 Ja­maica Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al’s Award for Ex­cel­lence in Lead­er­ship, which ho­n­ours ex­cep­tion­al Ja­maicans who are dri­ving so­cial change and demon­strat­ing ex­tra­or­di­nary lead­er­ship and com­mit­ment.

As an or­dained in­ter­na­tion­al min­is­ter and a de­vot­ed moth­er and wife, Wright aims to use her or­gan­i­sa­tion­al mis­sion to trans­late the val­ues of com­pas­sion, em­pa­thy, and ser­vice to oth­ers.

Her jour­ney is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of per­se­ver­ance and the re­silience of the hu­man spir­it. Her jour­ney serves as a poignant re­minder that no ob­sta­cle is in­sur­mount­able and that every set­back is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for growth and trans­for­ma­tion.

You can al­so fol­low her large In­sta­gram com­mu­ni­ty at https://www.in­sta­gram.com/natas­si­awright