In 2013, during her final year at Harvard University, Amanda Nguyen was raped. On the day that she was raped, Amanda never could have imagined that a greater injustice awaited her than the one she had already been forced to endure. After spending 6 hours that night at the hospital, she discovered that her untested rape kit, the forensic evidence collected from her body, would be routinely destroyed. The police provided no reason about why rape kits were destroyed, but the reason was clear when Amanda stepped into her rape crisis center. The waiting room was filled with women; there were not enough chairs to sit in. Simply, the law has a gender and that gender is not female.

America doesn’t give all an equal voice. Too often underrepresented groups are left out of the policy conversations that impact their lives. This rigged system – paid lobbying – sells democracy to the highest bidder which bars marginalized, less resourced people from accessing the legislative process. Walking out of the hospital, Amanda realized she had a choice: accept the system, or rewrite the law. So she rewrote the law & created Rise to teach others how to do the same.