The majority of Lincoln students spend their free time the same way most teenagers likely do; watching Netflix, sleeping, and spending time with friends. While sophomore Dana Smiley loves these hobbies too, she also spends her time helping her community, and, recently, traveling the world to talk about it.

From Oct. 19-21, Smiley attended the sixth annual Qatar Leadership Conference in Doha, Qatar. Run by The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN) Foundation and Northwestern University in Qatar, this conference brings together students, teachers and speakers to talk about service, leadership, education, and compassion.

According to a letter sent to the Lincoln administration by Qatar Foundation International (QFI) Executive Director Maggie Mitchell-Salem, the conference is “the largest professional development conference in the Middle East devoted to high school students.”

Over the past year, Smiley has been part of a service program called Yala Commit to Action, through the Qatar Foundation International, the same organization that funds Arabic classes at Lincoln.

Her project, called TP for All, provides Portland’s homeless with much-needed toilet paper.

Smiley said that this was a major problem she saw in her community, and “[homeless people] told me that toilet paper usually gets stolen at the beginning of the week.” Smiley collects toilet paper donations and works with Yellow Brick Road Portland – another community organization – to hand out the paper.

“In January, I presented my project to a panel of judges. Ten of us got chosen to showcase our projects at [a conference in] California and were also chosen to go to Qatar this year to speak at another conference,” Smiley said.

At the Qatar conference, Smiley says she learned many things, but information about the work of the United Nations stuck out to her the most.

“I learned a lot about the Sustainable Development Goals,” Smiley said. She also learned from everyone who spoke and attended.

“Every speaker I heard was genuinely engaging and interesting. All the topics were meaningful.”

Smiley’s experiences illustrate that it doesn’t take a college degree to help change the world. It doesn’t even take a high school one. All it takes is one small step to improve someone else’s situation.