Graci Harkema traveled back to the Congo to meet her birth mother after discovering she was still alive.
PROFILE
Living authentically Graci Harkema is committed to a more diverse and inclusive world. BY PASHA SHIPP
// PHOTOS BY BRYAN ESLER
Graci Harkema is a local diversity and inclusion consultant who owns and operates her own firm, but long before she was leading authenticity training and working with directors to improve equity at their companies, she was fighting for her life over 7,000 miles away in the Congo. “I was born in the Congo near the border of Rwanda, and at the time that I was born, there was a lot of civil unrest, and my biological mother was very sick,” Harkema said. “She was dying of disease and malnutrition, and a lot of her family had also died, and when she had me, she had me as a single mother, and she was very young at the time, and she wanted me to be able to have an opportunity at life and care because I was really sick when I was born, also.” 18
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