Rajita Dang is an Indo-Canadian, born in India and raised in Vancouver, Canada. From an early age, she was exposed to travel and the experience of living in unfamiliar places. In this interview, Rajita shares how her mother’s passion for travel became the catalyst for her career in international development. Having lived on multiple continents and in various countries, Rajita has mastered the art of pivoting and adaptability—skills essential for marketing across cultures.
Where were you born and raised?
I was born in the north of India in a region called Punjab. Both of my parents are from Punjab originally and we moved to Canada when I was two. It was just my mom and I, she immigrated to Canada at the age of 40. At the time, she wanted to start again and build a new life in a new country.
How were you influenced by your culture growing up?
What I really like about Canada is that it is kind of a cultural mosaic versus the American cultural melting pot. I think what was really nice is that you can embrace a lot of your heritage. We would call ourselves Indo-Canadian versus American-Indian. I think that really helped me preserve the parts of my culture that I really enjoy.
Do you have any favorite memories or traditions?
I find in some ways Canadian culture allows you to create a little version of your own country. I grew up in a city called New Westminster, which is predominantly white. But then when I look at one of the neighboring cities, which is Surrey, there is a really big Indo-Canadian community. For example, most of the signs are in Punjabi and there are Punjabi private schools and Punjabi credit unions. It was really nice to have those kinds of things that allowed you to embrace your culture and community.
How do you keep your culture alive today?
I wouldn’t say my family is big into Christmas but I used to celebrate that because all of my aunts and mom went to Catholic boarding schools in India so they grew up with that tradition. Another tradition that we kept when we came to Canada was Lori, which is our version of New Year’s. It’s a day for farmers to have a bonfire to celebrate a good harvest and this was something that was a big community event growing up in Vancouver. I don’t keep these traditions alive as much today. I would say I’m kind of a festive orphan. I don’t have a lot of family right now where I live, which is in Rome, so I think it’s hard to keep up traditions when you’re here on your own. When it comes to the language, I would say that I’m one of the few grandkids that actually learned Hindi because my grandma actually lived with me so she taught me Hindi herself and a bit of Punjabi as well. I feel like that was such a great gift that she gave me because learning the language has helped me so much in my travels and being able to communicate and connect with people from my region of India. I think the language is such an important piece of my cultural identity that I would have lost and I know what that loss looks like because I’ve seen it in my cousins.
Who would you say inspired the person you are today the most?
I would have to say my mother. She has been such a strong figure in my life and I think she’s someone who believes in reinvention at any age. She’s someone who would tell you at any point, you should be upgrading your skills. My mom ingrained in me that you should always be working toward new goals because aging doesn’t mean your learning journey ends- you should always be evolving.
Can you talk about your career journey?
I started my undergraduate doing a major in communications and a minor in international development. At that time I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. I was looking into documentary filmmaking and was interested in cinematography. I was also very interested in public relations so it wasn’t really a set idea that I had. I did international development as a minor just because I really enjoyed world politics but I didn’t think it was going to turn into anything. After I finished my undergrad, I worked for a public relations firm and while I was there, I saw a Facebook ad for the government of Canada doing a program where they would send 22 people to 11 UN agencies.
I saw that as a great opportunity to travel and not being able to afford to travel during college, I decided to apply and see what happens. It was all expenses paid plus a salary so I thought it would be a great way to go abroad for a bit. I applied, got through, and I was on my way to Kigali in a matter of a few months of being trained in that cohort. I worked in Kigali with UN Development and I’ve been with the UN almost six years now. I started off in social media marketing when I was working in Rwanda. When I moved to Bangkok I did digital marketing at the regional bureau looking at Asia Pacific and working with startups there. In my current role, I do executive communications for the head of the World Food Program here in Rome, Italy.
What would you say is the greatest lesson you’ve learned so far in your career?
The greatest lesson I’ve learned is the ability to be adaptable. I think having moved so many times the last couple of years and across so many continents that I’ve developed a deep understanding for cultural awareness being a big part of the UN. Part of marketing is understanding different markets and understanding cultural differences and that’s something that only really emerges when you’ve explored other areas. I learned a lot about Asian, African, and European markets and what their audiences and preferences look like. This really guided my strategic thinking when it comes to forming communications.
In many ways international development and relations is not for everybody. Would you agree with that?
There are a couple of feelings I have towards these jobs. I think one of them is that it takes a lot of personal sacrifice to move every two to three years and to be away from family and spending a lot of money on flights to come home for special events. Also to deal with the loneliness of often being in countries where you will never speak the local language because you’re not there long enough to grasp it. Sometimes it feels like I’m living in subtitles all the time. On one hand, it’s been an incredible experience to meet so many different cultures and see so many different people. At the same time, you have to think about it from the perspective of knowing that you’re never going to truly belong in that place and you’re just a long-term visitor. I think people tend to have this idea of the UN being completely focused on humanitarian development, which is true, but just like any company, it requires all the other arms to function. It requires marketing, human resources, finance, etc- all spheres that are needed and there’s a lot of jobs in those fields. So people shouldn’t just focus on the political science aspect because most likely you’re not going to be in the negotiating room for peacekeeping.
What is the most important part of your job?
The most important part of the job is really understanding the sensitivities that can often go into the messages that we want to post. I think brand awareness is something that we have a great deal of, but often the granularity of knowing what we can say and what we can’t requires us to do a lot of checks and balances on. That is something that only comes with experience, spending time making sure that you’ve gone to the right heads of units, the right offices, and made sure whatever message you’re putting out has been cleared by everyone that needs to clear it.
Do you think there were glimpses of your passion for travel or your current career in your childhood?
For sure. My mother loves traveling. She moved to a new country at a pivotal time in her life and she’s someone who’s traveled quite a bit. She lived in Austria, Los Angeles, and New York and I that travel love really transferred to me. When I was 11 years old we moved to India for a year and a half and that’s where I felt fully transplanted into a different world. It was a great experience and I understood what it feels like to be both an insider and outsider because culturally I understood India, but when I got there, I realized that I didn’t know much about what modern day society looked like there. That’s really helped me because ever since that experience at 11, it fueled me to want to experience more of the world in a slow travel mode; actually moving somewhere, learning about the place, and then moving on.
Honestus believes in encouraging people to merge their passion and career. Do you have any advice on this?
I think my advice would be to find a niche that you can really brand yourself with. I think for me, I felt like I could have applied for a more political or policy-focused position, but the competition is a lot higher versus something like marketing that you might not think of first with the UN. I would say the competition for those roles are not as high so if you have the opportunity, try to excel in a very niche market. If you’re interested in marketing, look at the oil industry, pharmaceuticals, or fields that need marketing experts because they’re not marketed conventionally. Find a creative way to support a field with your expertise.
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