On a given day, Emily Troutman is a photographer, poet, travel writer, blogger, short documentary film maker or some combination of them all.

As of last month, Troutman is also an United Nations Citizens Ambassador.

The 30-year-old Catonsville native is the only person from the United States, and one of only five in the world, to hold the title, which she received at the international organization's New York headquarters on Oct. 23.

The five were chosen as winners of the UN's first Citizens Ambassador YouTube video contest, which asked entrants to submit a video online that answered the question: "If you had the opportunity to speak to world leaders, what would you say?"

Troutman, who spent six weeks shooting photographs in the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo in May and June, had just finished a video called, "Why Congo Matters" when she saw the contest announcement on the UN's Web site.

She recognized that her work could answer the UN's question well.

"A lot of what I wanted to say about Congo didn't fit" in the first video, she said.

The contest's format allowed Troutman to utilize what she calls "the new genre of photography for social change," a field in which she thinks she has found her creative niche in the last few years.

"I consider myself an artist, because I think that's the most encompassing," she said.

Troutman had already used the genre -- which combines video editing with the reach of social media -- to broadcast her video commentaries on the Congo and on President Barack Obama's inauguration in the viral world of the Internet.

That work has, in turn, attracted thousands of views to her blog, emilytroutman.blogspot.com.

"It's a pretty powerful tool that's combined a lot of my strengths and interests," Troutman said.

For the UN contest, which had 477 submissions, Troutman put together a three-minute video -- filled with her photography of the Congo, Uganda, Istanbul, Barcelona, Rome, Richmond, Va., Baltimore and Washington -- in which she reminded world leaders that they "work for 6.7 billion real people, one person at a time."

In the video, she said, "I want us both to agree to say one true thing out loud every day."

She asks them "To remember one real person. To remind ourselves that our tragedies -- yours and mine -- are lived and felt one person at a time, just like our hope, our renewal, our future can also be lived and carried out into the world, one person at a time," she said.

She said she wanted her video to jolt world leaders into acknowledging that all people's struggles are equally important -- regardless of where they are.

"What happens over there is just as real as what happens over here," Troutman said during an interview last week.

"Connecting with that is very hard to do, and I think it's hard for politicians."

A civil war in the African country between the government and rebels has left tens of millions dead and more than a million people internally displaced. There are currently 17,000 UN peacekeepers in the country.

Troutman grew up in Catonsville on Seminole Avenue, went to Hillcrest Elementary and then Glenelg Country School in Howard County before graduating from Catonsville High School in 1997.

She earned a bachelor's degree from College of the Atlantic in Maine, a master's from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and a certificate in photography from the Washington School of Photography in Bethesda.

In between, she worked in publishing and lived in Istanbul for three years travel writing.

She's also lived in Washington, D.C.

Her mother, Kathryn, owns The Resume Place in The Mews at Mellor.

A year-and-a-half-ago, she moved to her father Allen Troutman's house on Newburg Avenue. She lives in an apartment above the garage to save money for her work traveling, she said.

Her father said he was "very much impressed" by her honor from the UN.

Despite his parental bias, he said he "didn't think her competition could come close" to her work.

"She's very industrious," he said.

In New York to receive the UN award, Troutman said she met UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon as well as the other video contest winners -- two from Canada, one from Brazil and one from Mexico.

Because this was the first year the UN has presented the awards, Troutman said the organization is "looking to us to help them figure out what a Citizens Ambassador can and should do."

She said she is excited about the challenge, and about her newfound connection to the global organization, which has promised her access to all of its outposts around the world.

"And for a photographer, access is kind of everything," she said. "It's huge."

Her friends are also excited for her, she said.

"They're thrilled because they've followed my work for a long time, and always felt they wanted other people to see it," she said.

Troutman wants to continue working with the "one person at a time" theme of her UN video, and said she plans to be back in Africa, working on a new project.

Until then, she'll continue thinking of ways to live up to her new title -- a tall order, she said.

Her friends have already started calling her "your excellency."

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