Driving Change: Shaping Tomorrow, Today

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table of contents 09.......Letter from the Editor

by Anushka Joshi

making space for underrepresented voices 12.......The Circle of Life

by Dayo Okewale 16.......Incorporating Lived Experience into Decision-Making Spaces

by Rez Gardi 18.......Reawakening Generation Z in Myanmar

by Jesua Lynn 22.......Community Building for the Greater Good: An Interview with Gen Z Girl Gang featuring Deja Foxx, Aubreyne Brizette, Greisy Hernandez, Jade Walker, Phoebe Omonira, Stefanie Drinkwater

by Anushka Joshi

creating change within the system 30.......Debunking Diplomacy and What it Means to be Official: The Power of Youth Diplomacy

by Ramiz Bakhtiar 34.......7 Practical Tips for Creating Your Own Political Party

by Aida Betancourt 38.......Why Local Elections Matter: Public Service as an Active Constituent

by Zac Emanuel 43.......Young, Wild, and Politically Involved

by Jana Degrott 4

(cont.) empowering people from the ground-up 50.......Young People Driving Change at the Grassroots

by Kehkashan Basu 52.......The Power of ‘Artivism:’ Interview with Tiana Day

by Anushka Joshi 56.......Important Lessons I Have Learned while Working in Nonprofits

by Evan Malbrough 60.......How to Start a Nonprofit as a Young Person: Maybe Don’t

by Diana Chao 64.......Become a Cog in the Machine to Drive Change that Matters

by Sam Lin

what is driving these young people to public service?

68.......Public Discourse through Virality: an Interview with Khalil Greene, the Gen Z Historian

by Anushka Joshi 71.......What Defines Good Foreign Policy? Don’t ask Henry Kissinger

by Tajwar Khandaker 75.......Searching for a Spark

by Cecilia Pou

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SHAPING TOMORROW, TODAY.

EDITORS Editor in Chief Anushka Joshi Managing Editor Nikki Cohen Story Editor Morgan Grimm Copy Editor Emily Richey Creative Director Nicole Klein CONTRIBUTORS Dayo Okewale Sam Lin Rez Gardi Kahlil Greene Jesua Lynn Tajwar Khandaker Ramiz Bakhtiar Cecilia Pou Aida Betancourt Deja Foxx Zac Emanuel Aubreyne Brizette Jana Degrott Greisy Hernandez Kehkashan Basu Jade Walker Tiana Day Phoebe Omonira Evan Malbrough Stefanie Drinkwater Diana Chao REACH US www.GEN-ZiNE.com @thegenzine www.drivingchange.org @_drivingchange 6

TO OUR READERS,

letter from the editor

Welcome to “Driving Change: Shaping Tomorrow, Today.”

GEN-ZiNE was founded on the basis of designing media for social change and making activism accessible and digestible for regular young people. We do not expect everyone to dedicate their lives to policy, rather we encourage young minds to think critically and expand the breadth of table topics for conversation.

Since its start in 2018, GEN-ZiNE has remained a space for young people searching for a likeminded community to discuss topics that are out of the realm of mainstream conversation.

Four years later, I could never have imagined how rapidly digital landscapes have evolved to facilitate this kind of discourse.

Today, our feeds are inundated with social justice infographics and “woke culture.” It’s “inspiring” to see all of these conversations coming to the surface of mainstream discourse, but at times the sheer abundance of commentary can be overwhelming.

As a young person growing up in tumultuous times, I’ve often felt powerless and left wondering, “what can I actually do about this problem?”

GEN-ZiNE’s mission is not only to educate, but to inspire action. That is why we partnered with Driving Change, a publication dedicated to inspiring the recommitment to public service that the world needs now, especially from our hyperconnected, digital savvy generation.

We’ve highlighted 16 individuals who are redefining public service through their innovative, inspiring, and actionable initiatives. Some are driving change traditionally through working in government, some are creating novel nonprofit organizations and leading community organizing efforts, and others are branching into modern day social innovation.

Our contributors are political leaders, diplomats, social movement leaders, grassroots organizers, and social innovators from all corners of the world. Despite living starkly different lives, they are deeply connected by a desire to dedicate themselves to the greater good. In this issue, we learn about their catalyzing stories, the lessons they’ve learned about advocating for a cause, and advice about navigating public service spaces.

From Myanmar, to Luxembourg, El Salvador, Afghanistan, and more, these individuals are shaping tomorrow, today. From them, we learn that cultivating change at a local to even an international level is indeed possible. We hope you are as inspired as we are.

Here’s to driving change,

Anushka Joshi Founder & Editor in Chief

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CHAPTER ONE

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Making space for underrepresented voices

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THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

BY DAYO OKEWALE Chief of Staff, UK House of Lords UNITED KINGDOM 10

In ninth grade when a teacher asked the class, “What do you want to be when you grow up,” around the classroom, my classmates erupted into chatter, speaking about various professions: doctor, firefighter, astronaut. But I struggled to answer this question. I was raised in a council estate in Hackney East London, England (pre-gentrification), and I had a difficult time finding role models who looked like me, inspired me, or sparked curiosity in me.

Growing up, I always knew I wanted to make a difference – like superheroes did – but I just didn’t exactly know what that meant for me.

I grew up on a street that was commonly referred to as “murder mile.” Someone was killed there every week; guns, drugs, and gangs were prominent.

But fortunately for me, one day, I experienced a moment of destiny when my best friend at the time challenged me to play basketball with him, an active player for a local club. Needless to say, he wiped the floor with me, but the competitor in me so badly wanted to beat him. I dedicated weeks to the sport, became good enough to beat him, joined the local club, played for England U18, and got a scholarship to university where I obtained a business degree. I went on to play professional basketball for 5 years in three different countries.

Basketball taught me many life skills, like discipline and hard work, but more importantly, the sport taught me great employability and business skills, such as teamwork, time management, conflict resolution, how to perform under pressure, and much more.

It was important to me to give back and create paths of opportunity for young people like myself, so I started a foundation called Who’s Got Game Sport.

Who’s Got Game Sport uses basketball as a tool for social change and the development of young leaders. To date, we have worked with over 70,000 young people in 300 schools around the UK, along with other programs around Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. We also host a flagship annual celebrity

basketball game at London’s Olympic Park each year.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to interview arguably one of the greatest basketball players in the world, LeBron James. He spoke about how sport has played a pivotal role in his life and helped him overcome adversity like nothing else, a powerful narrative that is so commonly shared by those who indulge in sport all around the world.

The late Nelson Mandela said, “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does.

It speaks to youth in a language they understand.” My journey into advocacy and politics began when I started writing articles about sports as an underutilized educational tool and the value of the government investing more in youth sports. I co-wrote a manual on education through sport for the European Commission and joined a UNESCO board on integration leadership, eventually becoming an Ambassador and Associate Fellow for the Commonwealth.

As my influence grew, I found myself in the room where decisions were being made. I couldn’t help but notice the lack of community stakeholders involved in these conversations, and overall the lack of representation of those in the lowest places at the highest levels. In the words of German theater practitioner Bertolt Brecht, “The worst illiterate is the political illiterate, he doesn’t hear, doesn’t speak, nor participates in the political events. He doesn’t know the cost of life, the price of the bean, of the fish, of the flour, of the rent, of the shoes and of the medicine, all depends on political decisions.” This quote sticks with me wherever I go.

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modern-day slavery, I’ve been able to lend my voice to some of the toughest issues still dividing us today.

I was fortunate to meet and have breakfast with former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2015, and he shared a quote with me from one of his campaign speeches: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” And never has that quote been more relevant than today! We are at a crucial PHOTO COURTESY OF DAYO OKEWALE point in history where we must change the narrative from our past experiences to Six years ago, I became the Chief of Staff for the create a more equal world for the next generation.

House of Lords (UK government), providing The key to this goal is getting more passionate political, diplomatic, and strategic insights to leaders into positions of power — namely, more Crossbench Peers, giving a voice to the voiceless, political positions. and employing my valuable life experiences all through the unique lens of someone who grew Every day, I recognize the importance of my up in a marginalized and forgotten community. position in the House of Lords, as well as the importance of younger generations seeing representation at the highest level. We must provide opportunities, role models, and pathways for progress to all young people. Just as sport opened my eyes to a world of endless possibilities, early intervention is key to empowering and shaping young minds into effective contributors to society who empower their communities.

We need more young political leaders. We need more young people writing to their members My experiences drive me to put the needs of of Parliament about issues plaguing their underserved communities in front of the most communities and environment. We need young powerful policymakers in arguably the most people running for local and national government, powerful government house in the world — from assembly, and council seats. We need a wave of a council estate in Hackney to the House of young, empathetic, courageous leadership that is Lords! going to radically change the world.

“I’ve been able to lend my voice to some of the toughest issues still dividing us today.”

I’ve been honored to meet the Queen, speak before presidents and prime ministers from all over the world, and work on policy and legislation that tackles some of the hardest issues that particularly affect Black, minority ethnic, and marginalized communities in our nation. From criminal justice reform to climate change to 12

Are you ready to answer that call? We are the ones we have been waiting for;

we are the change we seek. ✱

INCORPORATING LIVED EXPERIENCE INTO DECISIONMAKING SPACES By: Rez Gardi International lawyer, human rights activist, and cofounder of Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table Kurdistan/New Zealand PHOTO COURTESY OF AHMED AKACHA

PUBLIC SERVICE is not just about providing humanitarian aid, such as food, water, and shelter. It’s about providing opportunities for underrepresented groups to participate in the decisions that affect their lives — by giving them a seat at the table.

While developing effective solutions for managing the global refugee system, including refugee voices in the discussion is not the norm, but it desperately needs to be.

According to the latest statistics by the UN Refugee Agency, there are over 26 million refugees worldwide. As these statistics continue to rise, how will the world address refugee crises sustainably? By giving refugees the opportunity to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes, we can create better solutions for all.

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I co-founded Refugees Seeking Equal Access at the Table (R-SEAT) to bring refugees into conversations about policies that directly affect our lives. We urge international institutions and countries to include us in the central decision-making bodies of the global refugee response system, such as the Executive Committee (ExCom) of the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR. Refugee crises have been increasing in scope, scale, and complexity, with protracted refugee movements persisting around the world. The current landscape indicates that things must change: we need new and innovative methods for providing assistance and protection for refugees. Determining the most effective solutions requires strong, evidence-based research and a commitment to translating findings into action. Most of all, this requires input from those with lived experiences of displacement.

Including refugees in the conversation will lead to policies that directly respond to the reality on the ground.

Global refugee systems can become more equitable, effective, and legitimate if we incorporate refugee voices into policy discussions. We need to reimagine a system where refugees have a seat at the table where we can use our expertise and lived experiences to help build the systems we depend on for protection.

Over the last few years, the international community has acknowledged the value that refugee engagement has in contributing to innovative, sustainable solutions. Numerous global forums have highlighted the necessity of reflecting perspectives of those who actually live in diaspora. Despite progress, certain obstacles still hinder impactful refugee participation.

In December, senior government officials and other stakeholders convened for the UN Refugee Agency’s High-Level Officials Meeting (HLOM) to assess progress and maintain momentum toward implementing the objectives of the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees. The framework outlines a vision for strengthened international cooperation and solidarity with refugees and host countries.

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Yet, only three of the over 70+ country delegations — the United States, Canada, and Germany — included a refugee in its delegation. And it was the first time that the United States and Germany included refugee advisers in their delegations in any international refugee meeting. While setting this precedent is substantial, it was only able to come to fruition after months of urging the United States and Germany to agree.

Symbolic representation will not be enough.

Refugees must join the process of imagining new solutions and programs in ways that are

“It’s about providing opportunities for underrepresented groups to participate in the decisions that affect their lives.” meaningful— not tokenistic. It’s not enough to invite a refugee representative to a meeting, ask them to tell their story, and then get to the business of making decisions after they leave – which happens all too often. Our participation in these conversations will only be meaningful if they are substantive, sustained, and have the potential to affect outcomes.

Refugees cannot achieve international representation on our own. By definition, refugees lack traditional political power, meaning we need allies to support — and demand — the creation of spaces for meaningful participation.

Refugee participation in policy discussions is gaining momentum, but there’s still a long way to go until we achieve full recognition. At the UN Global Refugee Forum in 2019 – the first major event following up on the Global Compact on Refugees — there were around 3,000 participants, including heads of state,

ministers, and representatives of NGOs and private companies. Meanwhile, only around 70 refugees attended.

According to research by our team and partner organizations, in recent years, more than 30 governments discussed including refugees’ participation in global meetings. Although these conversations are important first steps, in reality, refugee participation remains largely absent, as is evident in UNHCR events.

Forcibly displaced persons — including refugees — now constitute about one percent of the world’s population. With the accelerating climate crisis added to the equation, that percentage is expected to grow to close to 15% by 2050, with the number of displaced individuals potentially topping one billion.

If the collective international response to aiding and protecting refugees is struggling now — reflected by depressingly low resettlement numbers and ineffective local integration strategies — the situation will only worsen in the years to come.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AHMED AKACHA

“Symbolic representation will not be enough.”

Because we have navigated or are currently navigating the global response systems in place, refugees are far more aware of the shortcomings of resettlement, local integration, voluntary repatriation, and other solutions attempting to address the issues we face.

Our lives are directly impacted by the flaws in the system, from lack of access to services to slow pandemic responses, particularly in the Global South where the majority of refugees are located. Our lived experience and insights are, therefore, invaluable in identifying and addressing problems in the system.

We need to create effective measures to include refugee voices. We need to create more opportunities for currently displaced people to be meaningfully engaged in order to address current and future challenges associated with forced displacement.

It’s time for governments, policymakers, the media, and the general public around the world to abandon the stifling stereotype that refugees are all passive victims in need of help. Instead, acknowledge us as partners, especially in global policymaking processes that impact our lives.

Now is the time for states to start taking action to ensure that the next international gathering on improving refugee response includes even more official delegates with lived experience and first-hand expertise. • 15

By Jesua Lynn

Young Peacebuilder and Researcher, Myanmar

REAWAKENING GENERATION Z IN MYANMAR

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JESUA LYNN

TRIGGER WARNING: This article describes acts of war, including firsthand accounts of torture, that might be uncomfortable or disturbing for some readers.

ON FEBRUARY 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military overthrew the elected civilian government and seized power. Though the coup leaders did not expect such widespread national resistance, peaceful protests led by the younger generation and the Civil Disobedience Movement initiated by government servants erupted across the country within the first week of the coup. Thousands of peaceful protestors demanded their votes be respected and that democracy be restored. The military leaders refused to listen to the voices and wills of the people, instead cruelly killing and shooting innocent protesters.

According to the documentation of the Association Assistance for Political Prisoners, more than 1,566 civilians have been killed and 12,249 people have been arrested since the coup began. Among the victims, 93 children under age 18 have been brutally killed by the military, and 224 young people have been arrested, according to the data of the Ministry of Human Rights, the National Unity Government.

Amid such terrible evidence of the junta crimes, younger generations, especially Generation Z, have been on the front lines of the anti-coup resistance movement since it began.

Due to a succession of oppressive regimes, young people in Myanmar were disengaged in social and political movements. Because of systematic oppression and blocked access to political knowledge, young people did not have many opportunities to learn about and understand socialpolitical issues. Additionally, the totalitarian military regime made it dangerous for young people to be active in social and political activism. In accordance with the research findings of the Next Step Myanmar (2020), the majority of young people who participated in the study did not actively advocate for social or political issues, instead preferring to donate money to a cause. That is, until February, 2021, when the young people of Myanmar took to the streets.

Historically, the young Myanmar people have been the instigators of change in the country, never remaining silent in the face of injustice. Since Myanmar became independent in 1948, young people have been on the frontlines of the anticolonial movement. When the first military rule began in 1958, the youth led the resistance movements. Similarly, younger generations took on a leadership role in the 1988 uprising against the socialist regime and supported the Saffron Revolution against the military regime in 2007. Even during the democratic transition period in 2015, students actively expressed their opposition to National Education Law. In 2021, a new wave of youth resistance emerged to demand justice, democracy, and human rights.

BRUTALITY OF THE COUP After witnessing unthinkable brutality from military personnel, young people had no choice but to take action. “I am not a politician and I do not know anything about politics. But I know what is right and what is justice. I cannot keep silent if the military is treating me as an enemy and ruining our future,” says 23-year-old university student Kyaw Kyaw.

The level of military brutality is quite beyond oppression; many people have been tortured during their detention and arrests. In the report released by the Ministry of Human Rights, one LGBTQ detainee shared: “They tortured me… They stripped me off and I was naked and my pants were on my knees. They made me kneel down all the time and they beat my back, my shoulders and my head and the worst is that they burned my nipples with cigarette tips and also used paper clippers; very hard ones and clipped my nipples and took glass bottle and made me kneel down as well as hand-cuffed me and put those bottles into my anus. They also used the back of hammer something like horns to scratch anus and this time the torture was so bad. And those 17

PHOTO COURTESY OF JESUA LYNN

pains healed only after a month. My shoulders were all black with bruises. After they were happy with torturing me.”

That is just one story amongst many; trauma that is far too familiar for so many people in Myanmar.

Because Generation Z has taken initiative in the anti-coup movement, they have been targeted and treated as the criminals by the junta forces.

Activists and prominent people have been fleeing to liberation areas or other countries. Some have been motivated by their experiences to join the armed resistance. “The military left us no choice but to take arms and fight for our rights. My friends were shot and killed in my sight during the protests,”said Kyaw Kyaw, who joined the armed training in the jungle.

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More than half of the current detainees are young people between ages 27 and 30, and they are less likely to be released until democracy is restored.

This encourages others to continue the anti-coup resistance no matter what.

PROVOKING BY THE NATURE OF YOUTH Young people are naturally responsive, courageous, creative and dynamic in nature. Generation Z shows remarkable courage by continuing to counter the brutal military in the face of incredible danger.

Though it has been over one year since the start of the coup, young people are still protesting in every corner of the country. Additionally, Gen Z has an advantage of understanding and using technology to carry out creative anti-coup resistance tactics, such

as coordinating a nightly routine of banging pots and pans in streets across the country. In Myanmar, we believe such sounds ward off evil, so we use this tactic to make the evil junta go away.

Other anti-coup resistance tactics include running social media campaigns, and creating innovative fundraisers, like gamification (raising the funds through playing games) and click to donate (more audience clicks and watches raises more money for humanitarian and anti-coup organizations).

A 63-year-old retired civil servant expresses his feelings about the role of young people in the resistance when he says, “Today’s Generation Z is so much different from our time. They are more

courageous and they have no fear or hesitation to continue street protests though they might be shot or arrested. Their activities using the technology are miraculous. This 2021 is purely led by Generation Z, not the elder generation.”

Young people in Myanmar are rising to the occasion as military brutality continues. The change and justice they’re after demands action and participation in the current political movements.

The younger generation in Myanmar is determined to reach their goal of restoring democracy in any possible way and knows they must take action.

Generation Z in Myanmar marks another point in the country’s history of youth leadership as the driving force in the restoration of democracy and justice. • PHOTO COURTESY OF JESUA LYNN

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COMMUNITY BUILDING FOR THE GREATER GOO OOD: D:

AN INTERVIEW WITH GEN Z GIRL GANG FEATURING DEJA FOXX, AUBREYNE BRIZETTE, GREISY HERNANDEZ, JADE WALKER, PHOEBE OMONIRA, AND STEFANIE DRINKWATER 20

BY ANUSHKA JOSHI PHOTO COURTESY OF GENZ GIRL GANG

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

GEN-ZiNE: Hello, GenZ Girl Gang! Tell me who you are as a collective for all of the newcomers.

Deja Foxx: My name is Deja Foxx. I’m 21 years old and I’m a student at Columbia University. I founded GenZ Girl Gang (GGG), a community building tool for young women and nonbinary individuals.

GGG was born out of my freshman year dorm room out of the idea that social media can be used as a community building tool. Young women and nonbinary folks are building power in our personal networks and shifting culture towards collaboration and not competition.

I got my start in community organizing around sex education in my school district at 15 years old. So at my core, I’ve always been a community organizer. I ended up moving across the country to New York City and had to redefine what community meant for me.

In truth, the people who were living around me didn’t share my life experiences. I only started finding what felt like community, online while connecting with other young womxn.

Jade Walker: I’m Jade Walker, I’m 21 years old, and I’m the Influencer Brand and Partnership Executive at GGG. I grew up on Long Island in a predominantly white suburb. It was really hard grappling with the harsh realities of not having food at home and being low income, but going to school with super wealthy people. While I just wanted to be a young, fun teenager, I didn’t have that privilege. And then my life kind of changed, as did my idea of safety. I’m currently in the community where I was when my oldest brother was murdered due to gun violence. The following year, we were evicted and ended up moving to South Carolina. I felt like I had nobody.

I fell into a depression, and my sister told me that I should start writing. That’s when I started my blog. I was able to really find myself and find my voice, and I wanted to create a space for others to feel supported and like they did not have to compromise for their comfortability. When I started college freshman year in New York City, I met into Deja, unbeknownst to me at the time, in a bathroom. When she asked me to be a part of GGG, I felt like it was the perfect opportunity to combine this newfound identity of me and my voice into something that I really cared about. GGG has really helped shape me and shape the trajectory of where I want to go, who I want to be, and who I want to help.

Aubreyne Brizette: My name is Aubreyne Brizette. I’m 21 years old and am based out of both New Jersey and New York. I’m Director of Events and Operations here at GGG. I grew up in a very tight-knit Filipino community. Most of my town and my high school were Filipino; even people who weren’t Filipino understood when you spoke Tagalog.

I went to school in New York at a Predominantly White Institute. Some people thought I was an international student, and I felt really disconnected and was looking for community.

Throughout my freshman year, I also became digital hype girls with Deja. When she asked me to join GGG, I immediately knew that it was what I was looking for. I never really had this: a group of women and nonbinary people my age that supported me and met me where I was at.

Stefanie Drinkwater: My name is Stephanie, I’m 25 years old, and I’m the Creative Director of GGG. I connected with Deja the summer after I graduated college. I don’t think anyone can really anticipate what graduating college will feel like — for me it was pretty 21

lonely and isolating. I moved home and just felt like I was really lacking a sense of community. I saw on social media that GGG was building out an ambassador program, so I joined that first and later to help with social media. From my first call with Deja, I felt like I belonged there and felt a part of a team. GGG is really a place that I’ve grown personally and professionally.

Phoebe Omonira: Hey y’all, my name is Phoebe and I’m 18 years old. I’m the Director of Community and Nonprofit Partnerships at GGG. In high school, community service was really important to me. I genuinely loved meeting new people and hearing their stories. I wanted to be able to not only connect with people and get to know them, but help them connect with their own community and people who truly understand them.

Growing up Nigerian American, I was always surrounded by a supportive village of people. I wanted that for my friends and my family members. I found out about GGG on Instagram. They posted on their story that they needed someone to write an article about mental health. That was a journey I had just come out of and was sharing with my community, so I told GGG I would do it.

Greisy Hernandez: My name is Greisy, I’m 20 years old, and I’m the Impact Director at GGG. Deja shared her vision for GGG with me, and I was immediately excited by the idea. We started brainstorming about what digital communities are and what ours could look like.

I wanted to contribute to something that transformed lived experiences in online discourse that was meaningful and created growth. GGG is an ecosystem of care.

GEN-ZiNE: Thank you all for sharing, I feel the passion that pours out of all of you for each other and for the mission. In a world that often feels self-serving, let’s chat about the 22

dire need for transparency among opportunities. Why is it so radical, and so needed, especially today?

Jade Walker: GGG is all about creating and sharing opportunities.

We want to challenge the idea that you have to get your foot in the door and then close that door afterwards or else your work won’t matter as much.

I think it’s such a colonized mindset, in the sense that there’s not enough space for everyone. But what we have learned as people from marginalized communities is that we were stronger when we worked together. I think that is such a foundation of sisterhood that gets overlooked all the time: when one of us wins, we all win.

Aubreyne Brizette: GGG is about redefining sisterhood, specifically and intentionally to include all women, femmes and nonbinary people. The diaspora is so large, but the things we struggle and believe in are the same. We wanted to create a culture that is inclusive of everyone, because we’re an organization ready to meet you where you’re at.

Deja Foxx: GGG is positioned generationally, so it’s really important to acknowledge that there are a lot of individuals who have come before us who fought for a seat at the table. With that comes a sense of competition, and that was because of limited opportunity for women and nonbinary individuals to get ahead. Gen Z is turning that idea on its head by creating our own spaces, our own digital communities, our own businesses, our own economies. We’re making enough room for everyone at the table. We’re redefining sisterhood and also redefining success.

GEN-ZiNE: Well said. I’ve found myself in two entrepreneurial communities: one centered on white men, and then another one powered by women of color. I feel like it’s two completely different worlds. Is there a world where 23 PHOTOS COURTESY OF GENZ GIRL GANG

PHOTO

the two come together? Do we want them to come together?

Phoebe Omonira: When it comes to women, femmes and nonbinary folks having seats at the table, I just hope that we make sure that our narratives are presented responsibly and are never shared inauthentically. This “seat at the table” isn’t one size fits all. There’s so much power in lived experience.

Jade Walker: I think we have to start a new table, one that is always changing and growing to encompass cultural evolution. We have to always be ready to change, ready to accept, and ready to love. In order to become a place where everybody truly wins, we have to be able to have a table that is malleable to new, diverse people; and not just diversity in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, etc., but diversity of thought processes.

GEN-ZiNE: I want to talk about growing a digital community.

Tell me how digital strategy and the virtual world has played a part in growing and nurturing the GGG community and others. How has the digital world been able to create new communities with tangible impact?

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Stefanie Drinkwater: Something that’s really special about the GGG community is that it really feels like our followers are our community members and not just people who follow us online.

During the pandemic, we tried to create a lot of opportunities for connection by hosting COURTESY OF GENZ GIRL GANG online events and creating posts for people to interact in the comments or things like that. We have a Geneva home where community members can talk in group chats, too.

GEN-ZiNE: This zine is redefining what public service means for our generation, both in the private and public sector.

Why does empowering women and nonbinary folks help the greater collective?

Phoebe Omonira: Gen Z has really redefined public service, and technology and social media has a lot to do with it. More than ever, we see people taking to digital organizing.

I see public service as multifaceted. I see it as physically going out into the community, digitally organizing with friends, family, people that you know, or in an online community.

Stefanie Drinkwater: You never know how far an impact is gonna reach through digital organizing. We could empower one person online, and they can start their own organization because of a connection we gave them.

And then, that idea can grow into something even bigger and can impact so many more people.

Deja Foxx: GGG aims to empower the people — the women, the femmes, the nonbinary folks — who are doing that work on the ground, and nourish them by connecting them with people who support them in their professional and personal lives.

GEN-ZiNE: What does your utopia look like?

Deja Foxx: My utopia really is what we’ve created here at Gen Z girl gang. I want everyone to exist in communities of care where they know that they can pass the baton off. The thing that we can really do every day is help people find their girl gang, their group of friends who are going to be there for them, and that make life a little easier and make them feel inspired and confident. I really do find my utopia every day in this group.

GEN-ZiNE: Thank you for joining us! •

PHOTO COURTESY OF GENZ GIRL GANG

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CHAPTER TWO

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Creating change within the system

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debunking diplomacy diplomacy and and debunking what it it means means to to be be official: official: what

THE POWER OF YOUTH DIPLOMACY

By Ramiz Bakhtiar

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Ramiz Bakhtiar Founder of the Network of Former Youth Delegates to the United Nations The first Afghan Youth Representative to the United Nations and One Young World Ambassador Afghanistan/Canada

The international community is scrambling to win without war, stop military takeovers, resolve conflicts peacefully, and create consensus over global issues such as climate change, COVID-19, and the rise of authoritarianism.

Many official diplomatic efforts (Track-one Diplomacy) have failed only in the past 6 months. The fallout of the U.S-Taliban Peace Agreement and the breakout of war in Ukraine are two devastating examples of the cost of diplomatic failure. These negotiations have been too official, top-down, and exclusive of youth.

Negotiation is the soul of diplomacy, but when it’s not inclusive, its chances of success decline significantly.

In 2018, I was selected as the first-ever Afghan Youth Representative to the United Nations.

My journey towards youth leadership started several years ago, when I joined the Emerging Civil Society Leaders program, a network

of aspiring community leaders from across Afghanistan, and the Friedrich-Ebert- Stiftung Young Leaders Forum, a multidisciplinary program on youth’s social and political engagement at local, regional, and global levels.

After my selection as the UN Youth Representative, I conducted a nationwide consultation process with hundreds of young Afghans, and policymakers with the goal of bridging the gap among decision-makers and young leaders on the ground. Afterwards, I traveled to New York and spoke at the United Nations Security Council and the UN General Assembly. I addressed world leaders on behalf of 65% of the Afghan population who are war-weary and ready to work with the world to free Afghanistan from war. I met with some of the world’s most seasoned diplomats, including Permanent UN Ambassadors, Foreign Ministers, and heads of international organizations.

During the 73rd UN General Assembly, I had the good fortune of meeting and working with my fellow UN Youth Representatives from different countries — all like-minded, young leaders who believe in partnership, cooperation, peace, and justice. We organized side events and shared panel discussions on youth-related issues. Our interactions were friendly and open, creating space for trust and understanding — something that official diplomats struggle to achieve. I established a broad network of young leaders from all over the world during my participation in the U.N. These individuals and their unique experiences gave me a look into what went right and wrong in their countries and why.

Unlike traditional beliefs that limit diplomacy merely to intergovernmental interactions, I believe in an evolving idea and practice of diplomacy. A key element of this evolution 29

is the role of young people participating in diplomacy and foreign affairs in informal and unofficial capacities.

When my mandate at the UN ended, I noticed a lack of mechanisms to keep the UN Youth Delegates engaged and active. Thousands of these delegates did not have an avenue to work together and continue their activism for a sustainable impact. As a result of this gap, the huge potential was largely wasted.

After weeks of deliberations with 100 former and acting UN Youth Delegates from 40+ countries, the UN Youth Representative of Georgia and I founded the global Network of Former Youth Delegates to the United Nations organization in August 2020. It’s exceptional and unprecedented to include “the United Nations” in our organization’s name — a formal authorization we obtained after continued negotiations with the General Legal Division of the UN. Our organization has not only mobilized and united UN Youth Delegates to work together for a shared vision, but also our organization has reached thousands of young people around the world.

One of the Network of Former Youth Delegates to the United Nations project’s is entitled Youth in Diplomacy Talks. The Youth in Diplomacy Talks project is a series of talks in front of a public audience between former and current UN Youth Delegates and former and present UN Ambassadors. The purpose of these talks is to encourage the UN to meaningfully incorporate youth in decision-making processes, an idea in line with the United Nations Youth Strategy. This strategy underpins the role of young people as partners in achieving global sustainable development, peace, security, and international human rights. The Youth in Diplomacy Talks has featured the UN Permanent Ambassadors of Georgia, Canada, Ukraine, Israel, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Antigua, Barbuda, and Denmark.

Although including youth in diplomacy is not common practice in international politics, it’s effective and it’s 30

needed today more than ever. Young people play a constructive role in people-to-people engagement and cooperation, and influence policies and decisions that affect their present and have implications for their futures. Sure, official state representatives have more resources and assets at their disposal, but young people have larger audiences, higher engagement, and more outreach tactics. Official diplomats use formal influence while young people use informal influence via social media to reach a larger audience and garner support for their ideas and proposals.

When the Taliban captured Kabul and a full-scale humanitarian crisis unfolded in August 2021, my team and I wrote an Open Letter to the United Nations Secretary General calling for the protection of youth and children in Afghanistan. Our open letter was endorsed by 20 organizations and signed by 150 human rights and youth activists from 38+ countries. In November, we received a response from the Secretary General’s Executive Office, and were pleased to know that our open letter contributed to the United Nations Human Rights Council’s adoption of a resolution appointing a special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation in Afghanistan.

Also, after witnessing Russian aggression in Ukraine, former and current UN Youth Delegates published a Statement on Ukraine condemning Russia’s invasion and calling for international solidarity with the people of Ukraine — mainly the youth of Ukraine which comprises over 50% of the country’s population, and who are now facing a brutal onslaught that is killing their present and their future.

I firmly believe that countries and nations should be able to resolve their conflicts without going to war with each other, and it’s the responsibility of the next generation of diplomats, influencers, and leaders to ensure that diplomacy wins over war.

There is no alternative to peace and diplomacy. •

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7 PRACTICAL TIPS for Creating a Political Party

By Aida Betancourt Director of Political Affairs/Candidate for Congress, El Salvador

SINCE RETURNING TO EL SALVADOR after studying abroad, I have

voted in four elections. In the vast majority of cases, I completely resigned myself to voting for “the least worst” option, without any enthusiasm or conviction.

During this time, more and more citizens began demanding representation, transparency, and genuinity in politics. This is why, four years ago, several professionals and I, ranging from tech and business leaders to high school teachers, committed to our country by creating a new political party.

We dreamt of a political party that inspired trust, that made citizens believe in politics again, that brought the most capable and prepared people into public service; a party that actually represented the people. This is how we dreamt “Nuestro Tiempo:” Our Time.

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We knew it would be difficult, but it was necessary. Some of us were disappointed in the traditional political parties, and others who had worked in civil society organizations or grassroots movements were willing to go a step further. That was my case.

We were inspired by two former Congress members, Johnny Wright and Juan Valiente, who were a rare but existing beacon of strength and integrity, who questioned their own party for supporting corrupt officials, and who resigned when they understood that there was no possibility for reform in a traditional party.

And together with them, we embarked on the adventure of making our collective dream come true.

If you are as disappointed but hopeful as we were, here are a few tips to use that hope when building your own political party:

1. Find good leaders.

Political parties have a horizontal organization structure; not just anyone can lead an effort like this. You need inspiring leaders, fair and just people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work together for a cause bigger than themselves. These leaders often remind the group of the “why” when things get hard. And they will get hard.

2. Define your platform: believe in a cause, not just in a party.

We make the mistake of canceling people with a political past too often, but there could be former public officers or other political party members who will serve as important mentors and allies.

It is impossible to find a political party with all members aligned on every single issue.

There will be major disagreements and compromises, but you must agree on a minimum platform of causes.

You can share a diagnosis: the political class has let citizens down and has made decisions behind their backs, without prioritizing their well-being, by refusing to be held accountable or engaging in nepotism and other forms of corruption. But you must also share a set of policy priorities. These will be the common ground that the party base shares. Above all, you must share a vision of what politics mean, and how politicians’ main job is the privilege of serving others.

3. Be selective and grow carefully.

You might assume the bigger the party the better. More often than not, you will attract more party members as they see your impact and an opportunity to run with your party.

While many potential candidates will be a match, there is a possibility that they only want to use your party as a vehicle.

It is important that people prove their commitment to the party’s principles and priorities before you offer anything in exchange for their support. Their help may help you achieve your goals faster, but the cost is too high if you must compromise your essence. Be selective so your party doesn’t revolve around a single electoral event but instead is based on strategic choices to survive and to become stronger in the long term.

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4. Learn to listen with humility.

During our party’s founding, we had the opportunity to walk the country, knock on the doors of hundreds of homes, and have conversations in parks and university classrooms. Thousands of people opened their homes to us, inviting us to eat with their families, visit their schools, their churches, and their community projects, and to share their anguish and sadness with us so that we could better understand their dreams.

Some were skeptical, and others plainly refused to engage. These people demonstrated the discontent and disconnection that citizens have with politics in our country. We learned to actively listen and — with humility — to avoid repeating the mistakes that caused their political rejection in the first place. Sometimes, the harshest critics are the best advisors.

Wisdom from grassroots leaders was fundamental to really understand what communities are going through and how a party like ours can represent their hope and help in practical ways.

5. Define yourself, but not in opposition to others.

In our particular case, most of the party founders were part of the post-war generation; we felt the need to do something to reweave society. The Peace Accords were signed in 1992, and we firmly believe that the schemes and narratives that have shaped political life in recent decades are no longer valid and that a tone that fosters division and sterile opposition is not a viable option for our country anymore.

Even though we were born at a time when our principles were in stark contrast with those of the ruling political parties, we refused to be defined solely as an opposition party. This is only a circumstantial definition that does not represent who we want to be. We want to be an alternative for those who believe that decent, sensitive, humane politics are possible. This implies a series of non-negotiable principles, like freedom, transparency and respect for diversity that we live by, that are our essence.

6. Learn to listen with humility.

During our party’s founding, we had the opportunity to walk the country, knock on the doors of hundreds of homes, and have conversations in parks and university classrooms. Thousands of people opened their homes to us, inviting us to eat with their families, visit their schools, their churches, and their community projects, and to share their anguish and sadness with us so that we could better understand their dreams.

Some were skeptical, and others plainly refused to engage. These people demonstrated the discontent and disconnection that citizens have with politics in our country. We learned to actively listen and — with humility — to avoid repeating the mistakes that caused their political rejection in the first place.

Sometimes, the harshest critics are the best advisors.

Wisdom from grassroots leaders was fundamental to really understand what communities are going through and how a party like ours can represent their hope and help in practical ways.

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7. Communicate openly.

There were doubts and mistrust coming from those who no longer believed in politics, who were tired of only being acknowledged every three or five years when politicians needed their vote. We made a fundamental agreement when we founded the party: we would not make false promises.

Such illusions and disappointments would only have resulted in more apathy.

We were honest, with ourselves, with each other, and with whomever we reached out to for support. This openness is refreshing in politics and can carry you far.

On a personal note: build a good support system and take time to care for yourself.

This undertaking has been by far the most difficult thing I’ve ever done — and most of my colleagues would agree. It is tough. You will lose weekends.

You will miss family events. You will be exhausted and drained. And you cannot do it alone.

While only party colleagues can truly understand the real dimension of what each of us is going through, it is key that you rely on support from friends and family. If they also believe in your cause and they politically support you, that is a bonus.

SPOILER ALERT: We created the party in 2019. The pandemic fell upon us and we had to organize elections and recruit candidates remotely. We ran for Congress and municipalities. We now have one member in Congress (and his alternate) and one representative in the capital’s Municipal Council who make us proud every day and remind us that it is all worth it.

To truly change the way politics have been done and really address the issues that our societies currently face, our generation must get involved in politics and embody what political parties represent today: a platform of shared causes and a willingness to set aside our differences to work together on advocating and advancing these causes. It is our time. •

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Why Local Elections Matter: Public Service as an Active Constituent By: Zac Emanuel Former Political Editor at GEN-ZiNE, former Student Professional Worker for LA County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, former Communications Director for NY State Assemblyman Michael Blake, former intern for RI Governor’s Office United States

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You’ve seen the infographics, whether on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. Maybe you have marched in protests. You might have even voted in November 2020. Or maybe you haven’t been civically engaged, whether because you are dealing with your own imminent problems, not sure where to get trusted information, or frankly, you didn’t really care before something — or someone — changed your mind.

Whatever the case is, now you want to do something for your community and make the world around you a better place. Whether you are trying to do good for those around you actively, passively, or just trying to figure out how to get started, there is a way to be of public service easily: be an active constituent of your community. Be aware of local issues. Know who your elected officials are. And most importantly, whatever the election, make sure to vote in it.

KNOW THE SYSTEM Everyday issues are often solved not by your state senator, but by your local elected bodies. They determine what kids learn in school.

They determine more affordable housing in your community. Yet, only 30% of Americans know what body is responsible for their zoning rules and laws. You may have heard the phrase, “the only two things in life that are guaranteed are death and taxes.” But did you know that local governments collect over 1.7 TRILLION dollars in taxes and spend 1.9 trillion?

We’re not alone in the struggle of keeping up with local politics — even those who cover politics don’t tend to be up to date on local issues. However, without local voices speaking up, policies ultimately favor homeowners, the wealthy, and the elderly because they are over-represented in voting and are more likely to be on top of local issues.

To better our communities, we need to first know what problems exist and the mechanisms used to solve them. Establishing ways to source knowledge within our local communities is a good start, especially given the links between strong local media and accountability.

Currently, only 1% of the US population regularly visits news sites dedicated to local issues.

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KNOW THE ISSUES Staying informed about problems your community faces – and speaking out about them – is not age restricted. Sure, you might not be able to vote until you are 18, but being an active participant and constituent does not have an age minimum. If you can be a trusted voice for your peers, you can organize, protest, circulate petitions, and write on your public accounts, for your school newspaper, or even for publications like GEN-ZiNE. You can help educate your family, friends, and their family and friends about local issues. Studies suggest that politically active kids make their parents more likely to vote, even kids as young as elementary school. The more aware people are about the pressing needs of their communities, especially if they’re underserved, the better we can advocate for their addressal.

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KNOW THE OFFICIALS If you want to further your position as an active constituent, you also need to know who your local elected officials are. For example, in the US, there are 90,000 local governments, which comprise 99.9% of all elected officials. Out of the over 500,000 local electeds we have, only 537 serve at the federal level. While being attentive to the news might make a previous non-voter more likely to vote, they might not know who they are voting for, as 80% of Americans can’t name their local state legislator. Even more, a third of all Americans don’t know who else they vote for in their state elections besides governor, the lieutenant governor, and the legislator.

If we want to change our justice system, protect LGBTQ+ kids, ensure all people are provided housing, and incentivize equitable policies, we need to know which of our elected officials support our beliefs. And if they don’t, we need to know which of their opponents most closely aligns with our beliefs. Blindly voting for whoever is on the ballot is how we end up with politicians who are more content with maintaining their title than representing the interests of their constituents. It is how we have races over before they start, with 42% of officials running unopposed. If we know who our electeds are and what they stand for, not only will we be better voters, but we will also shape the next generation of civic leaders that push our officials to represent the will of the people they serve.

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Our voices are not heard at the level that holds the most power. As Gen Z continues to grow older and more of us become eligible to vote, we can be a force to be reckoned with in shaping our world. We have the power. We have the opportunity. But we need to be active constituents in order to wield it.

Know the system.

Know the issues.

Know the officials.

Know to vote.

The ideas and opinions in this article are reflective solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of any former employer, agency, or government official. •

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PHOTO COURTESY OF JANA DEGROTT

YOUNG,WILD, & POLITICALLY INVOLVED

By Jana Degrott Co-Founder of We Belong & Member of Young Elected Politicians Programme Luxembourg 41

While governments struggled to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, politicians forgot about young people. We lost years of education and entered the workforce as the economic pressures of lockdowns worsened an already existing mental health crisis among young people.

In France, some acknowledge us as the “sacrificed generation” or “forgotten by society,” a reflection of the consequences that this pandemic has and will have on the future of young people.

It’s no wonder politicians forgot us — the decisionmakers are more than a generation removed from our challenges and experiences. And that won’t change anytime soon, as around half of the world is under the age of 30, but to enact the change our world so desperately needs, policies must be informed by those most affected. It’s on us young people to take up spaces of influence and deliver innovative solutions to local and global challenges. We can ask for a seat at existing tables, but we also need to bring forth our own table and set out to shape our collective future.

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BE THE CHANGE I ran for public office at the age of 21, and the decision to run at such a young age was a personal one. First and foremost, I have always been a strong believer in the importance of incorporating youth perspectives in the development of a country; not just because we are the “future” leaders and decision-makers, but because I see potential for young people to bring new solutions to old problems and redefine what is considered “possible.” More than just being the leaders of tomorrow, we must also be the leaders of today.

I became politically active around the age of 16 out of frustration with the Luxembourgish educational system. I joined the Youth Parliament in Luxembourg and headed the education committee so that I could use my voice to improve upon the deficiencies in the system. Specifically, I was frustrated with the lack of emphasis on communication and debate

PHOTO COURTESY OF JANA DEGROTT

in the classroom, and I also advocated for civic engagement classes. I then joined the European Youth Parliament in Luxembourg, where I was an active member at sessions both abroad and at home.

In 2016, I organized a conference that brought 150 people from all over Europe to Luxembourg to debate and exchange views on current European topics. My actions were driven by the knowledge it is never enough to be angry about the way things are; we must channel that energy into mobilizing and advocating for others, ourselves, and our values.

Political engagement is just one way to elicit change. There are many opportunities to support causes on a more grassroot and societal level. I recall my experience as a Luxembourgish youth representative at the National Youth Council, where I was regularly representing Luxembourgish youth interests internationally. During this experience, I met like-minded and passionate people who drove

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and motivated me to advocate for including youthperspectives in conversations about the rights of minority groups, unpaid internships, Erasmus+, the right to vote at the age of 16, and many others issue spaces.

T I P S TO G E T G O I N G We can’t just depend on legislators to solve the world’s greatest challenges — especially when they don’t represent, or understand, so many of us. We must step into our power, take up spaces of influence, and deliver innovative solutions to local and global challenges.

Do you want to see change in society and strive to advocate for what you believe in? Do you have doubts, nonetheless? That’s okay, I feel you. Here are some tips on how to become a fearless advocacy leader.

1. Struggling with doubts and fear? Just do it.

Really, just do it. Everything we do starts small. Change takes time, your actions are cumulative, and building a coalition for change and informing/mobilizing others means “just doing it” and keeping it moving. We cannot expect the world to change on its own — we need to keep working for it.

2. It’s our future and the future of our children, so no one else should get to decide our fate. Young people should run for office to close the generational divides that prevent fresh ideas from being implemented. Politicians from older generations are often not linked into current struggles in the same way young people are, since it affects their futures more directly. Having multiple generational perspectives at the decision-making table is fundamental for a highfunctioning society.

3. We are the most connected generation ever. We must take advantage of our knowledge of social media and use it to build power, even when we are shut out of the traditional institutions. Digital tools linked to offline activism and organizing enables us to pool together and share resources, expertise, and skills that create change. Social media builds communities that can 44

“I see potential for young people to bring new solutions to old problems and redefine what is considered ‘possible.’

More than just being the leaders of tomorrow, we must also be the leaders of today.”

put pressure on political and state systems to advocate for change. Not everyone needs to show up offline, but those of us committed to the cause need to create online communities of supporters who can help redefine narratives and force society to listen to our demands and solutions.

4. Open doors for others and share the tools for success. As a young woman of color, I hardly felt represented by the decision-makers in my country. Now that I have entered a political space, I see it as my duty to open doors for other underrepresented groups. These values in particular influenced me to start We Belong, an initiative meant to inspire and equip nextgeneration leadership for young European women of color, creating a future pool of role models. As you advocate and move up in credibility, lead by example and bring other people up with you, ensuring they also have access to tools and resources.

5. We are not all friends here. Racism, xenophobia, ableism, and other issues will crop up, and you will face adversity from fellow advocates and the uglier parts of society. Prepare for this by practicing mental health hygiene (learn to put your phone down, have friends filter content for you if you get into a shit-storm), but also accept that there is no silver bullet to any of this. I still regularly suffer daily attacks on myself and my values, but I am getting better at managing them.

6. Stay rooted. You will eventually get attention, invitations to events and debates and interviews, but never forget that you started with the desire to represent and uplift a community and the people affected by an issue. Always bring it back to the grassroots. •

PHOTO COURTESY OF JANA DEGROTT

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CHAPTER THREE

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Empowering people from the ground-up

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By Kehkashan Basu Founder and President, Green Hope Foundation Canada

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I was born on June 5, World Environment Day and thus, I’ve always felt that it was my life’s mission to make our planet safer, healthier, and more equitable for all. I grew up in a family where empathy for people and the planet was the norm. I accompanied my parents every weekend to distribute food and clothes to the less fortunate. My grandmother, to this day, has an organic terrace garden where she grows her own fruits and vegetables.

now work across 26 countries and have directly impacted the lives of over 300,000 people globally.

We have planted over 721,000 trees and over 8,000 mangroves. We have cleaned up over 866 beaches, and recycled over 3,300 tonnes of waste. Our young ambassadors go out in our solar-powered librarymobiles every week and distribute books to children who were forced to drop out of school during the pandemic.

From a young age, I understood that it was my moral responsibility, as a citizen of this planet, to give back to the community and Mother Earth.

As responsible and concerned global citizens, we cannot continue distracting ourselves with rhetoric, thinking that by playing the blame game, we have done our bit and can give ourselves a pat on the back for every few decimal points shaved off from the emissions chart. As we must hold our parliamentarians accountable for creating just policies, we must hold ourselves individually accountable, too. Our individual actions — or inactions — impact carbonization. We need behavioral change, and it starts with each individual.

My bubble burst at the age of seven when I saw an image of a dead bird with its belly full of plastic. My 7-year-old brain went numb at the thought of the agony the bird must have endured. It was at this moment that I realized that something has gone very wrong with humanity to allow for that bird to die from consuming our plastics.

Around the same time, I attended a lecture from environmentalist Robert Swan. His words, “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it,” prompted me to take my first individual action. I planted my first tree on my eighth birthday. There has been no looking back since then, and I have dedicated the last fourteen years of my life to creating a better world for all.

I have never let my age be a barrier in my journey – in fact, I always told anyone who doubted me that age has nothing to do with capability. At the age of twelve, I founded Green Hope Foundation to empower young people globally to take charge of their own destiny using education for sustainable development and ground-level actions.

Young people are often stereotyped as strikers and protestors – people who only blame the government and private sector for the world’s problems but never actually do anything themselves to change things. But we are more than people shouting in the streets – we are people taking our futures into our own hands.

At Green Hope Foundation, we provide youth with the skills to take actions in their own zones of influence, and we have seen the benefits of this skills-based education turning into action firsthand. Our members

We must amplify grassroots experiences and personal insights and take action on the ground ourselves.

In doing so, we shift our awareness of planetary degradation from an abstract phenomenon of carbon levels and future impacts to a more tangible, multilayered intersectional issue of social, economic, and environmental struggles. This shift requires an intergenerational and intersectional effort; it cannot be a standalone, siloed campaign.

We must cumulate gender justice, racial justice, education, peace, and disarmament into a call for humanity and equity. This is one battle that we cannot afford to lose. Young people, with their fresh perspectives and lack of cynicism, must be at the forefront to ensure accountability and transparency.

Needless to mention, we have already fallen behind.

Each day of procrastination will make our world’s challenges even more difficult to overcome, but with concerted efforts, based on a spirit of multilateralism, we can still reverse the tide. We, those who have had the privilege of getting an education, must use this shift towards driving change from the grassroots to act and create change in our own zones of influence.

We can do this through passion, honesty, hard work, optimism and, most importantly, empathy for people and the planet. •

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THE POWER OF ‘ARTIVISM’: AN INTERVIEW WITH TIANA DAY FOUNDER OF YOUTH ADVOCATES FOR CHANGE UNITED STATES

BY ANUSHKA JOSHI

50 PHOTO COURTESY OF TIANA DAY

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

GEN-ZiNE: Tiana, thank you so much for joining us today. Tell us about yourself !

Tiana Day: My name is Tiana Day. I’m 19 years old, and I’m the founder of Youth Advocates for Change, a nonprofit that amplifies voices through intersectional social justice issues and media. We bridge student passions and creative talents with social justice to inspire young people to get involved in service in unconventional ways.

GZ: What was the driving force behind creating youth advocates for change? Can you recall a specific time or memory that sparked your interest in the work you do now?

TD: I went to a high school that had no representation for Black students. My peers would just throw around the N-word. I didn’t think anything of it because I was like, “Okay, kids are kids.” I didn’t confront others, because it made me uncomfortable to put people in their place.

I never really said anything, until I saw how many young people were getting involved with the Black Lives Matter movement. And suddenly, all of my very ignorant classmates were posting black posts on Instagram and saying that Black Lives Matter and donating to the cause.

They were so oblivious to what they were doing through their words and actions previously, and just started posting on social media — but for me, it wasn’t a trend. I’ve had family members who have been impacted by the system, I’ve been racially profiled, and my family’s been racially profiled in this specific community.

So, I just started calling people out on Twitter by name.

There were a bunch of screenshots of texts, Snapchat videos from private stories, and Instagram posts with

evidence that people were sending to me. Growing up, my community members would preach that racism doesn’t exist in our community, but I saw and felt the opposite.

Posting about it on Twitter started a conversation in the community, and I got a lot of hate for it. I had a college scholarship at the time, and people called my school and said, “Don’t let her go to this school, she doesn’t deserve to go there, she’s tearing up our community.”

Suddenly, I was the bully when I finally spoke up. But it gave me more passion and motivation to keep going.

From there, I spoke at a protest with 4,000 community members and helped organize a protest across the Golden Gate Bridge with over 50,000 members.

GZ: Looking back, what’s your take on canceling people?

And what are any lessons learned from that instance?

TD: I think the approach I took on Twitter when I started came off a little hostile. But I was really pissed off.

People who I grew up with — people who felt like family — had said the most disgusting, blatantly racist things.

If I could go back and change something, maybe I would word the first tweet differently. I wasn’t intending to cancel the people I was posting about.

I may have started it, but I received hundreds of submissions from other people, too. And it ended up changing a lot of things. Now, I’m working with the school board — people are more educated, and people run for school office with platforms that include racial justice.

That thread was built up in rage. But in the end, it became such a healing thing for the community.

GZ: So now tell me your approach to continuing the work that you started to do. Members of Gen Z are known 51

PHOTO COURTESY OF TIANA DAY

to be advocates for social issues, but how do you inspire youth to not just speak up but to also take action?

TD: I realized that people want to be a part of things that will influence their futures. I leave it to people who work with us in the organization to make up their own rules. That freedom is really important for young people. Finding things that relate to student talents and passions has been the best way to get people involved.

GZ: You talk about ‘artivism.’ Would you be able to define that?

TD: It’s really just merging the intersection of art and activism. Whether it’s poems, paintings, or literature pieces in history, you can perceive them as protest or activism. I think art is a great way to reach people, because it goes back to merging passions and talents with activism and social justice.

GZ: Would you consider activism to be public service and why?

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TD: Definitely. I think public service is bringing attention to something that the public needs. There’s just an intersection when it comes to art with everything that you do, so it’s my favorite way to get people involved. Having a megaphone and protesting in the street is such a mainstream way to think of activism. But there are so many other ways you can get involved with a cause and be an activist through creativity.

GZ: How has social media changed the public service landscape?

TD: I think it’s one of the best tools that Gen Z has right now.

My dad was an organizer during the Rodney King era, and my grandfather was a Black Panther. They would always talk about how they wish they had something like social media to be able to speak on a broader scale. They think we’re so lucky that we have these platforms that get our messages across so virally.

And most importantly, social media helps me maintain my narrative of what I’m trying to say.

GZ: There’s a large emphasis on youth as drivers for social change. Do you think Gen Z will continue to care about advocacy as we get older?

TD: I don’t see social justice as a trend. I think cancel culture is seen as a bad thing, but at the same time, it is holding people accountable. And when it comes to accountability, a lot of brands are realizing that’s something really important to Gen Z consumers.

Gen Z, in general, just cares more about the future, because it is our future. And that’s why we’re taking action now. Whether that’s for climate change, or diversity, equity and inclusion, there are so many things about our world that are changing because young people are the faces and at the frontlines of these big movements.

in terms of healing intergenerational trauma, are not things that our parents grew up talking about.

So in that sense, I’m very hopeful for the future. My younger sister is 12 right now, and she’ll teach me new things every day because she learns so much from TikTok. The ability to even have that space to learn is so helpful in everything that we’re doing.

I’m super inspired by other young people around me.

And that’s really why the reason behind founding my organization is you just need to give someone the platform, the space, and the resources, and then watch what they can do with it.

GZ: Thanks Tiana, for sharing with us today. •

The pressure that Gen Z puts on elected officials, or the conversations that we’re having with each other

53 PHOTO COURTESY OF TIANA DAY

Important Lessons I Have Learned While Working in Nonprofits

BY EVAN MALBROUGH Founder, The Georgia Youth Poll Worker Project United States 54

I started my nonprofit, The Georgia Youth Poll Worker Project, by accident. I was a recent college graduate trying to find my place in the world in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. It was not until the social upheaval in summer 2020 that I realized the time to build change was now.

My idea originally started as a simple Instagram account providing information on how students can serve as poll workers in the Metro Atlanta Area; I never imagined it would grow to become a department of the ACLU of Georgia. Through the many twists and turns of building this organization, I’ve become a better leader and have deeply explored the nonprofit world, bringing to light the different politics and challenges within it.

I hope that these lessons can help you navigate your journey of building an organization and, ultimately, building change.

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YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS WILL BE CHALLENGED I pursued public service under the idea that my politics, including my more radical beliefs, would be welcomed. I quickly found out that that would not always be the case. For example, I, as a voting rights organizer, disagree with the trending idea that voting is an end-all be-all solution, that voting can “fix everything.” Before every election, we see both partisan and non-partisan organizations urging communities to take to the ballot box, alluding that centuries of structural racism and brutal inequality can be wiped away with one candidate’s election.

This notion often leaves me uneasy and angry, and has also caused me to question whether my passion is helping communities or contributing to pacifying them in a sham of democracy.

This inner dialogue has influenced my work and belief systems. I decided that even though I would build my base through the cause of voting rights, I would still consider voting as one of many tools used to build a better society and educate myself on other tools, as well. This perspective helps me manage the double consciousness of my passion that pays me, and my radicalism that sustains me. To be a nonprofit is to be a part of the system — even if the goal is to break it.

There is nothing wrong with questioning the impact of your work, in fact, you would be doing the world a disservice if you didn’t.

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LEARN TO SAY NO AND WALK AWAY When working for the public – for the people – the work is never ending. One of the biggest mistakes I have made was trying to do as much as I could at all times. This toxic behavior came to a head when I was working 40 hours at my full-time job, 20 hours at my part-time job, and 20 to 30 hours at a second weekend part-time job. Some weeks I worked upwards of 90 hours. Even though I was serving the people, I was miserable managing the stress of three different organizational politics. This stress created a constant state of physical, social, and mental exhaustion.

After a full year of this, I realized that I cannot dedicate every aspect of my life to the movement, even if I wanted to. I realized that with a more sustainable schedule, I could better serve both myself and my organization.

The constant pressure of performing at the highest level stretched me too thin; I was just maintaining. I was trying to look good instead of actually succeeding. I learned to value rest the same way that I value work. I used to feel bad about resting when there was always more work to be done. After utilizing mental health services I was privileged enough to have access to, I developed tools to calm this inner voice. Though I still work a lot, I don’t work nearly as much as I used to, and I feel even more present in the work now. Learning how to balance work gave me what I always wanted: fulfillment.

KILL YOUR NONPROFIT, IF POSSIBLE I started the Georgia Youth Poll Worker Project as a response to the poll worker shortage caused by COVID-19. After researching the issue more, I learned that this wasn’t a new concept; there had been a poll worker shortage for years without any action, but that it all came to a head during COVID-19. It was with this knowledge that I decided to split the work into two parts: confront the current shortage and stop future shortages.

With this expanded mindset, I created programs that, if run correctly, could end all future poll workers shortages, making the Georgia Youth Poll Worker Project obsolete. Though issue-nuances vary, assess the issue at hand from a systematic lens to add depth to your understanding. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to work in advocacy because the system we lived in would be truly just. This dream society is lofty, but the belief in it pushes us to do what we can.

LEARN HOW TO MANAGE POLITICS While fundraising, you must take into account your donors’ politics. Tension will always exist between what you want to do and who is willing to pay for it. The ability to fund a nonprofit on a large scale is centered in privilege. Donors often support causes that look good to the public but also don’t jeopardize their own privilege. While I’ve fundraised successfully, I also have had issues with donors who do not understand my calls for systematic change. I’ve incorporated elements into my programming that served the short term and numbers based part of organizing, sometimes having to put my systematic approaches on hold in an effort to keep my lights on.

You must keep these discrepancies in mind when navigating the nonprofit space. Many people will support a strong vision, but very few will fund it without some strings attached. Showing discernment in your funders is just as important as who you hire and what work you do.

Though the nonprofit sector has its issues as all industries do, there is still amazing work done every single day by people who truly care.

Independent of pay, opportunity, and opposition, communities come together to work towards a collective goal. These lessons are not to discourage you from joining or starting a nonprofit but rather are meant to give you the necessary tools to use while navigating a complicated industry. In organizing, things are never easy and there is never a straight to progress, so on your path, remember these things: be confident, be patient, be strategic, and know you are on the right side of history. •

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HOW TO START A NONPROFIT AS A YOUNG PERSON:

MAYBE DON’T

BY DIANA CHAO Founder, Letters to Strangers United States

TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE The crowd’s reaction would have been comedic if it didn’t make me so sad. As I gave a keynote to a group of high-achieving high schoolers, eager students took turns asking me questions about my journey as a child of people with no higher education attending Princeton University.

One girl asked how I talked about Letters to Strangers, the nonprofit I started when I was fourteen, in my college applications.

“I didn’t,” I answered.

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The crowd went quiet. Here it was: supposedly the crowning achievement of my youth, proof for elite admissions officers to know that I am, at least on paper, dedicated to “service” — whatever that means. I had created the largest global youth-foryouth mental health nonprofit. We have reintroduced a bill called Stop Stigma in Our Communities Act on the U.S. Congressional floor, started the first pan-African, toll-free mental health hotline, and wrote a 80,000word Youth-for-Youth Guidebook, the first of its kind. My feelings of frustration were exacerbated as the questions continued: “How should I start my nonprofit?”

I didn’t need to think before replying, “I don’t think that’s the right question to ask.”

Over the last few years, my DMs have exploded with teenager after teenager asking me how to create their own organization or how to make themselves “look good” on college applications and job resumes. I get it.

It’s a tough, competitive world out there, and if we can somehow get a leg up while doing some good, then why the heck not? But it wasn’t until I attended a youth empowerment conference to speak to teenagers interested in public service that I truly understood why I felt, frankly, repulsed.

Every single panel in that conference revolved around the idea that public service must be tied to the creation of a brand new nonprofit.

When did we go from, “How can I support a cause I care deeply about?” to “How can I file some papers to start an organization that might not actually be necessary or even helpful to the community I am looking to support?”

I must interject here, as I can imagine that people may tsk and point out that this is all easy for me to say since I started a nonprofit that “succeeded.” I’m just hogging the glory and spotlight, right?

And frankly, I cannot fault anyone for thinking that way. Nor do I believe that there is no space to create new nonprofits. But my follow-up question is simple: what do you want to contribute to the cause? And HOW can you contribute to it?”

As we increasingly use social media to discuss and elevate social values, it can feel like starting a brand new organization is the only way to achieve noteable change — especially as the media awards “youth activists” left and right. But the truth is that, most of the time, it is not efficient to reinvent the wheel. Most people have limited time, energy, work capacity, and knowledge to share. When effort and talent that could have gone to bolster existing groundwork gets caught up in the weeds of tax statuses, recruiting teams, and pulling from the same limited pool of volunteers as everyone else already in the space, the cause can become secondary to the organization’s existence itself. And that, to me, is not what a nonprofit is about.

When you see a gap in the existing space, you should certainly fill it. When you find that old programs are lacking, you should certainly change them. To make these decisions, however, one must become familiar with the current space, and pay respect to and learn from those who originally paved the path. We best propagate change when we learn from each other, and when we take time to understand the community we seek to serve. A tax status cannot and will not be the sure-fire answer to eliciting change — change lies in the power of the people.

Simply put, my deepest concern is the extreme privilege of the notion that one must first start an organization to support a cause.

In the United States, for example, it costs $600 to file the 1023 form to start a nonprofit, a form that can take over 100 hours to complete. It requires planning out finances, structuring teams, sorting through legal requirements and more, all of which is daunting for anyone, let alone a young person.

Once you actually start the organization and want to carry out some work, how will you do so without any funds? There are ways to raise money, sure, but that involves building a network of donors (introversion barriers aside, you’d be surprised to know how many girls I know wore fake rings to ward off advances from old male donors who held not just money but also power over their heads), having the time and money to put on enough bake sales, or having parents and friends willing to support you. The process of applying for a grant takes months and requires even more detailed financial, professional, and legal enumerations, all for a slim chance of receiving anything. The prospect of receiving a grant is especially difficult if you’re a new organization with no relationships to foundations and agencies and do not yet have results and impact for corroboration.

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All of this is time, money, and energy that could have been spent working on existing programs to further the cause. And even if you get past the financial, legal, and logistical barriers, you still need to increase publicity and awareness around your organization for it to have reach and legitimacy.

One way we’re often told we can achieve this is by sharing our stories publically, but not all of us are ready or can even safely share the stories that drove us to the cause.

In fact, the reason I didn’t put Letters to Strangers on my college applications is simple: I was terrified.

People told me left and right that admitting mental illness is a straight route to rejection; no college was going to take the liability/risk that was my history of suicide attempts on their campus. If I wanted to get in, I better pretend to be as “normal” as possible, whatever that means. So if the best way to get people to pay attention to the nonprofit is by sharing our stories, we can end up feeling forced to dissect our traumas on-demand or otherwise share parts of ourselves that we shouldn’t have to just for the sake of being taken seriously.

To others, the solution is more simple. Certainly the people who constantly send me email like the one below seem to think so: Dear Diana, Greetings from THE WOMEN LEADERS MAGAZINE (thewomenleaders.com)!

Diana, we are an online magazine dedicated to recognizing women across the industry vertical. We come up with a quarterly edition listing “20 Most Inspiring Women Leaders”. We are now all set to launch our next edition for 2022, and it is with great pleasure I would like to inform you that my editorial team has selected you to be one among the “20 Most Inspiring Women Leaders 2022”.

Standard Promotional framework priced at USD 3,000 1. Letters to Strangers & yourself will receive unlimited digital and print rights for the two-page leader’s profile and image of yourself.

2. You will also receive a logo recognizing Diana as one among “20 Most Inspiring Women Leaders 2022” 3. The leaders profiles are hosted online with a link back to your website.

4. Letters to Strangers will also receive a dedicated full-page color ad space in the magazine.

5. The profile is promoted through Linkedin, Twitter, and our weekly newsletters.

Yes. For the low (*sarcasm) fee of $3,000, I can have the “honor” of receiving some award that I can attach to my name as an emblem of my credibility. I don’t need to share the details of my 60

story before I’m ready, but I also don’t need good programs, results, or credentials. I just need a few thousand dollars of spare cash.

This is why it took me five years from founding Letters to Strangers as a high school club to register it as an official nonprofit, all by myself. The belief that creating a new organization is necessary to drive change deeply alarms me; all of these steps make advocacy feel extremely out of reach.

Without the proper connections or resources, creating a nonprofit as a young person can feel impossible. But that is not how we should feel about creating change — at any age.

When I first started Letters to Strangers, I had never heard of the word “nonprofit.” I didn’t know what “tax-exempt” meant or what it took to run a charity. I only knew that I couldn’t find people my age who looked like me talking about mental health. I wanted to change that, if only selfishly, so that I would not feel so alone in my bipolar diagnosis.

I am far from perfect, and so is the system. I’m not a morally righteous, upstanding change-maker or anything of the sort — I held onto my cause because I didn’t know anything else. If I was fourteen years old today, maybe I, too, would feel pressure to start a nonprofit as a way to get into the college, and career, of my dreams. If it was systemically easier to create new organizations and sustain old ones, maybe we wouldn’t be in the mindset that there is one route to creating change. If the rhetoric that “young people must save the world, it’s up to them now” wasn’t echoed throughout every social impact conference, maybe the burden wouldn’t fall on us to take up new helms and carry the weight of the future on our shoulders. Instead, we should encourage young people to help repair and build upon existing ideas and approaches. Get in touch with local organizers, volunteer at a community nonprofit, ask how you can get involved when you see folks working on an issue you care about.

Alas, with reality as it is, this is my imploration: create change for the cause, with the people, for the planet. Being a founder or CEO does not determine the quality of change that you can make.

Change is as good as the community it supports. So let us learn together from the past and from each other to build a future with causes at the forefront, our own titles be damned. • 61

BECOME A COG IN THE MACHINE TO DRIVE CHANGE THAT MATTERS

by Sam Lin

Partner Manager at META United States 62

Disclaimer: This opinion piece features personal views of the author and are not representative of Meta Platforms, Inc. or any other organization.

The expressed content is intended only for educational purposes as stated in the original publication.

A few years ago, I thought I had a world-changing idea.

I was in Austin for college. During that time, I befriended fellow Austinites struggling with homelessness. To improve their situation, my friends and I came up with an innovative approach to obtaining paid work.

Every week, I’d ask the community for “micro-jobs,” like moving outdoor furniture or raking leaves. Our team then offered the work to people struggling with employment as a way to earn income without being officially hired. After working a series of micro-jobs, we translated that work into free resumes to help people land jobs without needing full-time work experience.

It was a great idea and others seemed to agree. Our pitch won grant funding, national recognition, and plenty of eager people who cared about the cause joined our team.

In years since, I’d often hear my work described as successful because “others noticed it helped people and agreed that’s what made it impactful.” For many young people, this is where the story ends.

What they didn’t include was how incredibly difficult it was to actually run the company and how hard it was to let it fail. Our company suffered from what many young startups share: inexperienced founders, lack of structure and direction, inconsistent operations, and more.

Despite having the best intentions, our organization was unwittingly failing our beneficiaries and potentially preventing another social enterprise from succeeding with our resources. After two years of running on steam, my co-founders agreed with my diagnosis and we closed our operations for good.

What I appreciate about our generation is the authentic passion to make the world better. I believe that shared spirit stems from Gen Z’s access to increased information, allowing us to viscerally witness inequality more frequently.

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However, understanding a problem and designing an idea to solve it are not enough to create an impact. Oftentimes, you need experience-driven expertise to make it happen.

To be clear, I am not advocating that Gen Z stop creating new social impact ventures. My startup was foundational in my learning journey and I met wonderful friends who challenged me to expect more from myself and others. But I wish I knew earlier on that there were other paths that I could have taken to diversify my experiences while still doing good.

Today, we can find opportunities to create impact anywhere, even in for-profit businesses. Rather than inventing a new model, I encourage people to consider using their strengths to build new competencies within existing organizations.

Academics refer to this concept as “intrapreneurship,” or the act of behaving as an entrepreneur within a large organization. Intrapreneurs strive to change the current infrastructure as an internal champion rather than challenge it from the outside. By that logic, “social intrapreneurs” transform corporate entities into social enterprises that share profit and mission-driven goals.

After working on a string of social enterprises, I joined Meta (then Facebook) to advance my understanding of digital marketing and work with brands that operate with bigger budgets and audiences than I ever could alone. At Meta, I influence executives to consider social issues in their media decisions, while also gaining valuable transferable skills from leaders at the company.

A common criticism I hear from aspiring changemakers is something similar to “capitalism incentives greed, so I can’t have an impact at a for-profit business.”

It helps to paint a picture of for-profit ecosystems as a metaphorical boat harbor; large businesses create products and services whose impactful tide lifts the harbor’s boats. All boats move, with some lifting higher than others.

The metaphor illuminates two lessons. First, social enterprises ought to target the boats that barely budged and find ways to

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help them rise higher. And second, we should not forget that for-profit businesses still lift most boats in the harbor.

Think of revolutionary brands like Apple, whose devices save lives every year by improving on-call response times in lifethreatening emergencies. Even big oil powers heat for rural hospitals and local animal shelters, protecting the vulnerable from winter storms and other natural disasters.

Capitalism is only a philosophy. Some people interpret it as a machine prioritizing shareholder wealth first. But if it’s only a machine, that means it can be redesigned for new outputs, including for the public interest.

How can we, as social intrapreneurs, redesign machines to do good?

First, find the right environment. Serving the public’s interest involves solving the world’s hardest problems. To accomplish that, aim to be in a room with passionate and intelligent people. For me, this environment is where I see people challenging themselves to make Facebook and Instagram serve nonprofits better.

Second, become a necessary “cog” in the machine. These may not be the largest or most exciting roles at first, but they are vital to serve the beneficiary. In my role, I support teams that spend countless hours designing innovative, well-oiled solutions, like Facebook Fundraisers or Donation Ads. Most people will not recognize those incremental changes, but they create real outcomes for real people.

Third, nobody can work on a problem forever. Smart people are in high demand and there are always more problems to solve. Too often, that brain-drain results in stymied progress or lost strategies for urgent issues. To drive sustainable change, we must proactively replicate our efforts so that progress does not stagnate when we move on.

With these strategies, we can build better machines that automate good for more than we could ever accomplish alone. •

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CHAPTER FOUR

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What is driving these students to public service?

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Anushka Joshi, GEN-ZiNE: Thank you so much for taking time to speak with us today. You’ve amassed quite the following across social media platforms. Could you give us a little background as to who you are and how you got to where you are today?

Khalil Greene: My name is Khalil Greene, but I’m also known as the Gen Z historian. I am both a New York Times and Forbes featured online educator, and I make content about history, politics and culture from an American perspective –– more specifically, a Black American perspective.

PUBLIC DISCOURSE THROUGH VIRALITY: An Interview with Khalil Greene, the Gen Z Historian

by Anushka Joshi 68

I got into TikTok in 2021 when I was a student at Yale studying history. At Yale, I also served as the school’s first Black student body president in its 318-year history. Since starting my TikTok, I’ve made a series called “The Hidden History” where I talked about the crazy covered up parts of American history. I created a series called “How Everything on This App Originated with Black People” to discuss how so many trends are rooted in Black American culture. Recently, I was invited to the White House as one of 30 TikTokers to be briefed about the war in Ukraine.

GZ: You’ve been dedicated to inclusion and DEI in part due to your experiences growing up in the Maryland school system, being the first Black student body president of Yale, and now creating a social media following around Back American culture and history. While the virality of social media has helped information spread, how have you seen it change public discourse?

KG: My work specifically is the collective of a lot of Black commentators. Last year, I made 10 videos in my series How Everything on This App Originated with Black People that have an aggregate of 7 million views. And then within a month of posting them, there was something called the Black TikTok strike, where a lot of

Black TikTokers who are choreographers refused to make dances for viral songs.

Generally speaking, the strike changed the public discourse around how credit is given to creatives, especially on a platform like TikTok where there are never royalties. A lot of times, there’s no direct recognition of the people who originated the ideas.

Instead, it’s usually the most palatable person who copies the idea and gets the most credit for it.

GZ: Your Tik Tok series “How Everything on This App Originated with Black people” points out how a lot of Gen Z’s culture is just a whitewashed version of Black culture. What does accountability look like for appropriation as a generation and as individuals?

KG: I don’t think that this type of appropriation is necessarily particular to Gen Z; it’s the irony of being champions of political progress, but at the same time exacerbating certain social issues. Throughout history, there’s usually a group that ends up being at the bottom in terms of receiving benefits from these efforts, and groups that tend to end up on top. Over time, you start to see the stratification of progress, and that’s just going to happen with Gen Z. As you build a platform on TikTok around talking about racial justice, you tend to exacerbate some of those issues. There are people who got huge platforms based on discussing social issues, but ended up getting canceled or discredited for not only exacerbating a social issue, but also not taking responsibility for it.

But now that I do it as full time work, it is a business. I’m not going to say I’m a volunteer, because this is what I do full-time and I get paid for it more often than not.

GZ: You’ve turned down corporate jobs to focus on content creation full-time. In this issue, we discuss public service as it’s redefined in the public and private sectors.

Content creation feels like a perfect storm between the two. Tell me candidly about your observations on social media driving so much discourse today — both the good and the bad.

KG: Social media drives discourse because it democratizes ideas. It allows people to share really brilliant ideas and reach millions of people in an instant, under the right circumstances, of course — people who might not have had a platform otherwise.

It also creates these sorts of engagement and algorithmic pipelines that bring people into online communities that can be eye-opening, but can also be where harmful ideas are espoused. Because of the way that social media works, you can be led down these harmful idea rabbit holes.

GZ: I want to touch on your work advocating for equity in organizations. Tell us a little bit about what you do there, what companies want to get out of it, and if you’ve been able to track differences implemented as a result of your work.

GZ: How would you define public service? And would you consider your work both online and through consulting a part of public service?

KG: I give speeches to organizations where I talk about the DEI expectations from Generation Z. Further, these speeches discuss progressive ideas based off of online discourse that might be relevant to those specific companies.

KG: Public service is when people volunteer to do things for free, for the betterment of society. I think maybe initially I would have categorized my work as public service — I was creating these Tik Toks for fun to educate people.

A lot of times, this looks like a history lesson about an industry that ends with relevant insights to that company. For example, I might have gone to a finance organization who is struggling to hire Black talent, and they don’t know what’s going on. I’ll say, “Wall Street 69

was at the center of one of the biggest slave markets in the 1700s. JP Morgan, and Wells Fargo were intimately tied to slavery, and then over time, stereotypes of Black people were espoused. And then the Civil Rights Movement happened, but those ideas continue to trickle down into biased hiring practice. Industries themselves are hugely based on nepotism, so only white families would be prioritized for these jobs in the first place. And all of this amounts to excluding people, and also turns people off from being in an environment where they are racially discriminated against.”

I try to give a realistic, comprehensive understanding of why these issues occur, so that companies have a better, more informed perspective on approaching solutions.

GZ: Given the fact that you’re the person giving the speeches in the room, and you are the one making the TikToks, a lot of your platform stems from you, individually. Tell me about how community plays a role in the work you do today. Is the goal just content consumption and information dissemination — or is it inspiring action?

KG: I do what I do for the cathartic feeling of sharing an idea in a very accessible, understandable way. If you do it just for likes, views, or some larger reason outside of your own personal enjoyment, it is not sustainable. There has to be some sort of personal reason or intention behind it.

In terms of community, there’s a lot of Black commentators out there and Black Twitter is its own thing. I’ve sourced a lot of my ideas from those spaces. And then also, a lot of my ideas will end up migrating to those spaces, and people will react to them there. So I get to engage with people who share those ideas or similar ideas. I like seeing other people make really good arguments and share perspectives that I didn’t know about before. I think the community around my work is really an intellectual community above all else.

GZ: We love an intellectual community. I like to consider the fleeting manner of social media and Gen Z’s presence as the “it” generation. When the eyes are no longer on us as examples of being “the changemakers,” what other ways will you continue your work? What do you see for yourself 10-20 years from now?

KG: I think my perspectives and opinions and ideas are often shaped by this idea of being a Gen Zer. But above all else, I uncovered history. I want to continue uncovering historical works that are not well known.

GZ: As a digital creator, do you feel the weight of your impact?

KG: I don’t necessarily always know the reach of my work. You’re always thinking about the next TikTok. You’re always looking at the views. I guess the person creating it doesn’t necessarily have the perspective of the people watching it, so everything feels smaller. Like, I literally make content in my bedroom. I think that’s an interesting perspective that people don’t realize.

GZ: And to us, it feels like you’re speaking in a room with millions of people! Thanks again for joining us. • 70

WHAT DEFINES GOOD FOREIGN POLICY? DON’T ASK HENRY KISSINGER

BY TAJWAR KHANDAKER RECENT GRADUATE WITH BA IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, FOREIGN POLICY, AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, UNITED STATES

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Five years ago, I made the unfortunate mistake of entering college as a biology major. After a year and a half of sleepless study nights and failed chemistry exams, I switched course and pursued International Relations instead. I’d been obsessed with history since I was a child, and the prospect of working to shape it through foreign policy felt like a natural fit, one I couldn’t believe took so long to figure out. It felt like the ultimate opportunity to engage in public service, to serve not only those around me but to contribute to the betterment of life across the globe. I signed up for my first IR classes eagerly, enthusiastic to learn the art of statesmanship. On the first day of my first class, we were assigned our core reading for the course, a nearly 1000-page title named “Diplomacy,” written by none other than former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

I immediately tensed at the invocation of the old man’s name. I knew who Henry Kissinger was and had since I was perhaps 7 years old. In my home growing up, the man’s name was never uttered without an accompanying curse, courtesy of my parents. As Bengalis, my mother and father had a deeply rooted distaste for the former statesman, borne not only of historic qualms but of personal experiences.

My parents were born in 1969 and 1970 in what was then East-Pakistan, the far portion of the Muslimmajority Pakistani state established after the partition of British India. Though the people of East Pakistan shared a religion with their Western counterparts, they were culturally and historically distinct, maintaining an entirely different primary language. As the West Pakistani government tightened its grip over the East, it suppressed the local populace, stymying the use of the Bengali language and cracking down on the secular politics of the region by invalidating election results and arresting leaders. A revolution ensued, and a genocide of the local Bengali population occurred at the hands of the Pakistani military, killing somewhere between 500,000 and 3,000,000 Bengalis.

Despite international condemnation of Pakistan’s actions, the United States remained firmly in its corner, driven by Richard Nixon’s and Henry Kissinger’s foreign policy ambitions. The pair was hellbent on achieving a successful rapprochement of America’s relationship with China and as a result, decided to foster close ties with Beijing’s close 72

ally, Pakistan. Early on, Nixon and Kissinger egged Pakistani Prime Minister Yahya Khan forward in his offensive, assuring that his army would be able to hold down the Bengalis with their pure military might. Throughout the conflict, even as atrocities accumulated, the United States continued to help sustain the Pakistani war effort by supplying ammunition, facilitating the distribution of arms, and eventually, moving the American Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal.

“IN MY HOME GROWING UP, THE MAN’S NAME WAS NEVER UTTERED WITHOUT AN ACCOMPANYING CURSE, COURTESY OF MY PARENTS.” For all their efforts, the Americans were largely unsuccessful. Pakistan was defeated, and on December 16, 1971, a newly independent Bangladesh declared victory. However, even after the fact, Kissinger and Nixon continued working against the young nation, withholding 2.2 million tons of food aid during a famine that would eventually kill well over a million Bengalis. Kissinger would go on to publicly refer to Bangladesh as a “basket case” and at one point, reportedly wondered out loud, “Why should we give a damn about Bangladesh?”

In the eyes of Kissinger and Nixon, they’d secured a grand victory for the United States on the global chessboard by successfully reopening relations with China; the price paid by Bangladesh was necessary collateral. It was one move in a thousand made during their time in office, just another small step towards what they viewed as the necessary advance of the United States globally.

To the people of Bangladesh, however, it was everything. It was a brutal war that claimed the lives of over a million, razed hundreds of villages from existence, and led to the systematic rape of perhaps

more than half a million women. Two powerful men 8,000 miles away wielded their authority as public servants to spring these horrors into existence, perpetuating them as long as it suited their goals. The visceral hatred my father and so many others hold for them will never fade — how could it? Hardly a single Bengali person lived through that era without losing people near and dear to them — the scars of that violence still linger and manifest, as they will for perpetuity.

When I was assigned Kissinger’s book, it reminded me of the ugliest truth of foreign policy: what we define as “good foreign policy” has few qualifications beyond the immediately defined gains for the United States.

There is no denying the man’s intellect and strategic prowess. Kissinger used his deep understanding of the behavior of states to execute a wide-reaching set of goals for America without accounting for the harm globally. I am sure he feels as though he was a successful statesman, and plenty of Americans would agree. And yet, Kissinger was ostensibly a mass murderer. The millions collectively killed both directly and indirectly by his interventions across Vietnam,

Cambodia, Chile, and Bangladesh — just to name a few — should be at the center of any discussion about him rather than being relegated to an unfortunate footnote.

A more holistic and responsible definition of “good foreign policy” is to understand it as a form of global public service, yet historically, we have repeatedly miscalculated the worldwide implications of foreign policy decisions. Americans are selectively engaged with atrocities abroad; that’s what happens when the consequences of our actions unfold oceans away from us while we remain safe in our homes. This isn’t a phenomenon unique to the United States.

Most countries approach foreign policy from a self-interested position by definition. However, in its unparalleled brashness abroad, America often misinterprets the long term consequences, harming its own self interest in the long run. The debacles of Afghanistan and Iraq within our own lifetimes serve as proof. It is critical to remember that what governments do overseas will always matter far more to the people there than at home.

Forgetting that reality is how countries like the

‘WHY SHOULD WE GIVE A DAMN ABOUT BANGLADESH?’ - HENRY KISSINGER

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United States chronically underestimate the longterm consequences of its own actions abroad. The hundreds of millions across the world who feel betrayed by this country are living proof.

Despite the darkness of America’s history in Bangladesh, my parents did eventually move to this country and have me here. As a result, I’ve grown up an American, afforded all the rights, privileges, and shared history that comes with that distinction. I am in the unique position of being a citizen of the nation that could have gotten my parents killed as toddlers.

It’s a bit grim admittedly, but I can’t deny that I find some solace in that truth. Foreign policy, like all policy, is reflective of the people who make it. For generations, America has been written and executed by a relatively small circle of people with similar views and backgrounds — we’ve seen the results play out in the same patterns for decades. However, America is made of too many kinds of people for such a narrow-minded approach to foreign policy. If the key to successful international activity is better understanding our counterparts abroad, there is no better inherent advantage than the wealth of cultures, experiences, and ideas among the American people.

After I read “Diplomacy,” it became clear to me that “success” in foreign policy was a relative term.

Strategic considerations do not exist in a vacuum; the moral and psychological costs of action do matter over the long arm of history. The experiences of the past shape how individuals and communities respond to circumstances of the future, and that reality carries more weight than policy makers often seem to accept. My own history as a BengaliAmerican will inevitably paint the way I view foreign intervention, and it’s precisely for that reason that I strive to dedicate my own life to public service by working on American foreign policy. There are ways of making our interactions with the rest of the world better from the ground level up, and those are worth pursuing. That process has to begin with understanding the other better. There are millions of Americans whose perspectives stretch beyond that of our own country. Those perspectives are going to be essential in ensuring that American foreign policy of the future is better than that of its past. •

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SEARCHING FOR A SPARK

by Cecilia Pou

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A few weeks after being accepted to the University of Southern California, I sat at my kitchen table scouring a brochure outlining all of the prospective majors — everything ranging from Anthropology to Chemical Engineering. My older sister, peering over my shoulder, pointed out International Relations as a possible major of interest.

“It combines multiple areas you love: history, public service and global politics. I really think you should choose that one,” she stated with so much confidence that I almost believed her.

It would be an understatement to say that I was lost.

Having attended a very traditional high school, I had little-to-no opportunity to explore academic interests outside of the classic five subjects. As an interdisciplinary student by nature, I felt stifled and often uninspired in my coursework and consequently, unsure of what path to pursue in college.

My sister’s offhanded suggestion, however, sparked my interest. As the daughter of two immigrants with family scattered across the globe, I was forced to be globally minded from a young age. I unintentionally learned about foreign cultures from being force-fed kimchi at the kitchen table to eavesdropping on my father’s fastpaced conversation in Spanish with his mother.

This genuine interest in experiencing foreign cultures was deepened by travel. I often found myself leaving my family in the dust, racing far beyond them in museums, at ancient ruins or temples — eager to experience any and all culture I could immerse myself into. Latin America, in particular, piqued my interest, and I found myself infatuated with the region’s deep history, lush topography, and mix of languages.

Aside from my passion for experiencing foreign cultures, I intended to choose a major that would open the door to a career in social impact, in whatever form that may take. Pursuing a career in social impact was nonnegotiable, a dream of mine since I began high school; dedicating my career to the service of others, seemed like an incredibly fulfilling choice — especially in this age of extreme inequality. While it was hard to pinpoint 76

exactly where it came from, I do believe my parents’ evidently meaningful careers working in psychotherapy and medicine strongly guided this impulse from a young age.

While it was clear I possessed a genuine interest in foreign cultures and had a passion for social impact, it was not immediately obvious how that would translate into any kind of meaningful career. Despite these hesitations, I decided to pursue a major in International Relations.

I started my degree with little to no idea of what my intentions were in studying this topic. With limited personal insight to guide my course work, I stumbled between classes with topics ranging from national intelligence to global finance. I joined USC’s international relations fraternity with the hopes of gaining some clarity, though largely I found myself even more lost. I was influenced to pursue a career at the State Department, even though it was clearly the wrong fit for me.

While I did enjoy what I was learning, I struggled pinpointing a career path that would combine my two guiding passions: social impact and an interest in exploring foreign cultures. All of the potential career paths presented to me seemed too bureaucratic and dry. I was as lost as ever.

I stumbled upon a professional opportunity by chance.

While scrolling on LinkedIn on the hunt for a summer job, I was struck by a minimalist, unfamiliar logo.

My interest piqued; I clicked on the opportunity. The posting was related to content moderation at a major social media platform. I had never heard of anything like it. Intrigued and perhaps a bit confused, I did some research and submitted an application.

Fast forward a year later and I have recently accepted a full-time position at that organization. My experience last summer was everything I could have hoped for.

Tasked with making content moderation decisions on controversial social media posts, the organization is forced to examine content related to pressing human rights abuses, ethnic conflicts, and social taboos.

Consequently, the staff is forced to examine the cultural context, language, history, and social structure of the region in which the post originates.

One of my primary responsibilities was to help organize and facilitate roundtable discussions with stakeholders across the globe. Most notably, I was involved in the planning of a roundtable discussion with linguists, community leaders, and academics from South Africa, to weigh in on a controversial post utilizing an ethnic slur.

After the event finally came to fruition, I felt fulfilled, engaged, and proud. Not only did this role teach me about local cultures from first hand accounts, but it also addressed a crucial humanitarian issue: safety and free expression on online platforms.

Finding a balance between freedom of expression and a safe online environment is one of the most pressing social issues of our generation. From the 2016 US election to the Rohingya Genocide to the Women’s Marches of 2017, we have seen time and time again the immense power social platforms have both to empower and destroy us. How do we preserve its power while limiting its harm? I knew it was a challenge that I wanted to explore further — at least for now.

Some are guided by a specific issue area that motivates them to work hard and guides them along their university experience. For others like me, we are committed to making a change, but struggle to discover where we fit or what specific cause calls us. Discovering a passion can be a long, arduous, and disheartening process and this side of it is rarely spoken about.

At times, you just fall into your passion unexpectedly. You randomly stumble upon an inspiring internship, have a thought-provoking conversation with a professor, or read a book that stops you in your tracks. Don’t lose hope.

I’m not sure what my long-term future holds, but I do know that right now that I am motivated, inspired, and excited to work to make a change. I hope that one day you will find that spark as well. •

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