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ORIGIN SERIES:
Same Questions | Different Artists | Powerful Answers
G r ac e l a n d Ac t o r + Ac t i v i s t
Serinda Swan Skydiving for a cause [
I n t e r v i e w : R o b e r t P ip e r
]
Robert Piper: How do you stay healthy? Serinda Swan: How do I stay healthy? I actually leave a lot of that up to my dog. He makes me get up pretty early in the morning. We go for walks together. I was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, and then I moved to Hawaii when I was fourteen. I think outdoors has been my second home. My parents wouldn’t be like, “Go and do a puzzle,” they’d be like, “Hey, there’s a forest across the street. You need to go play in it.” I think since such a young age I’ve been super active. I was a gymnast for twelve or thirteen years. Then I got into surfing and now I paddle board and hike and do whatever I can. I think it’s my love of the outdoors. That and I have two incredible trainers that whoop my ass whenever I’m in LA. RP: Can you explain some of the charity work you’re involved with? SS: Sure. Philanthropy has always been something that I’ve been kind of interested in because I think it was instilled at a very young age through my parents. They did it in a way that was actually very interesting as a child. It wasn’t, “You have to give up our allowance to someone else.” Obviously, there’s that dependency for that person, but when you’re a child sometimes you’re like, “But I really wanted that toy.” They would figure out ways to put it in a game or ways that we could raise money together and foster a child. As part of my Christmas present I’d be giving chickens to a family in Nepal through the Heifer Foundation. I think they expanded my world when I was young to know sort of the other issues that were going on globally.
Growing up, I realized as an actor I had to figure out how to use my platform in order to give back as well and use that spotlight to shine, or at least to balance that light and to try to shine light onto the other issues that were happening in the world. Recently, we’ve done 18for18, an anti-sex trafficking awareness campaign which is tons of fun for people who like skydiving. For people who don’t, it’s absolutely terrifying and I don’t suggest you do it. For people that like extreme sports and like to push themselves, we just ask that once in your life you face a fear to represent the 1.2 million women and children that will be sold in sex trafficking this year. That’s something that seems to work. We’ve raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in the few years since we’ve started. I think we’ve reached over fifty million people with online impressions. That was one of the campaigns I did. I went to South Sudan and Kenya with the UN Foundation, and World Refugee Day is June 20, so we’ll be doing some more work for them. Serinda Swan is an actor and activist. She currently stars in the hit show Graceland. You may have also seen her in Chicago Fire, Breakout Kings, and The Tomorrow People.
“Growing up, I realized as an actor I had to figure out how to use my platform in order to give back.” PHOTO: STEFANIE VINSEL
14 ORIGINMAGAZINE.COM