Our Hearts Are On Fire 💔

Dear Hearts on Fire Community,

The name Hearts on Fire came from an interview with one of our founding Visionaries who said, “out of the ashes my heart was on fire.” Like most of you, the last two weeks have brought us sadness and anger. We feel crushed. However, when we see the protests, when we see Gianna Floyd smile and say, “Daddy changed the world!” we hope and strive to make her words ring true. We cannot let her down. We cannot sit idly and wait for change to happen.

For years, we have talked internally about our white privilege and making sure we always turn to our admired leaders, who know more than us, to find answers to address social issues. That said, we have come face-to-face with figuring out whose voice is needed in this moment. We believe that our community members will be more eloquent and knowledgeable than we ever could. However, two of our strongest black voices have pointed out that it is our job, as privileged white women, to speak up. Our voices are needed. White women have stayed silent for far too long and change cannot happen if we are not all in this together.

Starting there, we acknowledge the past but know that we must act to make the future truly equal for our Black/Brown/POC friends, family members, colleagues, neighbors and the larger community. The mission of Hearts on Fire has always been to lift up and assist resilient leaders doing remarkable work, while also inspiring others to join the social change movement; showing they too can make the world a better place. Equity and Justice are core to our work, and we commit to carrying these through and deepening our work in the antiracism space.

We commit to lifting up and supporting Black and Brown leaders a nd communities

We commit to speaking up and standing up to injustice

We commit to ensuring that our team undergo anti-racism training and face our own biases head on

We commit to providing opportunities for our community members to participate in anti-racism training

We commit to working to dismantle institutional and structural racism

We commit to listening, learning and being active participants for change

We commit to raising our fists in solidarity!

With that, we would like to share some moving words from our admired leaders this past week. Please click their quotes for more.

In sadness, anger and strength, our hearts are rising from the ashes and are on fire to get to work,

Kiva, Sara & The Hearts on Fire Team

A Valentine's Day Note from Hearts on Fire

The initial idea behind Hearts on Fire was born in 2008 during a time of world turmoil and uncertainty, when the face of the global economy changed forever. Sadly, these days we again find ourselves in a troubling environment, yet Sara and I continue to see the light in the world through the work of our Visionaries. Whether it’s the Visionary who, despite a childhood of horror, has grown up to fight for others plagued with similar atrocities or the little boy who decides to make sandwiches for the homeless living in his neighborhood park, we continue to witness people rising above adversity and lifting others up with them. Honoring these compassionate individuals, who make the world a better place, is our guiding principle at Hearts on Fire.

Reflecting back, 2019 was truly an incredible year for our Hearts on Fire Visionary Initiative. We not only expanded our support services, but also focused on building the community around them. The year ended with a bang as Sara and I traveled to Mexico with a cohort of 14 Visionaries for the annual Opportunity Collaboration Conference. There, we were able to disconnect from the everyday and reconnect with each other to reflect and share our successes, challenges and learnings. What a special experience to be away together, surrounded by peers, helping to expand the frame of all their work.

Every day we find ourselves in awe of and incredibly grateful for the phenomenal people and organizations who have helped make Hearts on Fire what it is today. We have spent much of the last three years expanding our Initiatives which would not be possible without such extraordinary partners!

As we jump into the new decade, we are also extremely excited to unveil our 2020 Visionaries and Speakers throughout the next few months. We hope they will inspire you all as much as they do us.

With heavy hearts, we share that a bright light went out in the Hearts on Fire world on January 24th with the passing of one of our Founding Visionaries, Leila Janah. Our love and admiration are with Leila’s and the Samasource family. Please take a moment to learn more about Leila’s impact on the world in her NYTimes Obituary.

With love,
Kiva

2019 Awardee
Rebecca Van Bergen, NEST

2018 Awardee
Becky Straw, The Adventure Project

2017 Awardees
Holly Carter, BYkids
Jimmie Briggs, Man Up Campaign

2016 Awardees

Raj Jayadev, Silicon Valley De-Bug
Becca Heller, International Refugee Assistance Project

2015 Awardees
Ana Reyes, I Challenge Myself
James Kofi Annan, Challenging Heights

Program Highlights

We Can’t Thank our Fabulous Partners Enough

The Hearts on Fire global family is shocked and profoundly saddened by the untimely passing of Leila Janah, a brilliant young entrepreneur and one of our original and most inspiring Visionaries. In her 37 years, Leila achieved a lifetime of social justice progress through Samasource and LXMI, two innovative companies she founded that share a common mission to help end global poverty by giving work to people in need. In Leila’s own words, “The greatest challenge of the next 50 years, I believe, will be to create dignified work for everyone... not through handouts and charity, but through market forces.” We send our heartfelt condolences to Samasource and to everyone Leila touched and loved, especially her husband and stepdaughter.

With love and gratitude for Leila’s remarkable life,
The Hearts on Fire Team

A Valentine's Day Note From Hearts on Fire

Four years ago, our Founder, Jill Iscol, passed the torch to the next generation and we embarked on an adventure to grow and transform IF Hummingbird Foundation’s Hearts on Fire Program.

In the beginning, Hearts on Fire was created to inspire people from all walks of life to join the social change movement by profiling extraordinary individuals, our Visionaries, applying their talents and passions to improve the lives of others.

In 2016, inspired by IF Hummingbird Foundation’s early work, we formally launched our Visionary Initiative to foster and support our Visionaries by assisting them with their everyday concerns and needs.

The framework was built to provide connections, opportunities, tailored deep-dive support, and a sacred community of like-minded individuals for peer-to-peer collaboration.

As we continue to highlight new Visionary leaders and expand our Visionary Initiative, we have also launched our Educational Initiative which brings speakers into the classroom via Skype in order to inspire students to #BeTheSpark of change they want to see in the world.

We thank you for all your love and support and for helping us get to where we are today. Please see below for a snapshot of the people, partnerships and programs we’re honored to highlight.

With love,
Kiva, Sara & Zoe

We are so excited to see some of our Visionaries receive the recognition they deserve!

2018 MacArthur Genius Award
Becca Heller, International Refugee Assistance Project
Raj Jayadev, Silicon Valley De Bug

2018 CNN Hero
Brisa DeAngulo, A Breeze of Hope

Waislitz 2018 Global Citizen’s Choice Award
Tabitha Mpamira-Kaguri, EDJA Foundation

The Be The Spark Award is given to Visionaries who have generously opened their arms to their fellow Visionaries providing peer-to-peer support both personally and professionally

2018 Awardee
Becky Straw, The Adventure Project

2017 Awardees
Holly Carter, BYkids
Jimmie Briggs, Man Up Campaign

2016 Awardees
Raj Jayadev, Silicon Valley De-Bug
Becca Heller, International Refugee Assistance Project

2015 Awardees
Ana Reyes, I Challenge Myself
James Kofi Annan, Challenging Heights

We are thrilled to announce new partnerships helping us to expand and
grow our Visionary Initiative

Special thanks to our early partners for their continued support
and collaboration

And can’t forget our sourcing partners!

Tabitha Mpamira-Kaguri | Edja Foundation

Lonnie Hackett | Healthy Kids/ Brighter Future

Danny Meyer | Under a Tree

Shadrack Frimpong | Cocoa360

Frederick Marx | Warrior Films

Meet the rest of our fabulous speakers here!

Open hearts, open minds: Helping teachers make a world of difference with Skype in the Classroom

The teaching profession is not what it used to be. Today, it is both more challenging and more exciting than ever before. Every teacher can now be a member of a global community of educators with the power and resources to affect not just their students, but the future of the entire planet. If that sounds like hype, it isn’t.

Teachers today can motivate their students through virtual field trips and lessons that are built around an amazing panoply of engaging Hearts on Fire Classroom Speakers, who bring their inspiring stories directly to the students from every corner of the earth via the Skype in the Classroom community.

All the Hearts on Fire Guest Speaker lessons are based on the 17 Sustainable Developments Goals – adopted three years ago at the United Nations – which commit to ending extreme poverty, tackling climate change, and fighting inequality by 2030. This ambitious agenda begins its journey to fruition in classrooms worldwide.

By exploring these live lessons, you will find Jimmie Briggs, whose wartime reporting prompted him to found the Man Up organization to stop violence against women and girls; Jordan Levy, a privileged, young American who relocated to South Africa to volunteer at a school for children, so they could share in the same educational opportunities he had growing up; and Brooke Stern, whose five days in Uganda opened her eyes and began a lifetime commitment to breaking the cycle of poverty there.

Brooke Stern, Co-Founder & CEO of S.O.U.L. Foundation, with students from their Preschool Program

It takes the commitment of people like Brooke to see the world as it is and as it can be, in line with the 2030 Agenda of SDGs. For all our cultural, economic, and political differences, certain ideals and rights are universally shared.

In addition to offering these Skype Lessons throughout the year, Hearts on Fire is joining Microsoft’s annual Skype-a-Thon, this November 13-14, to share guest speakers’ stories and spark empathy and compassion in students around the world. If you are a teacher, plan on joining Skype-a-Thon and are interested in incorporating SDGs in your sessions, make sure you explore all the Heart on Fire Skype Lessons!

The Hearts on Fire Classroom Speaker Initiative was launched in 2016 in partnership with Skype in the Classroom to light a spark and inspire the next generation of global citizens by connecting social change rock stars with students around the globe. Teachers will now be able to find a speaker that will inspire their students and change their perception about the impact one person can have on the world.

The Teacher Challenge: What Students Really Need to Learn

As the school year gets underway and teachers scramble to decorate bulletin boards and enliven lesson plans, here’s an idea that might spin their heads: the most important job teachers have is to make themselves obsolete.

So says Daniel Meyer, former history teacher and principal, who learned that lesson the hard way.

Like many young people, Daniel finished his education having learned a lot, but not how to find his place in the world. He had a solid inner core and a deep desire to affect the world in a positive way but didn’t know where to begin. That led to a troubled period of self-destructive behavior.

“I needed an outlet--a healthy and sustainable one–for dealing with the world as it is, without compromising what it might yet become.”

As a new teacher, he faced a classroom of high school students looking to him for answers…but what he had were his own nagging questions.

*Daniel Meyer, Founder and CEO, Under a Tree Fund*

He struggled through a dark period until he reached a moment of enlightenment. He realized there was a purpose to his inner turmoil; he could channel it in a positive direction. He would find a way to help young people identify and develop their potential and recognize the power they have to affect their world NOW. His mantra was, in effect, ‘ Why wait?’

In 2011, Daniel founded The Under a Tree Fund to help high school students take the leap from thinking to doing, something Daniel admits he didn’t always do himself.

The Under A Tree Fund provides college scholarships to high school civic leaders and social change agents who complete its 38-week Ethical Citizens Fellowship. By developing their skills and investing in their future educations, they seek to reclaim and redefine the meaning of leadership and cultivate a new generation of conscientious citizens who are compassionate, accountable, and unrelenting in their pursuit of justice.

Daniel is part of the Hearts on Fire’s Skype in the Classroom Speaker Initiative designed to expand the horizons of students nationwide. Teachers can bring inspiring speakers like Daniel and innovative online content directly into the classroom.

Hearts on Fire Classroom Speakers are chosen because they have compelling stories to tell about the events and influences that shaped them from childhood, about what inspired them to become involved in social change, and the challenges they had to overcome along the way.

Speakers introduce students to other worlds and exciting new possibilities, firing up their natural curiosity and showing them the impact just one person can have on the world. And that is what makes the job of teaching so important and potentially transformative. Teachers can be the conduit between boredom and inspiration, between indifference and engagement, between lethargy and leadership.

The Classroom Speaker Initiative is part of Hearts on Fire's Educational Initiative, launched in 2016 in partnership with Facing History and Ourselves and Skype in the Classroom, to inspire students ages 10-24, to become critical, engaged, and active citizens who choose to #BetheSpark in their own communities. Daniel wishes he had had that guidance.

“I want schools to be crucibles of student empowerment, of lifelong learning, of a certain kind of… transformational spirit; the sense of one’s own power, the sense of what’s possible, but also the crucible for how much more we can accomplish when we build alliances and partnerships...and start to create networks across the world where those people who are fighting for justice and to make a difference don’t feel so isolated and alone.”

As they face a new class this year, teachers themselves can #BetheSpark by using valuable tools like the Hearts on Fire Classroom Speaker Initiative to kindle curiosity about the world in their students and empower them to be agents of change at home or far from their own backyards.

This Essay Deserves an A: How I Spent My Summer Vacation

By PK Dauer

This year, across America, students found their voices and they rang out loud and clear, sending out a powerful message from their hometowns to Capitol Hill and The White House: the violence has got to stop, not just in schools but in every aspect of American life. For teachers, the challenge is how to keep that sense of purpose alive and engaged during the summer months.

Students want to have an impact on their world. And they can, when they are given the inspiration and the opportunity to channel their idealism and energy into action. This is where teachers can play a vital role in galvanizing the next generation of social change leaders and global citizens.

Thanks to a successful partnership between Hearts on Fire and Skype in the Classroom, teachers can bring dynamic individuals from the social change sector into classrooms via Skype in order to inspire students and change their perceptions about the impact one person can have on the world.

The Speaker Series is part of Hearts on Fire's Educational Initiative launched in 2016 in partnership with Facing History and Ourselves, with the goal of helping students identify their own inner fire to #BeTheSpark and make a difference in their own communities.

As Massachusetts teacher Elise Higgins-Steele put it, “Kids love to learn. They love hearing about issues and people across the world – what it means to be in the world… and grappling with their own identity.”

Speakers are chosen because they have compelling stories to tell about the events and influences that shaped them from childhood, about who or what inspired them to become involved in social change, and the steps and missteps in their quest to improve the lives of others, whether in their own community or far from home.

Speaker Jimmie Briggs found his social conscience stirred as a journalist reporting from war zones where he witnessed, firsthand, children turned into hardened soldiers and violence against women and girls that was brutal and commonplace.

“I internalized some of the worst stories imaginable,” Jimmie says. “It had taken a toll on my soul.”

It also compelled Jimmie to ask himself “What can I do with my life?” The answer that came to him was Man Up… a global initiative which he founded in 2009 to stop the violence against girls and women.

Worldwide, gender-based violence is the leading cause of death and disability for women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four. Nearly 500,000 women were raped in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide alone. One in five college girls in the United States reports being sexually assaulted. And, globally, one out of three girls reports being sexually abused.

That was unacceptable to Jimmie who has always valued the women in his life. He was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition, among women who loved him and expected him to be good, and to be successful.

“My mother, my grandmother and great-grandmother challenged me to carry myself with dignity and love.”

That wasn’t always easy to do. He was one of the few African-American students in his predominantly white Missouri community. He endured a lot of taunting and racial epithets that would influence his work years later as a writer at Life Magazine, telling stories of children in crisis, gang culture, and the impact of urban violence on innocent children.

“I recognized where my heart was focused--on the lives of the voiceless and people who are not always respected.”

Man Up uses a S.M.A.R.T approach to addressing gender-based violence, engaging youth in Sports, Music, Arts, Reflection and Technology. It provides innovative training, resources and support to youth-informed initiatives with the goal of building a network of young champions and defenders of gender equality, gender inclusiveness and opportunity and linking their efforts to those of community-based and mainstream organizations, entertainment and sports communities, non-profits and corporations towards a common cause.

“It’s a youth-led movement,” says Jimmie, “because it’s about a cultural change; about how men define what it means to be a man.”

It’s been almost ten years since Jimmie founded Man Up and its work against gender-based violence continues under new leadership. Jimmie has resumed his work as a writer, reporter and speaker. But his commitment to the mission of Man Up remains strong and deeply personal because he wants a world that is safe for all women and girls, including his own daughter.

“Sometimes when you see something wrong in the world,” he says, “you can’t look away—sometimes you have to stand up.”

That’s exactly what tens of thousands of students did this year in their nationwide protests against gun violence. For teachers who want to build on that beginning, in addition to the Speaker Series, the team of Hearts on Fire and Facing History and Ourselves, offers teachers another tool to keep that passion for leadership and change burning.

The Hearts on Fire Teacher’s guide, written by Daniel Braunfeld of Facing History and Ourselves and Jill Iscol of the IF Hummingbird Foundation, is designed for students ages 10-24, inspiring them to become critical, engaged, and active citizens who choose to participate in bettering their own communities and others around the world.

Take Action

Connect with one of our incredible Hearts on Fire Speakers here!

How Educators are using Skype to Ignite Idealism in their Students

By PK Dauer
February 2018

Elise Higgins-Steele, an eighth-grade English Language Arts teacher at Sterling Middle School in Quincy, Massachusetts, had become so disenchanted by the stifling requirements of the curriculum, she was considering a career change.

“We get so much pressure about testing that it limits some of the stuff kids love,” Elise says. “We’re supposed to do the curriculum in a certain way and you don’t want to ruffle feathers.”

Her decision to do something more, rather than calling it quits, led her to an exciting new project. Thanks to a successful partnership between Hearts on Fire and Skype in the Classroom, teachers now have access to inspiring speakers and innovative content online. Speakers on the Hearts on Fire Visionary page know how to ignite students’ natural curiosity and idealism and show them the impact just one person can have on the world. That’s where Elise came across the Girl Rising curriculum.

“I went into teaching because I wanted to have kids love to learn,” she says. “They love hearing about issues and people across the world – what it means to be in the world, about their privileges, and grappling with their own identity. Girls who are coming into their own love stories of courage and they love it when it’s real.”

Girl Rising is a global campaign for girls’ education and empowerment. It uses the power of storytelling, through film and other media, to change the way people think about and value girls and girls’ education.

The animated discussions opened a whole new dimension of interest and excitement among the students and, in the end, Elise says, even the boys were engaged.

“They participated in everything. They did projects and made amazing works of art based on statistics shown in the Girl Rising materials. We talked about the developing world where boys are being pressured to become child soldiers and where the number one cause of death for girls is childbirth. To illustrate that, the boys designed a project featuring 4 life-sized women with an X through each.”

Elise admits that incorporating the Girl Rising curriculum takes commitment. For her it meant setting aside 50-minute blocks for six weeks. Plus: She got the community involved by holding screenings of the documentary, Girl Rising, and other videos.

“It’s hard work but the results are amazing. It’s gratifying.”

Using the tools available through the Hearts on Fire/Skype in the Classroom initiative, teachers have a free path to fostering empathy in students and making them global citizens, interested in issues far beyond their own backyard.

“I feel like my students take more away in that month than they do from any textbook or test preparation,” says Elise. “In the end, they all will care more about the greater world, even the kids I have to prod and discuss more with.”

Leslie Schaffer, a ninth-grade Social Studies teacher at the Drew Charter School in Atlanta, Georgia, agrees. Her school couples STEAM with project-based learning, setting the stage for students to solve actual world problems.

“Skype in the Classroom makes it easier for me to connect my students with people in the real world,” Leslie says. “It’s not always feasible to put them on a bus and take them somewhere. Experts may not be local. This makes the connection so much simpler and more efficient.”

Using a simple laptop with a built-in microphone, Leslie connected her class with Girl Rising Senior Producer, Kayce Freed Jennings, whose descriptions of the Girl Rising content were so cool the kids were drawn in and fired up, including the boys.

“Every boy has an important woman in his life,” says Leslie, “a strong mother or grandmother or teacher, a woman who has impacted his life in some way. So they were able to make the connection.”

Leslie’s class was so engaged, they wanted the entire 9th grade to be involved in the GR project across all disciplines. And it happened.

The English class did spoken word poetry, in Science they focused on the achievements of women scientists, Math class gathered data on gender roles, Geography students annotated a large map of Africa with tribal boundaries and current boundaries and the impact of disease. Meanwhile, Art class contributed brilliant visual displays.

Leslie envisions a day when students have their own platform to access the brightest minds, the innovators of social change, and students like themselves living in radically different cultures and circumstances around the globe.

“I would love for my kids to be able to go into Skype in the Classroom to search for and find content area experts they can connect to themselves,” says Leslie.

Teacher Elise Higgins-Steele seconds that notion: “Kids are bombarded with images and messages and we don’t know what they’re internalizing. Giving them platforms to have discussions and analyze what they read and hear in the media is one of the greatest things we can do as educators today.”

Whether they’re in grade school or high school, whether they are passionate about animals, the planet, or everyday issues like bullying, students can visit www.HeartsonFire.org and read about young Visionaries who are making a difference in big and small ways, and learn how they, too, can Be the Spark that changes the world.

The Father-Daughter Dance

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it”

— Helen Keller

By PK DAUER
SEPTEMBER, 2017

Brittany Dejean was a mover and a shaker from way back. Her father made sure of that because he loved to move around the dance floor and he passed on his enthusiasm to his family.

“The reason I love to dance so much is because of my Dad,” Brittany says. “As an awkward kid, the only thing I had going for me was that I could come home to the sounds of Queen or Will Smith and have fun and dance.”

But that happy family tradition ended tragically and irrevocably when Brittany was just 12 years old. In one shattering moment, her father’s car was broadsided as he drove home with Brittany’s brother beside him.

Her brother was killed instantly; her father was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, where doctors had more devastating news. Brittany’s Dad had lost the use of his legs and most movement in his arms. He was a quadriplegic, destined to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

“That moment was one of the most difficult things my family went through,” recalls Brittany. “I found out about my brother first and then I really wanted my Dad to survive. I was just happy to take my Dad in the form I was going to get him in.”

But for her father, the reality was more difficult to accept. His initial reaction was of shock and despair.

“The first time you look at your feet and you can’t move them, you’re going to freak out,” he says.

But as the reality sank in, his thoughts turned to his little girl.

“I used to dance quite a bit. And I do remember thinking, I’ll never dance at her wedding.”

Paralyzed dad dances for first time in 17 years

In the months and years following the accident, Brittany’s Dad underwent physical therapy. She watched as he learned how to adjust to life in a wheelchair.

“A lot of it is mindset. I took a lot from my Dad about adaptation. We had access to a great rehabilitation hospital and they had mentor programs so that within the first six months of the accident we were meeting people in the same physical situation but sometimes years ahead of my Dad. It showed us what was possible.”

But the accident left an invisible imprint on Brittany that would become evident in college. While studying in China, she began exploring the lives of people with disabilities. One man she met there, who had far more body movement than her father, told her he was doomed to spend the rest of his life in bed.

“I saw that people with disabilities faced similar challenges worldwide. That made me realize how lucky we had been to have the resources we had for my Dad.”

Brittany calls it her “moment of obligation.”

“Once I realized that what we had wasn’t the norm, I knew that I needed to do something to make sure everyone has the support and resources to adapt and thrive with a disability. People with disabilities are humans with unique potential, and everyone deserves a chance to thrive.”

In 2014, Brittany founded AbleThrive.

According to The World Bank, one billion people, or 15% of the world’s population, experience some form of disability. Between 110 million and 190 million people experience significant disabilities. And while there are millions of articles, videos and resources online about how to live well with a disability, there are barriers to accessing this potentially life-changing information.

AbleThrive works to break down those barriers with a one-stop online platform featuring curated resources for people living with disabilities and their families.

AbleThrive culls the best resources from blogs, organizations, hospitals and companies around the world and delivers them to users based on their specific needs. Partnering with resource providers ensures that their materials, products and services reach those who can benefit from them.

“I also work with people who have zero disability experience to help them reframe their perception of disability and so recruit more disability allies.”

*Hector and Kerry make up a dynamic racing team as they work together to complete a 50-mile cycling race through the Florida Keys*

The organization strives to be a resource for the entire disability community, but it is starting small to achieve its goals. Currently, AbleThrive is sourcing content to benefit people facing paralysis, including spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, MS, and post polio. Once that goal is effective, AbleThrive plans to expand to reach new communities.

But AbleThrive wasn’t the only exciting, new venture in Brittany’s life. In 2015, she was planning her wedding. Like many brides, she dreamed of sharing the tradition of a father-daughter dance. It had been nearly 17 years since the accident that paralyzed her father and, although he had worked hard on his rehabilitation, he had given up on the idea of ever dancing again.

“For my Dad, it wasn’t about the physical issue of dancing, it was this emotional block, a door he had shut. I respected it being shut but he had danced so much before the accident, I thought if he could be there for me for the moment, it would be something I would cherish forever.”

So Brittany made her father a proposal. If she could find a way for them to dance together at her wedding, would he be willing to give her that gift?

Brittany hired a choreographer who works with people with disabilities and on June 6, 2015, a father’s love and determination won the day.

Surrounded by family and friends, father and daughter moved together around the floor to “I Hope You Dance,” a song Brittany chose because, she says, it represented everything her father ever taught her.

“Being so young when he was injured, I followed his lead and learned by example. He takes every challenge he faces in stride and is the epitome of resilience. I learned from him to make the most of every situation, and always look for a silver lining. These lessons have been invaluable to me as a social entrepreneur.”

Brittany admits that starting AbleThrive and trying to do her part to change the world is a difficult and sometimes lonely endeavor. But living a life of purpose, she says, is worth the struggle.

“When you push the limit of what you think is possible, you start to discover that more is possible than you might imagine and that’s not specific to disability.”

A 2008 Harvard University graduate, Brittany has worked with disability communities in five countries. She specializes in debunking misconceptions associated with disability to foster a more inclusive society.

She is a 2014 Echoing Green Global Fellow and 2017 Global Good Fellow.

And, now, thanks to the collaboration between Hearts on Fire and Skype in the Classroom, students across the country can talk with Brittany face to face and ask their own questions about her family, her life and her challenges with Able Thrive.

To request to become an AbleThrive Ally and have your articles, blog and YouTube Videos featured on AbleThrive, go to www.ablethrive.com

Jordan Levy

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

— Anaïs Nin

*Jordan Levy (right) with Ubuntu Scholar & Alumni, Nkosinathi Mbali*

By PK DAUER
FEBRUARY, 2017

Jordan Levy was at college in Wisconsin when he received a letter that would impact everything—his future, his career plans and his place in the world.

The handwritten letter, postmarked South Africa, was from his dearest childhood friend, Jacob Lief.

From the age of three, the two boys had been inseparable, growing up in a leafy, upscale suburb of New Jersey, best friends through grade school and middle school, where their world and their conversation revolved around typical American activities like baseball, play dates and joint family outings. Their two families shared many good times and a common set of values that they tried to instill in Jordan and “Jake.”

“Early on, volunteering was a social activity that brought our two families together—working in soup kitchens, for instance,” recalls Jordan. “Sometimes, though, it was just directly observing how my parents interacted with the world.

“My father is a judge who really believes in fairness and truth so, at home, he used to talk a lot about the justice system as it insures people get treated fairly regardless of social background. And my mother worked in a relatively diverse school district close to Newark, New Jersey that faced serious problems. Both my parents had a lot of influence on me.”

As often happens, family circumstances change and when Jake was thirteen his family moved abroad and the two friends went separate ways. Fast forward years later to college when Jordan was pondering what to do after graduation, assuming his path would lead him to success in the business world. That was when Jake’s letter arrived. Jake was in Port Elizabeth, an area called the Detroit of South Africa. He described a depth of poverty he had never seen in his life, with sewage literally running in the streets.

He was living in the home of a school teacher named Banks Gwaxula who had befriended Jake on an earlier visit. He said they were working out of a broom closet trying to help the impoverished children in the townships.

“It had a dramatic affect on me,” says Jordan, “and the next time we met, we talked about it extensively.”

The seed had been planted in Jordan, but it still needed time to bear fruit. After graduation, Jordan and his girlfriend, Jana, headed to Spain to teach English. But when they returned to America, Jake was waiting with a grand plan. He and Banks had started an organization called Ubuntu…a name that means recognizing our common humanity and being there for each other. He described its mission as simple yet radical: to help provide Port Elizabeth township children with what they deserve—everything. They had started small but they needed to raise money to expand their vision. Inspired by Jake’s mission and encouraged by Jana’s excitement about joining the project, Jordan jumped in as a volunteer.

*Ubuntu's students gather outside the Ubuntu Centre*

*Toddlers in Ubuntu's Early Childhood Development Program*

“I didn’t know much abut South Africa, I could barely say the name Ubuntu and I wasn’t getting paid. But I said, great. Let me sleep on your couch and I’ll help you fund raise.”

Jordan recalls this as a “crazy, wild times for 23-year-olds trying to figure out how to run an organization.” He and Jana pitched in on every job that needed doing.

After the first year, he was hooked, not just on the work of the Ubuntu Education Fund, but on the non-for-profit sector. But when he told Jake he wanted a job with Ubuntu in South Africa, he got a surprise. Jake said “No, because our model is based on local leadership, done by people from the community.”

Jordan wasn’t deterred. He wanted to learn more about the non-profit sector so he went back to school for a graduate degree. With diploma in hand, he contacted Jake again about working at Ubuntu.

Jake accepted both him and Jana as volunteers for six months in South Africa.

As with every startup, they had no clearly defined roles. Jordan says they did everything from cleaning floors to running programs. Their six-month commitment turned into eleven years. During that time, they married, started a family and learned a lot about what it takes to make change in the world.

“It has never been easy,” says Jordan, “which is something I try to translate to young people interested in doing this work. The challenges you face can sometimes be brutal, failures can be difficult; the stakes are very high and the goals ambitious.”

What has kept him engaged and inspired, he says, are the relationships -- with Jake as his spark, with his wife whose passion for life always fires him up, but especially with the people of South Africa; people who have lived through the oppression and brutality of apartheid, but who decided to transition peacefully in the spirit and example of Nelson Mandela.

As an example, Jordan talks with profound admiration about Ubuntu’s Deputy President Gcobani Zonke whose family suffered unspeakable atrocities under apartheid.

*Jana Zindell, Chief Program Officer, and Ubuntu staff lead a training session*

“I’ll have a bad day because my laptop breaks and I’m not treating people the way I should because I’m stressed out.

And there is Gcobani going above and beyond for the children of Ubuntu, and then comforting me, with genuine empathy for my silly problems; a man who couldn’t be more sweet and happy in every interaction I’ve had with him. To see what human beings are capable of, to see what it’s like to embody that in the most trying of circumstances, has had a huge impact on me.”

Jordan says building Ubuntu to the point where it is now has taken a decade in which they had to adjust their expectations for change in a country that has been under racist rule for a hundred years and streamline the initial goal to pass off the leadership of Ubuntu to people on the ground. But their learning curve has paid off.

Today, the “broom closet” where the Ubuntu Education Fund started in 2001 has grown into a 25,000 square foot headquarters, providing comprehensive services under one roof, including classrooms, a pediatric HIV clinic, a theatre and a rooftop garden. All of the facilities are built for one purpose: to give South African children the same high quality education and health care that American children can access – to be an advocate for them from “cradle through career.”

And although Jordan is now living back in New York with his family, he and Jana are still working with Ubuntu.

“It was always a struggle to decide if this was the thing to do with our lives. So many careers will push you in a direction counter to all the things you’ve been taught. But having approximately two thousand kids on a new pathway is amazing.

“I was very fortunate that my parents raised me in a particular way with certain values: this is the way we treat other people, this is what’s important in life. It’s not money, it’s relationships. I don’t ever want to forget that; it has allowed me to live life based on the things that are most important.”

Jordan and Jake invite you to find out more about Ubuntu and how you can be part of its life-changing
work by visiting www.ubuntufund.org.

A 'Perfect' Summer

By PK DAUER
DECEMBER, 2016

Irving Torres remembers his childhood as a constant cycle of moving and struggling, moving and struggling, as his parents, immigrants from Ecuador, strove to provide a decent life for themselves and their three children.

“I grew up all over Queens, New York, moving apartments 10 or 11 times. Every time we couldn’t pay the rent,” he says, “we had to find a cheaper place to live.”

No matter where they landed, the environment never changed. They were surrounded by predominantly immigrant families who had no time to worry about making friends and creating community cohesion.

“Everyone’s primary concern was survival,” Irving says. “Just working, paying bills and surviving.”

Irving’s mother looked after her children’s basic needs providing food, clothing and emotional support, while also trying to earn extra money by working as a caretaker for the elderly. But the impact of poverty seemed inescapable.

“I had a very rough time up to that point,” says Irving. My school was in the middle of three housing projects where there was little hope and few aspirations.” In the summer we would not do much but just hang out in the park. My grades started slipping.”

Research shows that students from low-income areas are particularly susceptible to the “summer slide,” losing between 2.5 to 3.5 months of academic learning during July and August, while their affluent peers are making academic gains. The reality is even worse in September when teachers have to review lessons forgotten over the long break, making the academic losses closer to half a school year.

By the time Irving entered freshman year of high school, his parents had separated and he had moved in with his father. It turned out to be just the change Irving needed. His father didn’t have much money or a college degree, but he did have a steadfast conviction that the key to a better life for his children was education. While he worked overnight driving a cab, he made sure his children stayed at home, off the streets, focused on schoolwork.

“He did a great job drumming into our heads how important education was and how we needed to aspire to something beyond our neighborhood and our circumstances. Everyone in the neighborhood aspired to local schools; my Dad really wanted us not to limit ourselves to that.”

Thanks to his father’s guidance, Irving dreamed of going to a good college and becoming a lawyer. The next step to achieving that goal would come from another role model, a young man who came from the same side of the tracks and knew what Irving and other kids like him needed.

In 2011 Karim Abouelnaga had co-founded Practice Makes Perfect. Having grown up in an impoverished New York City neighborhood himself, Karim says it was non-profit organizations that connected him with mentors and role models who encouraged him to work hard and develop his potential.

“In large part, their belief in me and investment in my success allowed me to escape a dead-end life.”

*Irving Torres with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai and PMP Co-Founder Karim Abouelnaga.*

Karim was looking for low-income, high-achieving students who wanted to do something worthwhile during the summer and earn a small stipend. After meeting Karim, Irving, a rising High School senior, at the top of his class, signed on to become a program mentor, having no idea what he would face that first summer day and in the weeks ahead.

“Picture rising eighth-graders, emotional, bouncing off the walls and I had to find a way to show them how important education is. I felt, wow, this is overwhelming to serve as a role model for these young students.“

“I felt in a position to do something about their perspective on education, their study habits and how they perceived their role in the education system. Some just didn’t want to be there. They wanted to be home, watching TV or hanging out in the park. It was tough for them to see where they could go from where they were.”

At the core of the Practice Makes Perfect program is a model of students teaching other students. For example, a tenth grader would teach a fifth grader, with the hope that the younger student would be more receptive to learning from someone in the same socioeconomic background and closer in age.

"After all,” Karim says, “who better to tell you how to do better in elementary school than someone who has just finished it?”

Irving remembers that first summer with Practice Makes Perfect as the best one of his life. He developed a personal bond with two of the students he mentored. A boy named Paul breezed through the material prepared for him so he had to give him more advanced work. Ceecee was a gem of a girl but, Irving says, she had trouble focusing and staying on task.

“I had to develop ways to get her to do her work. That was a challenge and, ultimately, a lot of fun.”

During the six weeks they worked together, Irving says the students began to confide in him about their lives at home and about middle school and high school.

*Irving Torres mentoring neighborhood kids.*

“So I was able to see that these students did look up to me. For the first time in my life I felt like the cool older kid. These were neighborhood kids who looked up to me as a person.”

And that speaks to a key component of Practice Makes Perfect’s strategy: to match elementary and middle school students with older, higher-achieving mentor peers from the same inner-city neighborhoods and prevent the “summer slide” that happens when kids are out of school and losing education ground. For Irving, who spent three summers working with PMP, the experience taught him as much as he taught others.

“When the program ended, I was a sloppy mess of tears. The students and mentors were all sobbing. It was such a profound experience to be able to engage with students in the community and understand on such a personal and emotional level what they were going through. It revealed to me the systemic inequalities that happen in impoverished areas for so many reasons. I wish I had done it sooner.”

Today, Irving is making his parents proud as a junior at Cornell University where, in addition to a very challenging academic program, he is acting in a social justice theatre group called Ordinary People. After graduation Irving says he hopes to create artistic works that represent Latinos in the United States, and explore the plight of low-income families struggling to survive.

And he adds:

“My experience with Practice Makes Perfect is essential to that work.”

Practice Makes Perfect has helped over 1600 students so far avoid summer learning loss. Find out how you can make a difference in your neighborhood and narrow the academic gap at practicemakesperfect.org

Rising to the Occasion: The Personal Journey of Suzana Salim

“Suzana Salim is a Wedu Rising Star.” Wedu is a Hearts on Fire Visionary organization investing in women leading the change.” — *“Suzana Salim is a Wedu Rising Star.” Wedu is a Hearts on Fire Visionary* *organization investing in women leading the change.”*

If Suzana Salim was a born follower, she would have followed in the footsteps of many girls in her hometown of Chittagong, Bangladesh, leaving school at an early age to get married.

But Suzana was born lucky. Her parents understood the value of a good education. And although her mother did marry at 16, she refused to give up her schooling, continuing her studies long after Suzana was born. With that same determined spirit and her father’s blessing, Suzana broke with local tradition.

“I used to travel an hour to go to school everyday. My friends and most of my cousins were married young and did not continue their education. Men are expected to succeed after completing their education while women are supposed to get married.”

Suzana’s father worked hard to afford to keep her in school. But financial setbacks and health issues for both her father and her younger sister put Suzana’s educational future in jeopardy.

Enter Wedu, a non-profit organization founded in 2012 by Hearts on Fire Visionaries Mario Ferro and Mari Sawai. Wedu scouts out the most promising young women in the least developed countries of Asia, pronouncing them “rising stars,” and helping to bring out their leadership potential through innovative financing for college and lifelong mentorship. The mentors provide a one-on-one support system during critical stages of a young woman’s life, giving her the confidence and skills she needs to create her own successes and realize her goals.

A year-and-a-half ago, Suzana Salim became one of Wedu’s rising stars.

“My journey as a Rising Star was one of self-discovery. I learned things about myself that I was not aware of before. Before I was in the program, I used to volunteer and work behind the scenes. But Wedu made me realize that I have what it takes to be a leader. I expanded my boundaries and tested my limits.”

Suzana points to her Wedu mentor as the wind beneath her wings.

“Three months into the program, I met my mentor, Emily Cholette, an exceptional human being who taught me that it is important to be myself. Emily is not only a role model and a guide in my life, but she is also a friend to me during hard times. Besides the leadership lessons, Emily and I talk about my goals and how to go about achieving them.”

One of Suzana’s immediate goals is to earn her college degree at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong, which she is attending now with financial assistance from Wedu. Since starting there, she has helped organize a Model United Nations conference and established the university’s first campus newsletter, with a little help from her friend and mentor.

“I was having trouble figuring out how to design the newsletter and what to put in it. Emily sent me links to her own high school and university newspapers as well as several others and introduced me to survey monkey which helped propel me to publish my first newsletter.”

As Suzana continues to find her own voice, she envisions becoming the voice of all women in Bangladesh and leading a women’s liberation movement, which is sorely needed. 87% of Bangladeshi women experience domestic violence and an estimated one-third of all girls marry before the age of 15.

And though women in Bangladesh are starting to make noteworthy strides, earning high positions in government and the military, most women work in dangerous and low-paying jobs. In fact, Suzana is currently finishing work on a documentary about a female rickshaw puller in Chittagong and trying to raise money to buy the woman her own rickshaw, turning her into an entrepreneur.

*A group of young women in Burma eagerly listening on how to become a Wedu Rising Star.*

Suzana realizes that changing the plight of women in Bangladesh is going to require hard work and persistence, bolstered by the kind of self-confidence and support that she says she has received from Wedu.

“I am not nervous anymore to talk to strangers who have different ideologies, who are from different backgrounds. I write as much as I can and I give speeches.”

This summer, Suzana will be visiting schools in Chittagong to talk about the taboos and superstitions surrounding menstruation which can put a girl’s health at risk. But, with all she is accomplishing, Suzana says that one of the most important things she has learned from Wedu’s mentorship program is empathy.

“(The idea is) to help other people because you feel what they are going through. I feel that I have so many things to be thankful for and that I can help my community and underprivileged people in my own ways. Wedu teaches females to be leaders but it also teaches us to be humans and I am extremely grateful to be a part of their process.”

Since its founding four years ago, Wedu has expanded its reach to include students and mentors in 25 countries, with a goal of naming one thousand Rising Stars like Suzana by 2018.

To find out more about how you can join the wedu team, go to Weduglobal.org.

A Class Act: How Education Can Change a Life

Close your eyes and imagine yourself as the child in this situation.

You live in the poorest part of town, surrounded by neighbors struggling to survive. Your father is gone. Your mother tries to hold the family together by mopping floors at the local hospital. But the few dollars she earns are not always enough to put food on the table. So you have to be farmed out to relatives to find a decent meal. And your clothes are often hand-me-downs from your mother’s bosses.

What kind of child would you become? What would happen to your dreams? What would it take to turn your tale of woe into a story of success?

Like so many children born into families devastated by poverty, you might become a victim, giving up on yourself and your future. You might skip school, hook up with the wrong crowd, experiment with drugs or alcohol, end up in despair or in prison. We hear those kinds of stories on the news all the time.

But there is another scenario; one that starts out as we have described…but takes a different turn into hope, accomplishment and inspiration. It is the story of Nozibele Qamngana.

Nozi, as she is called, has defied the odds, achieving personal and professional heights beyond almost everyone’s expectations. Where she came from, how she soared, where she is now in her life and where she is headed, are all part of her incredible journey.

Nozi grew up in a black township in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Like most young girls she was into hairstyles, boys and having fun. But she also felt deeply responsible for helping her mother and her brother have a better life. And she believed in her heart that there was only one path out of poverty that was available to her—education.

“I’ve always loved going to school because it became my light at the end of the tunnel. I had to be the best student in the class because I felt the fate of my family was in my hands.”

And it was at school that Nozi connected with a startup non-profit that would change her life. It was called Ubuntu Education Fund, founded by Hearts on Fire Visionary Jacob Lief. Ubuntu is an Africa word with profound implications and obligations. It is a belief that all of us on the planet are connected as human beings, that we all deserve respect and that we must have each other’s back.

Nozi says Ubuntu became more than just an organization providing libraries and computer centers in township schools. It gave her educational support and encouragement. But it also provided much more.

“Ubuntu provided me emotional support, teaching me that I’m beautiful the way I am. And it counseled my mother, enabling her to provide a home of safety and stability.”

In 2003, Nozi took part in a cultural exchange, spending three weeks with families in New York, opening up a whole new perspective on the world and her place in it.

Five years ago, Nozi became the first in her family to earn a college diploma, graduating at the top of her class with a marketing degree. From there, she entered the world of business, working her way up the corporate ladder from internship to management.

Her hard work and positive attitude were paying off. But, in her heart, she felt something was missing, and she knew what it was. Nozi was about to take the road less traveled.

“I needed to go back home—to Ubuntu. While some may question why I chose a non-profit organization over a corporation, my answer is simple; I have the opportunity to relive the life of Nozibele Qamngana through the current Ubuntu Scholars.”

Today, Nozi is paying it forward, grateful that she can give hope and a voice to the thousands of children in Port Elizabeth who dream of a better life and can achieve it.

“I am part of a network of successful Ubuntu alumni who are changing the future of our country. And to me that has been enough.”

Teamwork and Perseverance Forged in the Fort McMurray Wildfires

By Patrick O’Neill, Team Rubicon

(On May 1, 2016, fire broke out in Alberta, Canada, quickly turning into a conflagration that swept through the community of Fort McMurray, destroying 2,400 homes and buildings and forcing the evacuation of more than 80-thousand residents. It took more than two months and the efforts of thousands of fire fighters for the Horse River fire, as it came to be called, to be brought under control. We are proud to report that also on the ground to offer aid and comfort was Team Rubicon, founded in 2010 by Hearts on Fire visionaries Jacob Wood and William McNulty. While helping out after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, they realized that natural disasters pose many of the same problems that confront troops in Iraq and Afghanistan: unstable populations, limited resources, horrific sights, sounds and smells. TR is a disaster response organization that unites the skills and experiences of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams. The skills cultivated on the battlefield – emergency medicine, risk assessment and mitigation, teamwork and decisive leadership – are invaluable in disaster zones. That is why TR headed to Alberta in the aftermath of the most costly firestorm in Canada’s history. Here is their story.)

The wildfire that spread across Fort McMurray, Alberta will go down as Team Rubicon’s first call to action in Canada and was known as Operation Pay Dirt. Eighty volunteers from the newly-emerging TR Canada, along with members of TR Australia, TR UK, and TR USA banded together with a mission to ease the heartbreak of the returning Fort McMurray residents in the wake of the devastating fires. The international effort was also Team Rubicon’s first response in which all TR organizations were represented on a single operation. Volunteers comprised of mostly military veterans led homeowners through the rubble and ash to search for anything they could salvage to remind victims of their past - simple things - which carried a message that all hope was not lost.

Nargis Sameer, a Fort McMurray resident, had been separated from a
wedding ring during the evacuation, but later discovered it thanks to the help of Team Rubicon. “I know I lost my home, but what we found today – it’s the happiest day of my life,” Nargis said.

Amber Lecky followed Team Rubicon through burnt debris where her
house once stood, searching for her father’s ashes and recovering a piece of the urn. “I can now move on with this horrible thing that has happened in my life thanks to you and your team. Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Amber said.

The Fort McMurray operation was launched on May 30, 2016 and sifting operations continued until June 23. Between 20 and 40 teams of volunteers were divided across nine Fort McMurray communities and worked effectively as a team with a purpose and passion for service. Volunteers clocked over 8,900 hours of their time to help those in need.

William McNulty, cofounder and CEO of Team Rubicon Global, summed up Operation Pay Dirt:

“The performance of our Team Rubicon Canada teammates proves that the common skills of veterans make them incredible assets to their communities in times of disaster. We look forward to the continued success of Team Rubicon Canada and congratulate them on their first successful mission.”

Currently, Team Rubicon is deployed to West Virginia on Operation
Country Roads, cleaning up after the floodwaters and assisting those affected at no cost. In a humanitarian effort, volunteers are also providing emergency medical care to refugees in northern Greece, known as Operation Hermes.

Since its creation in 2010, Team Rubicon has grown to 35,000 members and conducted 136 operations impacting thousands of lives in Haiti, Chile, Burma, Pakistan, Sudan, the Philippines, Nepal and Canada, and many states here at home, including Vermont, New York, Maryland, Missouri, Alabama and New Jersey, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania.To donate and help build resources for TR’s urgent missions visit:
www.teamrubiconusa.org/donate.

Celebrating International Women's Day with Girl Rising

by Jill Iscol

There has never been a better time to be a woman. Women are making progress on all fronts, even in the most remote corners of the world, moving toward equality of opportunity with men, with all that implies.

Over the past year, Hearts on Fire has joined forces with Skype in the Classroomto light a spark and inspire the next generation of global citizens by connecting social change rock stars with students around the globe. This exciting and rewarding collaboration enables teachers to find a speaker on the Hearts on Fire Visionary page that will ignite their students and change their perception about the impact one person can have on the world.

This month, in partnership with Hearts on Fire, Girl Rising, a global campaign for girls’ education, launched its profile on Skype in the Classroom to bring students the inspiring stories of girls rising above poverty and despair.

Girl Rising uses the power of film to spread the message that educating girls can transform societies. According to Girl Rising, more than 60 million girls worldwide currently have little or no access to education. The Girl Rising film tells the stories of 9 ordinary girls who are accomplishing extraordinary things.

Among them are Suma, from Nepal, who spent her childhood in slavery and now campaigns against it; Senna, from Peru, who somehow finds poetry amid unimaginable squalor; and Ruksana who lives with her family on the streets of Kolkata, India, but escapes into the colorful world of her imagination and her art.

Thanks to Skype in the Classroom, their moving stories are now broadening the horizons of students across the country. Just this month, Girl Rising participated in Skype sessions with students in Iowa, Illinois, New York and Ontario, Canada.

Skype in the Classroom is one sure path toward that goal of achieving gender parity. It opens a window on the world for students all over the globe, allowing girls, especially, a chance to see possibilities for themselves that they might never have imagined.

Without leaving their own backyards, students are transported into other worlds. They learn how child marriage, domestic slavery, gender-based violence, poverty and tradition stand between girls and their education. But they also discover what happens when girls DO go to school, how they marry later and have fewer and healthier children, how they will earn more and stand up for their rights, how they will educate their own children and how their success will ultimately make their families and communities more prosperous and secure.

This International Women’s Day, Skype in the Classroom, Hearts on Fire and Girl Rising are proud to be part of a growing movement that is changing the way the world looks at girls, and the way girls see the world and their place in it.

Resources available:

Full Girl Rising film
The three stories from the film mentioned above and a multi-disciplinary curriculum designed for students from upper elementary through high school
E-book: Hearts on Fire: Stories of Today’s Visionaries Igniting Idealism into Action by Jill Iscol which features the personal stories of 14 inspired and inspiring visionaries, along with a Teacher’s Guide to Create Global Citizens
Hearts on Fire’s Be the Spark online platform which encourages young people to discover ways to spark change in their world

For more International Women’s Day inspiration, check out our page on the Microsoft Educator Community. If you have a call with a guest speaker for International Women’s Day, we’d love to see your classroom’s experience! Just tag us @SkypeClassroom and #Skype2learn on Twitter.

Cycle of Life

By Jackson Gonzales

“Sure we wish that those situations that happened that were sad or difficult didn’t happen, but everything happens when it’s supposed to happen even if it takes us by surprise.”

— Christopher Gonzales, My Dad

Thirty-eight days after my dad posted this quote to his Facebook account, he passed away. It would be an understatement to say 2015 has been an eventful year. Losing the most important person in my life, especially during my junior year of high school, made a huge impact on my academic career. When I think back to all that I’ve learned, most of it came from him. Whether it was how to tie my shoes, how to build a shelf, or how to season chicken; but most importantly, he taught me how to be a good man. Having the man whom I could rely on for anything pass away in an instant took an immense toll on my life. However, as much as I mourned I also grew a substantial amount. I took a tragic life-changing event and used it to push me further.

In July 2015, I was given the opportunity to ride a bike 400 miles to visit 7 colleges in 7 days with 10 other students. This was a task that required waking up at 5:30 in the morning every day to get on a bike and ride. Having no objective other than to get from point A to point B. We rode up mountains and through dirt paths traveling a range of 50 to 80 miles a day. The nine other students, whom I now call friends, and I rode together, each with a different reason to keep pushing through this empowering and intimate experience. Throughout this bike tour, I constantly doubted my abilities and at times, found my muscles locking up and my lungs feeling tight. Sweat and tears ran down my face as I pressed my feet down on the pedals and felt as if I only took one step into a journey that demanded leaps; yet I couldn’t wait until the ride was over just so we could finally see the college we worked so hard to get to. I knew I wasn’t doing this ride for nothing, I wanted to visit these colleges. Not only that, but I wanted to push myself, I wanted to improve myself. Though my father was not there to see me do it, I knew I was making him proud.

The weeks after my father passed away I had lost all hope; I felt helpless, like my life was falling down around me. However, I found the ability to keep pushing forward, using his own words as my personal compass. I found the ability to use these events so they empower me, fuel me, and motivate me to keep doing better than I did the day before. I’m not the same person I was at the beginning of 2015. I’ve grown, I’ve learned, I’ve felt, and most importantly, I’ve challenged myself. I’ve managed to experience both the best and the worst things I could experience in my life within the span of 7 months. Though he is not here with me physically, I know he would tell me to treat this next chapter of my life, college, as I did the bike tour. He would tell me to continue to grow, to challenge myself, and to push forward in order to become a better person; something I will never stop doing, like my father.

Thanks to his father’s loving guidance and the skills he acquired through I Challenge Myself, Jackson is proudly deciding among numerous offers from colleges he visited on the Bike Tour, including Syracuse, Binghamton and SUNY Cobleskill.

Ana Reyes started I Challenge Myself 11 years ago with 30 teenagers. As of today, the program has served 1,000 New York City publicschool students ages 14-19.

Students in Cycling Smarts are provided with bikes and helmets and ride between 15 and 60 miles after school and on weekends during warm months. They spend the winter months building their strength through a unique resistance-training program and learning about nutrition.

During its summer College Bike Tour through upstate New York college campuses, students sleep in dorms, meet admissions officers and, Ana hopes, become inspired to make college a personal goal.

"I want them to come away with [the message that] you can pretty much do anything you want, but it's going to take hard work," says Ana.

So far, the Cycling Smarts program can boast of encouraging results. Every high school senior who participated in the 2014 program is now enrolled in college. And all the students, like Jackson, who completed the College Bike Tour in 2015 have received college acceptance letters.

Ana also says that most students have a greater knowledge of nutrition and 86% report higher levels of fitness and perseverance.

“Students have become more motivated to stay fit, eat healthier, and work harder. Cycling Smarts has clearly been very successful in having a positive impact on students’ lives.”

To find out more about I Challenge Myself and its Cycling Smarts program, go to www.ichallengemyself.org.

A Year to Remember

by Jill Iscol

The season of giving 2015 may be history now…but giving never really goes out of season. The good news, as we begin the New Year, is that philanthropic giving is projected to rise nearly 5 percent in 2016, according to Indiana University researchers, exceeding the average rate of growth in gifts since the recession of 2008.

So as we all ponder our usual well-intentioned (and often broken) New Year’s resolutions, like giving up chocolate, soda, cigarettes, gossip, why not consider giving something instead?

So many people in the world need a helping hand. You can read about some of them in the stories of our Hearts on Fire Visionaries.

Social changemakers like Susanna De Anda and Seth Maxwell are working to ensure that all families have access to clean water.

Josh Nesbit and Amy Lehman are already improving health care options for people living in remote areas of Africa. Tammy Tibbetts and Jacob Lief believe education is the key to lifting children out of poverty so that is their focus. AndReshma Saujani is teaching girls that computer coding isn’t just for boys.

There are so many more visionaries like these doing life-enhancing work in all parts of the world, including this country. But, as all of them will tell you, there is so much more to be done…and so many global problems that could be solved or ameliorated if everyone pitches in.

In their New Year’s message, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is asking Americans and all global citizens to help alleviate the suffering of refugees around the world, particularly those streaming into Europe from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

When images of these desperate people appear day after day in the media, it’s easy to become jaded, to become insensitive to their plight, to see them as someone else’s problem. This New Year, resolve not to let that happen.

Make 2016 the year that your resolution is not just about you...but about what you can do to impact the lives of others. As the saying goes:

Just do it! And make this a year to remember.

A 'Good' Business

by PK Dauer

Philanthropy isn’t what it used to be; the debate is whether that’s for better or for worse. Traditional ways of serving the public good are being challenged, in part, by a growing segment of social entrepreneurs who believe the greatest impact can be achieved through a sustainable, for-profit business model. Their mission is to do good and do business. Purists in philanthropy worry that mixing purpose with profit is a slippery slope that may compromise the mission.

But the late Duke University Professor Gregory Dees, who defined social entrepreneurship, believed that social entrepreneurs have a valuable role to play in creating lasting social change.

“Entrepreneurs have flexibility to take risks, learn, and adapt as they go. Many will fail, and many others will significantly modify their original ideas as they learn what works and what does not. They serve as an important learning laboratory for society.”

Chris Akin is one of the new generation of social entrepreneurs, a native New Yorker whose head is in business and whose heart is in helping. His ambition was to work his way up the business ladder and eventually land on Wall Street. But first he took a detour to Hawaii, where he connected with a close friend who was working in the non-profit sector and whose lifestyle made a lasting impression.

“She was deeply connected to the local community and feeling fulfilled in her work. So I stopped interviewing at banks and started working with adults with disabilities. The two plus years working in the non-profit sector committed me to social change for the rest of my life.”

Back in New York, the challenge for Chris was to find a way to combine his love of business with his re-ignited humanitarian instincts. In 2011, he came up with a solution. Together with his twin brother he founded The Base Project.

“We came up with this business model, working in developing countries.”

The Base Project is a socially-motivated fashion brand that builds a bridge between artisans in rural Africa and the US fashion market.

The brothers partner with local artisans to design and produce locally-sourced, eco-friendly fashion at fair trade prices, allowing consumers to wear their impact. In fact, “Wear Your Impact” became The Base Project’s slogan.

“Through their work with The Base Project, the artisans are able to increase their income and take care of their basic needs like housing, food and water, paying for a child’s education, and starting a savings account,” says Chris.

Their first project is having an impact among the Himba and Herero tribes in the Kunene region of Namibia in southwestern Africa where some of the world’s poorest people struggle to survive on less than $2 a day. Making use of old, discarded pvc piping, local artisans design and produce up-cycled bracelets, hand-carved with traditional designs.

Chris says a portion of every purchase is invested in community development projects in the artisan’s region.

The Base Project also introduces the artisans to basic business education, equipping them with the skills to sustain, sell and grow at greater capacity then ever before. The artisans become entrepreneurs enabling them to support their families and give a boost to their communities. And Chris believes the benefits reach far beyond Namibia’s borders.

“We also help our customers in the US by teaching them a better way of contributing to social change and to value other cultures and the beauty in people from a very different background to themselves.“

And Americans seem to be catching on in greater numbers.

According to the Conscious Consumer Spending Index by Good.Must.Grow, more and more consumers are increasing their support of socially-responsible companies instead of directing more donations to nonprofits.

30 percent of consumers surveyed last year said they planned to increase the amount of goods and/ or services they buy from socially responsible companies in 2014, while only 18 percent planned to increase charitable giving, down from 21 percent in 2013.

As for Chris himself, he says the business of creating and developing The Base Project has given him a new appreciation of his own significance in the world.

“I now view myself as having an equal opportunity to make a huge impact on the world. It does not take degrees from Harvard, or a certain pedigree or some unknown magic that others were born with. Any one of us can be the next leader in social change if we pursue our passions.”

You can help fund a Namibian child’s high school education by purchasing a handmade bronze bracelet.

The L Word

By Adam Drucker

The Michael Sam affair brought on an outpouring of hateful emails and texts, condemning him for embracing his boyfriend after being named an NFL draft pick. And it made me want to scream a four-letter word at everyone so horrified by a man-to-man kiss…

L-O-V-E!

What’s wrong with LOVE, people!? Why don’t you want your children to see LOVE?

It was a disheartening display that prompted me to check in with a very smart, insightful friend who knows about football and about being gay. Meet Adam Drucker.

Q: Adam, aside from being a huge football fan, and the winner of your fantasy football league, you have said you are in awe of Michael Sam. Why do you admire him so much?

A: Because of his REAL achievements. He’s a terrific athlete who has persevered in the face of a difficult childhood. ( HYPERLINK "mailto:MichaelSam@wikipedia.com" MichaelSam@wikipedia.com) On that level alone he’s an inspirational man. But then you add to it that he chose to come out, knowing the potential risks and damage it could do to him and everything he’s worked so hard for -- and I think you have a true pioneer, a history-maker.

Q: You seemed absolutely jubilant at Sam’s public display of affection. Why did it mean so much to you?

A: Two reasons:

Visibility: I think one of the reasons many people are still so revolted by homosexuality is because they have never seen two men kiss or hold hands. Pop culture has helped change that. Because of “Modern Family,” Bravo, MTV, etc., people are certainly far more familiar with gay people and, in a sense, “know” them. But I honestly never thought I’d see an out gay NFL draft pick kiss his boyfriend on ESPN in my lifetime. I’ve read that the kiss was planned for a reality show that Oprah is doing with Sam, but if so, that makes no difference to me. It still takes enormous courage to show same sex affection, especially in pro sports.

Changing Stereotypes: I have always believed that homophobia (really: homo-hatred) is rooted in Misogyny. Yes, the physical acts people imagine repulse a lot of folks – but I think it’s a much more primal hate. It’s about strength vs. “weakness,” masculinity vs. femininity, “maleness” vs. “femaleness.” A man who supposedly behaves like a woman is seen, not just as a freak and a joke, but also as a genuine threat to our entrenched patriarchal society.

I want to make this perfectly clear: I am not saying there’s anything wrong with feminine men or stereotypically campy gays or gay men who love Brave and E!. But they do not represent the enormous diversity of who we really are: car mechanics hockey players, engineers, construction workers, doctors, police officers, decorated military heroes and, yes, NFL players. Being gay does not equal being female. Many of us do care about women’s shoes and the Kardashians - great. But many of us don’t. At all.

Q: Speaking to that, Michael Sam is 6’2”, 256 lbs. - hardly the image many people have of a gay man.

A: Anyone watching Michael Sam play at Mizzou can see that he is a warrior. As the analysts love to point out: he has his flaws, but regardless, he fits the age-old male, gladiatorial ideal. For a warrior to kiss another man, in tears no less, is revolutionary – it’s transgressive – it confuses age-old notions of what it means to be a man. And for me, it represents the truth of what I know to be a part of gay life that is rarely seen or acknowledged.

Q: There has been an enormous outpouring of both support and condemnation for Michael Sam. Some ugly comments suggest it’s bad for kids to see two men embracing like this. Does that kind of negative reaction surprise you in 2014?

A: Nope. We all know that internet comments are frequently hateful –people protected by anonymity with no fear of repercussion. It’s the worst of human nature run amok. That said, I think the vitriol is different here. Yes, there are the usual, “Burn in hell, fags!” “I’m boycotting ESPN!” suspects – but most comments fall in the more subtle “I don’t care what they do in private, but I don’t need to see that – or have my kids see that.” Although plenty of draft picks kiss their girlfriends, somehow they see Sam as was making a political statement by expressing the most simple gesture of celebratory joy.

And the hypocrisy is maddening!!! How many players and draftees have been involved in actual crimes – Aaron Hernandez was just indicted in the killing of two people. All Michael Sam did was kiss a man.

At best I suspect it made some viewers uncomfortable and shift in their seats; at worst there were tons of viewers hurling chile con carne and gay epithets at the TV set.

Q: Michael Sam acknowledged that he is a gay man in an ESPN interview in February. So why the huge uproar now?

A: There actually was a minor uproar back then. Plenty of sports fans asked WHY he had to share it? They said he was doing it for the fame and kudos from the “liberal elite” (and he did get the Visa ad, the Oprah show and the Arthur Ashe award).

Beyond that there was a very loud whisper campaign -- plenty within the NFL who said it would hurt his chances in the draft. And it did. YES, he did not do great at the combine. YES- he’s not the best there is and he’s mid-sized, etc. But, as many analysts have said, there are certainly not 248 better players than him – and he would have definitely been drafted earlier if he did not come out. (This late pick translates directly into less income.)

And in terms of uproar, there are some who claim he shouldn’t have been picked at all. And outrage that before he’s even actually made the team, he’s reaped many rewards.

This is where I get really angry. When straight people have to announce their heterosexuality and can’t kiss their girlfriends without it being political – when they cannot live freely without constantly looking over their shoulders and self-monitoring – THEN they have the right to question his motives.

Sam said he didn’t want it to come from someone else and he didn’t want it to be perceived that he was ashamed – and I believe him. If he gets awards and endorsements because of it, power to him.

Q: Certainly, the LGBT community has made great strides toward achieving equality and acceptance in America. But do you think Michael Sam’s emotional display helps the cause or might it strengthen anti-gay sentiment in the country?

A: Cop out answer: both. But I think that’s how progress is made – two steps forward, one step back. And the more visible gay people are, the more gay bashing and bullying there’ll be.

Ultimately though, it’s all about future generations. This has happened. Kids born today will never know a world where NFL draft picks aren’t gay and kissing their boyfriends. I’ve already read about high school athletes coming out to their teams and parents because of Sam. It will normalize and little by little – it will be neither an abomination nor a freak show… it will just be.

Q: Six former NFL players came out as gay men after retirement. Do you think this controversy will encourage other homosexual athletes to “say and play” or will the vitriol intimidate them into silence?

A: More will come out. 50 years ago -- with almost no support and homosexuality still classified as a mental illness – well, obviously most people had no choice but to retreat. But two things are fundamentally different now:

The numbers of people who are living openly with the support of friends and family are so much greater now than ever before. And studies say that the thing that most changes public opinion about homosexuality is when they know someone who’s gay.

2. Technology and social media have contributed to an almost seismic shift in attitudes towards LGBT people in the last decade. I think it would be really, really hard to live in the closet now and have a double life or just an occasional secret fling – everything is public. And so younger people accustomed to branding themselves on FB, Twitter, Instagram etc – incorporate it into their public identity.

Q: What would you like to see happen now?

A: I hope Michael Sam plays hard as hell in the pre-season and gets a spot on the team. Then I hope he has a terrific season.

Long term: I want it to be a non-issue – no announcements necessary.

I hope that no gay kid ever feels that his opportunities will be limited because of his sexuality. Michael Sam’s most important legacy is to them: he’s shown them that no matter where you start or who you love, if you have enough raw talent and work your ass off -- your future is limitless.

(Adam Drucker is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale University and an entertainment producer based Los Angeles.)

The Perfect Place to Live

—Reflections on the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
by PKDauer

Martin Luther King had a dream – borrowed from the American philosopher Josiah Royce before him and passed on to us in his own stirring interpretation. It was a beautiful vision of a society that had moved past the destructive forces of hatred and violence into “The Beloved Community.”

“The way of violence leads to bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. But, the way of non-violence leads to redemption and the creation of ‘The Beloved Community.'”

I love the sound of “The Beloved Community.” It feels intimate and good and embracing. Who wouldn’t want to nestle into the arms of the beloved community? And that is what Dr. King wished for and worked for.

In “The Beloved Community,” all people share in the wealth of the earth; poverty, hunger and homelessness are no longer tolerated because they offend human decency. All forms of discrimination, racism, bigotry and prejudice are replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. And in the "Beloved Community", international disputes are resolved with words, not weapons.

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”

Might does not make right. Right is might.

It is an ideal that may seem out of reach these days with the violence unfolding all around us. But, like Dr. King, I believe The Beloved Community is attainable.

We have seen the evidence in our own country…when the deaths of young black men in Ferguson, Cleveland and New York brought out thousands of people of all colors and persuasions from coast to coast, to proclaim that “black lives matter.”

We saw it in the streets of Paris when a million people of every faith and following marched in solidarity against the violence that took 17 lives.

We saw it in Nigeria as the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign spread from heartbroken mothers to the White House and around the world -- a groundswell of outrage at the kidnapping of schoolgirls by Boko Haram.

Baby steps, it’s true. There is still so much work to be done to achieve “The Beloved Community.” Each of these tragedies makes that clear. But we are, at least, beginning to see the light.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“It is this love which will bring about miracles in the hearts of men.”

Martin Luther King gave us words to live by. Let us keep trying.

If the Mountain Won’t Come to Mohammed...

By Becca Heller

On April 18th, Hearts on Fire published my initial account of the tale of Mohammed and Tamara. Mohammed worked for 10 years for the U.S. government in Afghanistan and as a result, qualified for a special visa to come to the U.S. His sister, Tamara, whom he had cared for since their parents died when she was 12, was not allowed to join him. My organization, the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project, intervened, working hard to find a way to bring Tamara to the U.S. so the family could stay together. And we succeeded. Or so we thought.

Unfortunately, by the time Tamara was granted permission to travel to the U.S., Mohammed’s own visa had expired. Tamara had to fly to her new home in Texas without her brother. When we last left them, Tamara was living with a family there, waiting for Mohammed to join her.

And that’s when their story got even more complicated -- and frustrating.

Several days after Tamara’s arrival, IRAP was notified that the Department of Homeland Security was revoking her immigration status. The reason was astonishing.

The DHS said they they had only granted her entry so that the family could stay together, and the fact that Mohammed had not traveled with her showed that the family had been lying about wanting to remain united. IRAP was given six days to respond, or Tamara was going to be subject to possible jail and deportation. The letter further suggested that the family had invented the whole scenario in order to smuggle Tamara illegally into the U.S.

IRAP submitted a mountain of evidence demonstrating that the family split was actually due to bureaucratic error on the part of the U.S. government. We collected hundreds of pages of emails between Mohammed and the State Department, IRAP and DHS, cancelled plane tickets, and the so-called “night letters” that the Taliban leaves on the porches of U.S. allies overnight, threatening to kill them and their families. Mohammed received no less than four of these in the weeks since my last blog post.

Several days after submitting our evidence, DHS responded. Tamara had 48 hours to leave the country or face possible arrest and deportation.

Meanwhile, Mohammed, in the face of mounting death threats, had fled to London with his wife and children, where he was attempting to reopen his visa application at the U.S. Embassy.

IRAP launched an all out campaign to get Tamara’s visa extended. Congressional offices, prominent journalists and other advocates all intervened. Finally, three hours after her visa had expired, DHS relented and agreed to correct the bureaucratic error that had led to the potential deportation in the first place.

But not before Tamara panicked. 18 years old, in a country where she did not speak the language, and faced with the threat of jail time, unbeknownst to anyone, she had borrowed money from a cousin and booked a flight back to Afghanistan.

Luckily, her flight went through Heathrow. In the airport, she approached a police officer. She explained that she was terrified that if she went back to Afghanistan she would be killed and asked if someone could please contact her brother, Mohammed. The police officer agreed to allow her into the country temporarily as an asylum-seeker, and, in the most unlikely of circumstances, the family was reunited in a relatively safe place.

A week later, the U.S. State Department revoked Mohammed’s Special Immigrant Visa, on the grounds that he had trafficked his own sister into the United States.

IRAP has since been able to overturn the revocation, but after all of this, Mohammed is no longer certain he even wants to come to the U.S. He his humiliated, frustrated and tired. Why should it be so complicated, he asks, after he spent 10 years risking his life on behalf of U.S. forces in Afghanistan?

There are thousands of other Afghans like Mohammed, attempting to navigate the maddening bureaucracy of a visa program that was created to save lives and is instead often putting people in more danger.

Thankfully, since my last blog post, the Senate adopted language as part of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act that would save the lives of more than 20,000 additional Afghans at risk because of their work for the U.S. military.

Now there must be action by Congress before the program is due to expire on September 30 of this year. Writing in an Op Ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, Secretary of State John Kerry urged Congress to approve more visas now, writing “The way a country winds down a war in a faraway place and stands with those who risked their own safety to help in the fight sends a message to the world that is not soon forgotten.”

IRAP urges all Americans not to forget our obligations to those who stood with us in far away places.