Manu Meel lives in San Francisco, CA where he is the Chief Executive Officer of BridgeUSA, a youth-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that creates spaces on high school and college campuses for open discussion between students about political issues. They’re currently on 74 campuses, with 500 students passing through their programming every two weeks. Manu and host Michael Whidden connected through their mutual interest in promoting respectful engagement across our many differences.
Our discussion includes, among other things:
*his path from pre-med studies at UC Berkeley to leadership of such an important civic organization
*BridgeUSA’s mission to equip people with better skills to participate in democracy
*the notion of “conflict entrepreneurs” and reduction of their influence
*the prevailing choices of political engagement: hyper engagement, apathy...or bridge-building
*the implications of America becoming a majority minority country
Manu finds hope by putting U.S. current events in their historical context, pointing out that we’re just at the beginning of the American story, crafting an ambitious construct of society, with so much promising possibilities ahead.