Dr Victoria on UWC-USA, Crisis, and the Power of Humane Education | Impact Masters Podcast

What if school made us more alive instead of more numb? That question threads through our conversation with Victoria, President of UWC‑USA, as we journey from her Head Start memories in Albuquerque to crisis-tested leadership during COVID and the largest wildfire in New Mexico history. We unpack how a single moment in a pathology lab pushed her from pre‑med to philosophy of the body—and why reconnecting mind, heart, culture, and spirit is the real work of education and leadership.

We talk about the UWC‑USA model: a truly global campus of teens from 90+ countries, the rigor of the International Baccalaureate, and the lived curriculum of wilderness, arts and culture, and service. You’ll hear how second chances, shared accountability, and reciprocal community partnerships in San Miguel County turn service from saviorism into solidarity. Victoria also reframes fundraising as philanthropy in its original sense—love of humanity—arguing that scholarships and access can’t be reduced to return-on-investment spreadsheets, because the true impact unfolds across a lifetime.

There’s hard-won wisdom here on inclusive leadership in polarized times, on moving from “us and them” to “we,” and on designing schools where failure teaches, curiosity leads, and competence grows without erasing the person. We also explore climate innovation through her board role at Element Six Dynamics, where hemp-based pulp aims to replace softwood in paper and packaging—sequestering carbon, reducing deforestation, and proving that profit and planet can align.

If you’re an educator, parent, student, policymaker, or simply someone who believes learning should expand our humanity, this story will challenge and encourage you. Listen, share with a friend who cares about education and community, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—what’s one change you want to see in how we teach, lead, or give?

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening & Show Intro
• 1:44 Sponsor & Episode Setup
• 2:52 Introducing UWC-USA and Victoria
• 5:28 Early Life: Head Start and Love of Learning
• 11:35 From Pre‑Med to Philosophy
• 17:15 Education’s Purpose: Humanity vs. Desensitization
• 24:20 Gen Z, Leadership, and Changing the Groove
• 31:40 Failure, Accountability, and Growth
• 36:20 Competency vs. Content: Finding Balance
• 43:20 Fundraising as Love of Humanity
• 50:25 Crisis Leadership: COVID Decisions
• 56:50 Wildfire Evacuation and Refugee Lessons
• 1:04:10 Inclusive Leadership in Diverse Communities
• 1:09:40 Community Reciprocity in San Miguel County
• 1:16:00 Wilderness, Arts, and Service Programs
• 1:24:20 Ubuntu, Belonging, and Wholeness
• 1:32:10 Beyond Scarcity: Rethinking Narratives
• 1:37:40 Climate Innovation: Element Six Dynamics
• 1:44:10 Strategy: IB Lens on Real‑World Issues
• 1:49:20 Personal Goals and Humane Leadership
• 1:55:00 Awareness, Spirit, and Self‑Care

Transcript

SPEAKER_05: 0:07

Welcome to Impact Masters Podcast in collaboration with Africans Talking Retold Podcast, where every conversation sparks new insights. Join us as we delve into the stories of extraordinary individuals who are shaping our world. Movers and shakers in tech, policymakers, entrepreneurs, entertainers, and all those whose stories are worth telling. Get ready to be inspired, challenged, and transformed. Welcome, and let's embark on this journey of discovery together. Impact Masters Podcast. You can check us out on all social media platforms. YouTube, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, you name it. You can also find us across all podcast channels. Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music. Simply search for Impact Masters. Then subscribe, follow, and share.impactmasters.io. Here's your host, Michael Kamafi.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18

Thank you so much. Uh that's an amazing, amazing intro. It's another day. And uh welcome to another exciting episode of the Impact Masters Podcast, where we explore the stories behind the people and organizations driving positive change in the world. I'm your host, Michael Kimadi. You can call me MK anytime. And today we have an inspiring episode line up for you. As always, we are powered by Africa's Talking, the leading platform connecting developers to reliable, secure, and scalable communication services, including SMS, USD, voice, airtime, mobile data, amongst other upcoming APIs. Empowering developers across Africa. Today we are delving into the world of transformative education with Spotlight on the United States World College USA, United States of America. UWC is not just a school, it's a melting pot of cultures, ideas, and future leaders from over 90 countries all converging in Montezuma, New Mexico. And the institution is renowned uh for its rigorous international carriage program alongside an immersive curriculum in wilderness, community service, arts and culture. Joining us today is a leader who embodies the essence of UWC USA's mission. She is a remarkable academic and administrator with a wealth of experience in fundraising, relationship management, and crisis management. Please welcome Victoria, the president of United World College USA. Victoria, how are you?

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

I'm doing well. How are you, Michael?

SPEAKER_02: 3:16

I am good. You know, um, I'm tempted to read your bio. Oh, which you'll allow me.

SPEAKER_00: 3:21

Please don't. Please don't.

SPEAKER_02: 3:23

And then we'll just get done with that. Okay. And then we get to know who you are as a person.

SPEAKER_04: 3:29

All right.

SPEAKER_02: 3:29

As Victoria, professor. Uh, Victoria is president of United World College USA, responsible for leading the residential school located in Montezuma, New Mexico. Students at UWC USA come from the over 90 countries, study the international baccurate, and engage in wilderness community service, arts and culture programming that requires them to work across differences among themselves and the local community. Students are between 16 and 19 years of age. An exceptionally diverse faculty and staff come from San Miguel County. I'm not sure if I'm saying these real, uh, you know. Spanish is not my first language, though. You're doing great. One of the poorest in the US and from all over the world. Leadership at UWC USA entails academic, financial, and operational oversight as well as fundraising. Uh, donor, alumni, and parent engagement and risk management. Pre at UWC USA, Victoria held several positions at St. John's College, which we'll be talking and delving more because this built up to who she is. A talented fundraiser, relationship manager, and communications and marketing strategist. She served as a senior vice president for development and aluminum relations. She also served as Dean of College, Chief Academic Officer to be specific at Santa Fe, where she was responsible for academic program, faculty recruitment, promotion antenna, and student recruitment, support and discipline. Victoria began her career as a professor. Victoria has valuable experience working with constituents across multiple cultural, religious, linguistic, and national backgrounds, operating in a dynamic environment, including crisis management during COVID and wildfires, and running a complex and challenging 260-acre campus with aging infrastructure. She serves as vice chair on the UWC International Board and on the board of Element 6 Dynamics, which is focused on decarbonizing paper and packaging with pulp made from industrial Hemper. Now, that is out of the way. So, how are you, Victoria, once more? I'm exhausted just listening to your yeah, no one believes when their profile is read to them. That's right. But that is out of the way. Welcome again to Kenya. I know you're exhausted. You just arrived uh earlier today. Uh, and uh I'm sure you enjoy uh the hospitality of Kenya and Kenyans in general. Absolutely. Uh this is uh uh home to everyone, as they say. This is the origin of humanity, and we still got a lot of that. So uh here you have plans after this. But uh tell us about uh who you are, Victoria. Where did it all start before this profile start?

SPEAKER_00: 6:36

Yes, uh, it all started with a love of learning. Um as a very small child, I'm one of six children. Uh both of my parents valued our education, but themselves uh hadn't graduated from high school. My father went to the eighth grade and then into the service as a young man. Um, and my mother quit school in the 11th grade to help support her family. So all of us were encouraged to finish high school. And uh we did, except for one of my siblings. And uh I was the only one who went on to college. And a lot of times people ask me, why do you think that happened? Why do you think you went to college uh, you know, when no one else in your family did? And the answer for me is is kind of interesting. I've thought about it a lot. And, you know, back in the 60s, um, President Johnson started what was called a war on the war on poverty and introduced several programs, social programs, but one of them was Head Start. And I just happened to be the only child in my family who went to Head Start because they were busing kids from my neighborhood to the Head Start in the town I grew up in. Yeah. And uh which start is this? This is Albuquerque, New Mexico.

SPEAKER_02: 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:57

And so I remember, I remember everything about that experience. Yeah. I remember the color of the walls. I remember all of the, you know, little signs with words on them so that you could learn to read. I remember the little nooks and crannies where you could sit down and and read books and play with numbers. And I just fell in love with learning. That is in primary school, high school, or just primary, just prior to primary. Okay. So Head Start is kind of like what people refer to now as universal kindergarten.

SPEAKER_03: 8:29

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 8:29

But back in the 60s, kindergarten was only for those who could afford to go.

SPEAKER_03: 8:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:34

So it was kind of a beginning of that kind of universal kindergarten idea. Oh, okay. And uh ever since I've been wanting to share my love of education with everybody else.

SPEAKER_02: 8:44

Yeah. And at that point, uh, I I would assume we call it year nursery, but of course now the kindergarten has caught up with us, especially now with the CBC, which is curriculum-based uh uh uh competence based-based curriculum. Yeah, yeah. Um at that particular moment, you're young girl, you know, you're curious, you see these other uh children. What goes in through your mind? Because also I know New Mexico is not one of the, you know, uh driving city, if I would say that. Uh especially 1970, I can only imagine. 60s, I can only imagine how that was. Uh, at this point, do you feel like, you know, I need to be the uh beaming light for this city?

SPEAKER_00: 9:29

I don't think so. I think for a long time, honestly, for me, education was trying to belong, trying to catch up, trying to have a sense that I had a place at the table. So I think in some ways it drove me, but it also probably held me back because it it took a long time for me to realize that the power that comes with education is about following your passion and doing what really matters to you rather than getting an education to try to fit in or to try to prove that you belong at the table.

SPEAKER_02: 10:04

And as a a young gal, it doesn't help that much to make the point.

SPEAKER_00: 10:09

Kind of tough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you get interrupted a lot and and you're not necessarily getting the dates because the boys don't want to be dating somebody who, you know, wants to talk about books and ideas and maybe who has a little bit of a smart mouth. And so, you know, it can be a little, it can be a little tricky, especially for a young girl in that way.

SPEAKER_02: 10:28

Yeah. And at this particular point, would you have described yourself as a you know laid back or outgoing person?

SPEAKER_00: 10:35

I'm a pretty outgoing person, and I I loved, you know, I loved being part of my community and sharing, and I was always the kid in class who wanted to talk about the ideas and question the teacher, and sometimes in ways that got me in trouble. And and uh it was never to be, you know, difficult. It was always because I just wanted to know more.

SPEAKER_02: 10:56

And beside the boyfriends and girlfriends, did you have specific friends?

SPEAKER_00: 11:00

I did. I actually had some incredible mentors over time. I think even more than people my own age. I always sought out people who were older than me because I figured they had something to teach me.

SPEAKER_02: 11:12

Wow. No wonder you have achieved a lot. Uh, but uh when it comes to academic, you have been an academian throughout your life.

SPEAKER_00: 11:20

I have. I have. I started out uh, you know, I went to school. I started out actually in pre-med. And it was something that, you know, my family was very excited about because medicine is something that people understand, right? It's a profession. You it comes with a lot of respect. And so when I was in high school, um I got a uh I won a national fellowship to work at the local veterans hospital. And so I would rotate through all of the different sections of the hospital. When I went to college, it was a college fellowship. I won it when I was in high school. And uh, I really thought I wanted to be a doctor until the day that um I finally got called to the pathology lab to help with an autopsy. And uh I was so excited. I had been waiting and waiting, but nobody had died. And so that's not the kind of you know, rotation you can do unless someone dies.

SPEAKER_04: 12:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:17

But I was so excited and I walked in and I was I was spouting off. Oh, can I do the midline incision? Can I use the cranial saw? Can I help weigh the organs? Like I was really excited to do this. This is my first year of college. Busting.

SPEAKER_02: 12:34

Which university?

SPEAKER_00: 12:35

At University of New Mexico. Wow, okay. Yeah. Yeah. And uh walked into the room totally excited. And when they lifted the the sheet, it was a man whose blood I had been drawing for over a month. And I knew his family. I had talked with him, you know, I knew his life something about his life. And I just had this moment of like, wait a minute. Like, I'm the first person in my family to get to go to college. And education's supposed to make you better. My education's making me worse because I didn't have any sympathy for the fact that somebody had died. And I had no sympathy for the fact that there was a family in pain and mourning. I was just interested to get my hands in and learn about, you know, this body and and and human anatomy. And uh I went home and felt terrible about myself.

SPEAKER_03: 13:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 13:31

And my dad was completely confused at the time, but I said, you know, I'm not gonna study medicine anymore, dad. I'm gonna study philosophy. And I'm gonna study philosophy of the body. I'm really interested in the difference between the lived body and how we come to know each other through the lived body, versus the body understood as some kind of mechanism, which is what it's reduced to when it's laid out on a table. Yeah. So that was a big moment for me educationally where I left the sciences and entered the humanities.

SPEAKER_02: 14:03

Oh, okay. That's that's quite fascinating because every every kid uh in in Africa, at least for the time I was in school, wanted to be a doctor.

SPEAKER_00: 14:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 14:15

And uh I I I sorry to say this, but I think um I started next to med school, uh, doing computer science. And the first semester alone, the class was cut into 50% because of uh the same experience you had.

SPEAKER_00: 14:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 14:35

Uh because everyone who wants to be a doctor, they don't imagine the first lesson they learn about being a doctor is dissecting a lifeless body. Yeah. And then you are you're you're taken through a hole of keeping and respecting the sanctity of life.

SPEAKER_00: 14:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 14:52

And uh for you, it's quite a learning lesson, I think, for the med school uh kids in school right now, or even doctors out there. That's uh it's it's kind of correlated uh, you know, between the two transitions of life. And for me, I would be interested more of after that transition. Did you feel like maybe it could have been different?

SPEAKER_00: 15:16

Absolutely. I think partly the problem is how medical education is done. All of it is meant to desensitize you. Not to be a good idea. It's meant to teach you to have a kind of clinical distance. And it may be getting better at this point, but in many respects, I mean, the long hours that doctors are asked to work, yeah, the incredible um challenge of you know, patient load, there's there's not so much of an opportunity to care for patients as you would hope. And I think the education is built to desensitize you so that you can get the work done.

SPEAKER_02: 15:54

Yeah. And that takes away the humanity that is in you.

SPEAKER_00: 15:59

I think it can. I think it can, and that's a terrible loss. And for me, the power of education is that it evokes our humanity. Yeah. And it reminds us of our connection to others and our connection to something larger than ourselves, a human community, and and everything that goes into illness and life and death, right? All of the things that make human beings what they are. For me, that was what education was about was to make the world bigger and richer and more alive, not to deaden me to human experience.

SPEAKER_02: 16:34

Yeah, as they say in uh Kenya, life is for the living.

unknown: 16:37

I like that.

SPEAKER_02: 16:38

Yes, uh, we have uh Teddy, Teddy Warrior. Maybe Teddy, you can uh introduce yourself and uh say hi to our viewers, viewers. I think later on you'll be asking a couple of uh questions. So please.

SPEAKER_01: 16:51

Thank you. Thank you, MK. Today we're celebrating 55 years since uh Tom Boyer started the airlift to America. But uh more than that, I'm so happy to welcome Victoria to Kenya and to Africa's talking. MK is also a DJ. Great. Victoria is also uh an experienced flamenco super dancer during her days, and she didn't put that in her CV many days back. Yes, I know.

SPEAKER_00: 17:22

I was more a student of flamenco.

SPEAKER_01: 17:25

Flamenco, at least I got that from somewhere. So we welcome you home to Kenya. Thank you so much uh for 2018-2019, uh, showing me a lot of kindness in uh United World College in uh in Montezuma when I was also sick, but also where I got a chance to start writing my book, Sun of the Nile, encouraged by the students of UWC, Naomi Swinton, and the little kids at Silverton uh public school in uh Colorado, who asked me to describe myself based on a geographic feature. So I chose the Nile. Yeah and uh they gave me a rubric, and uh the next day I came up with a one-page I Am from Poem, which I've now converted it to a 360-page book called uh Son of the Nile. And uh I've helped so many kids in Kenya write their own I Am From Poems, and our intention is to reach 15 million kids by 20 uh 33. So we welcome you to Kenya, and uh I feel very privileged that uh uh this morning we were able to show you the top of KICC, which is a timeline of the country of Kenya, and also we had a privilege of seeing Turukana Boy, which is uh one of the oldest hominids uh available in Kenya. So so feel free and uh we can wait to hear your inspiration as MK engages you deeply. So I want you to flow as deep, long and wide as the river Nile.

SPEAKER_02: 19:04

Very nice. Thank you so much, uh Teddy. And uh I I would like now to diverge uh into philosophy. Okay, and uh be given you have a deep experience in philosophy and uh medicine to some extent. Uh do you think uh joining philosophy and medicine would really help to have more robust doctors at the end of the day?

SPEAKER_00: 19:30

I like that. I think so because philosophy, of course, traditionally is interested in you know wisdom, yeah, right? Not just knowledge, but wisdom, yeah, the deepest sources of what we can internalize and what shapes who we are. And medicine is also looking to health, right? Which is a part of that larger sense of who we are. But health separated from the mind, the heart, the spirit, experience, culture, tradition, becomes a kind of mechanical art. But we're not machines. And so for me, philosophy is not something that's an add-on if we really want to understand health. Philosophy is something that gives us a portal into a larger understanding of human health, and you can take that outside of medicine to you know the health of the planet, the health of human communities.

SPEAKER_02: 20:43

And it makes the nature whole because people will not go out of their way to destroy where they live, and they will not go out of their way to destroy humanity as it is. And this uh it's it's quite deep because if you think about it, and and what actually you are facing now from climate change, artificial intelligence, um, you know, people fighting each other, uh, I feel like in every sector, philosophy would be really a big uh contributor. But also in leadership. Actually, uh just before you came in, we were listening to our president, his excellency William uh Ruto, doctor. Um and and one of the things is that if you listen to some of the engagements that have been happening for the last two weeks, there there is a lack of uh wisdom in in how you know both parties who are grieved, which is Generation Z, who feels they are they're not listened to, and the government which acts like the Mr. Know or Miss Know It All. Uh so in entirety I see how that would fuse. But how many people actually have that turning moment of saying, you know, I just wanted to be an engineer? Uh, but I feel like this is turning me into a robot. Uh I wanted to be a doctor for you for your case, but this is taking away my humanity. So do you feel like the scholars are engaging uh, you know, in this perspective where they are trying to even relearn and and share that knowledge with the you know upcoming scholars?

SPEAKER_00: 22:16

Yeah, I think a remarkable educator is doing that. Yeah, but I don't think we have as many remarkable educators as we need. Yeah. Because it's very easy for educators to get into a kind of very old style apprenticeship mentality. I went through, I learned something, I mastered it, and now I'm gonna pass it on to you, and you're gonna learn something, and you're gonna master it, and you're gonna make me look good because you look and sound like me when you present this content.

SPEAKER_04: 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:55

That's a very old and and you know, respected version of education, but it doesn't encourage the kind of thinking outside the proverbial box, thinking outside the usual groove, right? People like, why are you playing the same old music? Well, because it's a groove. Yeah, and it's always gonna play the same music, right?

SPEAKER_04: 23:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 23:19

If you look at a record, yeah, it's always gonna play the same music. You can't get it to play a different tune. What do you have to do? You have to change the groove, right? But we're not equipped for that in some sense, if we are in an educational system that just encourages us to repeat what's already known. But if we're an educational system that encourages us to hear that, but to also reflect on it, to think about it, to apply it in new ways, to ask ourselves how it informs experience and how experience informs it, now you're starting to create a more dynamic relationship between the learner and what's possible in terms of where an education can take you.

SPEAKER_03: 24:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 24:08

And we don't do that very much. And I don't know what holds us back, but the whole world struggles with what it would mean really to make education a kind of animating force rather than taking on what's already known.

SPEAKER_02: 24:26

And and do you think at some aspect that the leadership in education and and at large even the recognizing bodies like uh Turing Awards and many other awards that are, you know, you know, we award people who have done the same thing for years, but just gotten one result and thereabout. To an extent that we think this is the only way to do this thing and succeed, because even the upcoming scholars will say, if I want to I want to win a Turing award, I I have to discover a formula. I have this is the way, there is no other way. And and and the script is written. And even for my engagement with engineers, one of the things I've tried to really change is the status quo, whereby we do one thing the same way over and over, which means you're not learning anything new. And even if you're learning anything new, you ignore that for the material that exists and has been proven. So do you think leadership to some extent? And and here we are talking about from academic leadership, political leadership, uh parental leadership that has because right now, all of all over the world, gener Gen Z uh the feel felt. And when um they mention when they mention that they need to be enabled and empowered, uh, if they want to be TikTokers and make money through making videos, we are still telling them you have to be a doctor, you have to be an engineer, you have to be a broadcaster, you have to be a journalist. But what they see on the other hand is someone who is a comedian who has not taken any journalism degree getting awarded and paid effortly. But what they are told is different from that. So, do you think, in that essence, the leadership has failed? And if it has failed, how can we address it cumulatively so that we don't lose our generation that has lost guidance and trust in the you know the the older generation?

SPEAKER_00: 26:27

Yeah. I think the irony is that education educational leaders do recognize the power of somebody who takes what's already known and then catapults it forward. And and oftentimes that is valued and it is rewarded.

SPEAKER_03: 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:49

Where educators fail, I think, and and I think you can extend this to politicians and to parents, where we fail is in creating an educational system that encourages that very innovation and catapulting. And it's because it's scary to give someone something and let them do what they will with it. On the flip side of that, I think what I worry about with young people is not so much that they find other ways to contribute in the world than require, you know, a formal education. I want more people in the world doing more things than being doctors. And I think when you skip the step of learning with others how to reflect, how to communicate. If it's always one-way communication, you lose something. You lose something of that wholeness, right? Because I mean, the thing that really strikes me about the world is we all worry about how fractured it is, right? Yeah. But if we're worried about how fractured it is, it means we actually know inside of ourselves that it comes whole.

SPEAKER_04: 28:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:02

Just like we worry about human beings who we worry are broken or damaged.

SPEAKER_04: 28:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:08

Why do we worry about that? Because we actually know in our depths that human beings come whole.

SPEAKER_03: 28:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 28:15

And so the opportunity to recognize how we're connected in a fractured world seems to me important enough that it might take some education.

SPEAKER_03: 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:26

There are all kinds of ways to get that.

SPEAKER_03: 28:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 28:29

My father had an eighth-grade education. He was one of the smartest people I know. He was one of those people who could read others, who could navigate in any space without being uncomfortable. He wasn't worried about whether he had a seat at the table. He just pulled out the chair, right? Eighth-grade education didn't worry about it, didn't apologize for it. My mother, who constantly feels like, you know, she's not smart enough, my gosh, that woman has a kind of wisdom that our children are so attracted to because she puts love above everything else. Doesn't matter what you've done, who you are, she knows how to love you. That's a kind of sense of her place in the wholeness of things. So there are all kinds of ways to be educated.

SPEAKER_04: 29:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:15

It doesn't have to be in a classroom.

SPEAKER_04: 29:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:17

I'll grant that in a heartbeat.

SPEAKER_04: 29:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:19

The question is when we are engaging young people and adults in the classroom, are we providing an experience and engaging an experience? Not providing it, engaging it in a way that opens people up rather than shutting them down.

SPEAKER_02: 29:35

Yeah. And that's that is a true leadership and guided by love. Because to some extent, I feel like the definition of love has really metamorphosized to different meaning. To some extent, uh material love, um, you know, and and and and the the real love which you could actually feel without even some. On saying something has totally changed to an extent that you have to prove that you love someone, or someone has to prove they understand you love them. And in between, that's where there is always that confusion of is this really genuine? And if it's genuine, what is the intention? So, and I think you come from a country where we always look up to, uh, given it's the you know the leader of the world per se, um, or the superpower. And and everyone wants to say, these guys, they got it right. They have an experience of 200 years, these are the leaders, let's look at it. But that's not the case to some extent. Um and uh that's why even right now, if um you're in a in a in a country like uh Kenya, and you look around, you you ask yourself, what is the purpose of all this? Uh so I agree with you that one of the things that we need to refactor as leaders beyond our profession, beyond our doctorate, you know, being a professor, is do we even listen to understand what the other person needs to really learn? Because if, for instance, um someone can learn better in a YouTube video, are we really engaging there? If someone can uh learn on a Twitter space, are we engaging there? And so and so forth. But my question would be around leadership again. What does it take to get a good leader?

SPEAKER_00: 31:34

Well, it takes a better education system to start, yeah, but it also takes a willingness on the part of those who are led to let leaders be human beings and fail.

SPEAKER_03: 31:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 31:49

Right? Because it's it's really interesting to think about that dialectic between those who are led and those who lead. So often you'll hear young people say, you know, we want leaders who are open. We want leaders who will create a space for us. We want to be seen, we want to be heard. Those are very reasonable things to want. They're deeply human things to want. But sometimes you get a leader who does that. Oh, that leader's not strong.

SPEAKER_03: 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 32:20

That leader doesn't know what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03: 32:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 32:23

That leader is has disappointed us because they created this space, but now things aren't moving fast enough, right? So, in a funny way, as people who are led, we shape our leaders, even as our leaders shape us as people who are led. And that goes back to that point about how do you get out of a groove where it's the same old thing, it's really not easy. I I'm at a school where students come because they feel that their education should be a force for uniting people and for creating a world that is more peaceful and more sustainable. They come for that reason.

SPEAKER_03: 33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:03

And yet, when something happens that they're upset about or that they don't understand, do they come and ask? Do they call a meeting? Do they do they step back and say, okay, how are we gonna approach this? No, they fall into the same old groove. Admin is doing who's admin? Do you mean me? Because if you if you mean me, I'm gonna tell you if I did that. Yeah, right. There's no admin. There's me, there's Andrew, there's Naomi, there's like there are lots of people.

SPEAKER_02: 33:37

Accountability.

SPEAKER_00: 33:38

Accountability. So even the way they start to talk, yeah, they're giving me a pass. Right? Admin did this.

SPEAKER_04: 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:47

That's giving me a pass. If I did it, call me in on it.

SPEAKER_04: 33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:51

Don't call me out because no one wants to be called out. Yeah. But call me in on it.

SPEAKER_04: 33:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:55

Tell me, hey, I think you, as I understand it, you did this, and this is very upsetting to the student body. I want to hear it.

SPEAKER_04: 34:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:04

I can't create that space if young people won't step into it without making it into that space of us and them.

SPEAKER_04: 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 34:14

It happens in schools, it happens in politics all the time, right? So that people are just screaming past each other. And if we're gonna change the world in any way that creates a wholeness and a space, the only way that's gonna happen is if people refuse to get into the same old groove from wherever they're sitting or standing.

SPEAKER_03: 34:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 34:39

But that's not easy. That's work.

SPEAKER_03: 34:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 34:41

That's hard work. It's much easier just to do what we've always done. It's easier to teach what we've always taught.

SPEAKER_02: 34:51

Because there's something to refer to and avoid to fail.

SPEAKER_00: 34:55

That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 34:56

So do you think we we we really celebrate failure?

SPEAKER_00: 35:00

No. We No. I mean, I think we talk about it.

SPEAKER_02: 35:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:04

And, you know, what do we do the minute someone fails? We spank them. We spank them publicly. Oh my gosh. I mean, you know, from literal spankings, yeah, you know, with corporal punishment. I don't know if they, you know, still do it here, but you know, that ended in the United States. But that's what we used to do. Your handwriting isn't perfect. We smack your hand. Well, that's gonna make you want to write better. No, no, no, you're like, why would it? Right, but we do the same thing with you know, somebody who does poorly on a test. Do we offer, hey, why don't you go back? Let's talk about it again, let's study it again, come back and take it again. No, we say, no, that's your grade.

SPEAKER_04: 35:44

You don't you don't get a second chance.

SPEAKER_00: 35:46

You failed at that. Yeah, you better do better next time. Whereas what keeps us from saying, you know what? Yeah, let's stop.

SPEAKER_04: 35:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:54

Clearly, you you missed it, or I missed sharing it with you in a way that you could absorb it. Let's do it again.

SPEAKER_04: 36:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 36:01

Right. So, no, we don't, we don't encourage failure in any way. We certainly don't celebrate it. And yet, think about the failures you've had in your life. Don't you learn more from failure than you do from success? I have.

SPEAKER_02: 36:15

Absolutely. That's where the biggest lessons are.

unknown: 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 36:19

Um, as a as a career academic, uh, you've seen so many generations uh from millennials. Now we have Gen Z. I'm sure very soon you'll be getting Gen Alpha. And all these actually present different challenges academically and socially and philosophically. Yes. Um, and for you, uh, as a vice president for development and alumni relations, and as a dean of the college, how do you shape this so that you can learn that the alumni can bring some richness in the current generation that is taking, you know, uh maybe similar course or maybe the newer course, and create some sort of maybe patience with the process and also some wisdom across sharing in that process.

SPEAKER_00: 37:11

Yeah, so when I was at St. John's, I think I really resisted the idea of kind of um generational differences. I think I really, and I probably still do in some deep way. Um, I tend to think of human beings as human beings, and each of us is at different stages in our journey, and that stage will determine what my response needs to be in a given moment.

SPEAKER_04: 37:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:37

Um, it doesn't always lead to what, you know, in terms of optics, looks like consistency, right? But if you're really meeting a young person where they are on their journey, sometimes that might mean emphasizing accountability.

SPEAKER_04: 37:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:53

You might ask them to leave the school. Sometimes it might mean giving an opportunity, a chance to make it right.

SPEAKER_04: 38:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 38:01

And they stay. Of course, someone on the outside might say, you're not consistent, you're not fair, right? Yeah. But part of leadership and part of developing young people is recognizing where they are on their journey. The interesting thing about generational thinking, and I have begun to see more patterns in different generations. And I even am catching patterns in myself as you know, one of the last of the baby boomers, right? And I can, and I can see certain patterns in my thought. I think, yeah, that too has to be part of the calculus, part of the assessment of where to meet someone on their journey, even as their cultural underpinnings come into play, even as their gender expression or understanding come into play, all of that becomes part of how I've learned I need to navigate. That's exhausting, right?

SPEAKER_04: 39:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 39:05

It tells you why educators are much more comfortable just saying, this is the way it's been done. Yeah. You are going to fit into this way that it's been done. Yeah. You go home a lot less tired.

SPEAKER_02: 39:18

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think there are some of the institutions that have changed that uh immensely, and the rewards are also huge. Uh, I would uh give I would give a couple of examples, but uh I'll be you know giving credits uh for for them. Uh but of course in the US I know a couple. Um but also even here in Kenya, uh, students who have gone out of their way to be curious enough, especially in engineering and uh I'm sure even in philosophy, uh they've really ripped big as opposed to someone who sticks to I'm gonna get an A and anything else is not important. Once I get a first class, I'll figure out where I'm gonna get a job. And then once I get a job, I get a wife. So I get a wife, I get, you know, the process. But now when the, you know, life is not a straight line. When the eventualities happen, they get confused and lost in there. Things like depression is becoming a big issue. Uh I was in the state a few, a few a few weeks ago, and one of the states declared loneliness as an epidemic. I was so taken aback. And so many other underlying issues that actually come with just taking life as a straight line. As an educator and interacting with these people, uh do we do we fail them in ensuring that they are all around by just sticking to the straight line? And if that's the case, what are some of the activities? And I like uh maybe if you're familiar with the competency-based curriculum, and uh, you know, some of the states actually are implementing it, I would love you to talk a bit, you know, the advantages and disadvantages of you know competency versus other, you know, uh stream of education. So what what can it be done and how can we do it? And how long would that take to change? Because it's a whole generation. If you start right now, maybe it will take 10 to 15 years to like, you know, change the way things are done.

SPEAKER_00: 41:16

No, it'll it'll take a while. I mean, to focus on competencies in a way is to meet a young person where they are in the journey, right? It's not that, oh, I've got to finish this this much content in this much time.

SPEAKER_03: 41:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 41:30

And you will either be at the front of the class, you'll be kind of in the middle, or you'll be dragged along. And and at its worst, you'll be left behind. But instead of that, it's where are you with your competency and let's keep working in that direction. And it is, it, I think it holds out a lot of hope. I think too, even though we want to focus on competence, I don't want to lose the power of sharing with young people some of the most excellent examples of human accomplishment. Yes, whether it's in the arts or the sciences, the humanities, right? So you don't want to lose that. Yeah, finding the marriage between competency and mastery on the one hand, and on the other hand, content that inspires and that opens up the world and that shows us that we're a part of something bigger than ourselves. I mean, that's the balance that you want to strike. And I'm sure if any of my students were listening, they'd say, oh, wait a minute, but you know, here we are in this heavily content-based uh curriculum, the international baccalaureate. And a lot of times students will think that's incompatible with finding where they are on their journey and expressing their freedom, and maybe even in you know, incompatible with their mental health because it's such a demanding curriculum. And what I would say is like so much of life, it's not what we're doing, it's how we're doing it that ends up matter, right? Mattering. Like what makes the difference between, you know, a hack musician, for example, and an artist. You might be doing the same thing. The what might be the same.

unknown: 43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:20

But how you do it, yeah, right? How you engage it, how you move with it, how you how you imagine it and then manifest it.

SPEAKER_04: 43:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:30

That's what distinguishes a hack from an artist. And you could say that about anyone. I mean, everybody knows what it's like to be with a nurse who really cares, who really sees you in your moment of pain or suffering and alleviates it out of a sense of calling versus someone who just wants to get through the shift, right? Just wants it to end.

SPEAKER_04: 43:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:54

And you and that bedpan are the last thing between them and getting to get home.

SPEAKER_04: 44:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:01

And you feel the difference and you see the difference, right? So it's it's not always what we do, it's how we do it. And I think that's true for any curriculum that a student might find themselves in, or any kind of situation that we find ourselves in, including our mental health, right? That we feel a certain way is one thing, but how we approach it, how we challenge ourselves to rise to it or to seek help, that's what makes the difference. And I think we forget that. We learn a kind of helplessness that says, oh my gosh, I have to be perfect, or I have to be like that influencer on social media, or I have to be like my brother who was brilliant at this particular subject matter, or like my mother, right? We get into these narratives that undermine us instead of freeing us. We don't have to do that. How we go about living a life is deeply personal.

SPEAKER_03: 45:03

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 45:04

And it's something that can help us to connect to others in ways that gives them access to be able to help us along.

SPEAKER_02: 45:14

Fantastic. And uh most of these um, you know, approaches, depending where you are in the world, uh, they are quite resource intensive. Um even changing a curriculum that means people buying new books, uh investing afresh, um, you know, and so and so forth. And the the the the old material is literally discarded, which means also other resources are wasted. If you add a stock of books that are not sold as a publisher, you discard that. Also, there's a question of governments trying to get funding, uh trying to allocate resources. If you are in the university, if you have loans, the process is quite rigorous when it comes to resources. But for you, actually, you are a fundraiser. You you have mastered the heart of donation. And actually, this is good because uh even here in Kenya, we're talking about people carrying money with the bags and donating in Arambez, which, you know, there is a debate around that. Is this money really good going to the course? Uh is it the right way to do it? Uh, wouldn't this money be better in an hospital or a school or you know, buying books for people uh instead of just you know donating to some individuals in churches and so on? So also in the US right now, you are going you are going to an election. And one of the key questions that you know Biden and Trump are being asked is around the you know healthcare and education and the loans. So these are pertinent issues that uh different leaders in the world are looking at. But for you, you have been doing this uh to ensure that you know uh the critical aspect of sustaining education institutions is met. Uh, what strategies have you found most effective in engaging donors, alumni, and parents? And is there any fundraising memorable experience that you remember vividly in that course?

SPEAKER_00: 47:12

So, I mean, the wonderful thing about philanthropy and fundraising is that philanthropy has a great deal to do with philosophy, right? They start with the same root.

SPEAKER_04: 47:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 47:22

Um, phylos in in Greek is love, love of, and so philosophy, love of wisdom, yeah, philanthropy, love of humanity, wow, love of human beings, and so philanthropy comes out of love. Yeah, and to to give and to fundraise are really about finding for someone who wants to give where they can express that love of humanity best. It could be in healing the planet, right? It doesn't have to go directly to human beings, yeah, but it also could be to support a scholarship for education, yeah, whether for one person or for many. And the joy of fundraising is helping someone find where to direct that love for humanity. And so it's not a painful thing to do. It's a quite joyful thing to do if you're listening, if you're meeting that philanthropist where they are on their journey. And, you know, I'll always say sometimes I know exactly what I want.

SPEAKER_04: 48:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 48:37

I know exactly what I want to fund.

SPEAKER_04: 48:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:40

But you can't force that with somebody because giving has to be an act of freedom and it has to be an act of love.

SPEAKER_04: 48:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:48

And so I uh I find fundraising a joyful experience. I also find I can't fundraise if I don't believe in something. I I think it's the difference between a salesperson and a fundraiser, right? I mean, if I have to sell this car, I am going to tell you every good thing about it to get you interested. Well, I might do that to some extent about something I might want to build on my campus or a particular scholarship I want to provide. But in the end, it has to be a real interactive experience, and people have to find that place where they're actually seeing the same possibility. Wow. And that's when fundraising works.

SPEAKER_02: 49:31

So would we say confidently that uh, you know, the love and the purpose has to align?

SPEAKER_00: 49:37

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 49:38

To some extent to make it has to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:40

It has to. Otherwise, it's transactional. And for me, philanthropy is not transactional. You know, a lot of times you hear now in philanthropy people want to know about return on investment. And I worry about that kind of language. Yes, we ought to be able to show that what we're doing is adding value, whether it's to a human being or to a project or to the world, right? So, yes, we should be accountable for how we use dollars for sure. But to reduce it to return on investment, how do you measure a child who gets a scholarship return on investment? I mean, I went through school fully on scholarships all the way through. Somebody believed enough in my education to provide the philanthropy to pay for it.

SPEAKER_04: 50:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 50:28

Right. But at any one point during that time, I don't know if I could have demonstrated their return on investment.

SPEAKER_04: 50:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 50:36

I hope now that my passion is providing access to students to scholarships that result in education that can be transformative.

SPEAKER_02: 50:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:47

I hope that in some sense that's the return on investment.

SPEAKER_02: 50:50

And you can't measure it.

SPEAKER_00: 50:51

But you can't measure it because it's a whole life, right?

SPEAKER_02: 50:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:54

Who I am leading United World College USA is one aspect of myself.

SPEAKER_04: 51:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:02

Who I am as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, as a friend, as someone in my community, as someone who will stop to talk to somebody I don't know because they look low. Anything about me, that's all, that's all coming from the investment someone made in me. But it's not something that easily lends itself to a metric. And I think that's one of the challenges for philanthropists that they hear all of that talk of return on investment and they're they're pushed in directions of transactional thinking. The finest philanthropists, the ones who make huge differences in the world, like one of our most important benefactors at UWC USA and the whole UWC movement, Shelby and Gail Davis, you know, amazingly generous people who are giving scholarships to kids all over the world to come to UWCs and then helping them with their education to go to various colleges and universities in the United States. They are not thinking transactionally. They're thinking about the love of seeing a young person, no matter where they come from, no matter whether they can afford an education, watching those young people open up and blossom.

SPEAKER_04: 52:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 52:21

And that's that's more an act of love than a business transaction. And these are people who clearly have done well in business. They know how to do that. Yeah. But they recognize human beings aren't transactional in their worth and in their value.

SPEAKER_02: 52:34

Yeah. And you know, coincidentally, I also went through my education through scholarship. So I can actually understand in action and words of what that means with the achievements I've been able to accomplish until now. And uh I know for every purposeful and loving and wise person, as you are, you're always bothered by different crises that happen. Uh I'm sure we have experienced so many crises between 2000 and 2024. We're still in crisis uh with the Gaza and Ukraine. And these are humans who are suffering. And one of the things that actually that causes to someone who is purposeful is to change the tactic, to change the way of leadership, to look things differently because these are new scenarios presenting themselves. Yes. Uh, to just ensure that we alleviate pain, we we we console our brothers and sisters who are in that pain. For you, COVID and wildfires, uh, which were really we we were watching actually almost all California burnout, Seattle, and all that. And it was quite really frustrating given now that the with the digital media news traveled as fast as seconds. And you see a family running away from the fire from what they called home. Um and and these these are well-off, some some well-off families, and and that even changes the dynamic of these are suffering people. But at this particular point, they have been reduced to ashes. All they knew is reduced to ashes, and this caused a change of aspect. So, for you, how did these two main crises change your perspective in management and crisis and all this confusion that people experience during that particular time?

SPEAKER_00: 54:25

Yeah, for COVID, it was really, you know, when the borders started to close down, yeah, and we had students from over 90 countries in our care. The first decision was do we keep them here? And if we keep them here, we don't know what we're facing. We don't know what this is.

SPEAKER_03: 54:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 54:47

But if we send them home, what if they're in greater danger? And so part of the decision making was really to go to our, you know, staff and our faculty and say, can we do this? Can we keep them here? And part of leadership is recognizing when people are ready to do something and when they're not. And in the end, we determined because of the age group of our students, because we didn't know what we were facing, we sent them home. And, you know, they they left very quickly to make sure that they got home before their borders closed.

SPEAKER_04: 55:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 55:19

But almost immediately we started having conversations about what it meant if we didn't bring them back. And one of the fundamental discussion points was well, for our students who are from a wealthier economic background, they're gonna be fine.

SPEAKER_04: 55:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 55:37

Right? They're gonna they, you know, whether it's education at home remotely, whether it is going to a local school that will open up, you know, with certain protocols, they're gonna be fine. What about the students we have for whom this scholarship is a shot at a whole life that will be transformative, not just for them, yeah, but for their families, for their communities. What does it mean if we don't reopen?

SPEAKER_04: 56:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:06

And so we got working to reopen and we brought students. And, you know, for a lot of our UWC students, you know, for whom the wilderness experience is, you know, so special, the arts and culture, you know, the kind of cultural shows that they do to showcase for one another what their cultural experience is around various themes and how they've lived their experience differently because of where they were raised and how they were raised. A lot of that had to be changed because, again, we didn't know what we were dealing with.

SPEAKER_04: 56:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:40

Right. And so uh it was a very different United World College USA experience. And in fact, United World Colleges opened up all over the world in the very following fall after we had sent our students home. And it was really a moment of recognizing how our schools really are microcosms of the world. I mean, part of the part of the comedy for me was hearing students from different countries complain about the protocols that we were using. You know, for example, we made sure that we had them mask when they were with faculty and staff. Why? Yeah, because the most likely introduction of the virus after everybody quarantined was gonna be people who were going back and forth into town.

SPEAKER_03: 57:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 57:25

But where was the likely spread gonna be? In towns among the students.

SPEAKER_04: 57:30

Oh, right?

SPEAKER_00: 57:31

Because they're not gonna wear masks when they're together alone. I don't care how many times we told them. Yeah, but you know, we had Chinese students who were shocked that we weren't requiring masking in the dormitories because at home everybody was masked all the time, right? But then we had students from Sweden who were shocked that we were masking at all in public because the Swedes weren't masking. So why were we masking? And everything in between.

SPEAKER_04: 57:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 57:59

Right. And all of it driven by fear of the unknown, reasonable, that's how we survive by being afraid to start.

SPEAKER_04: 58:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:09

But also being driven by the politics around it, whether it was international politics or our own national politics at the time in the US. So that crisis management was really about constantly asking ourselves, what do we know from the science? We're in, as I like to tease the students, we are an educational institution. We might look at the science, right? What do we know? What don't we know? And how can we respond given what we don't know?

SPEAKER_04: 58:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:40

And how can we do that together in a spirit of cooperation?

SPEAKER_04: 58:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:44

And is it going to be the same experience you would have had if it hadn't been COVID? No. But this is your experience.

SPEAKER_04: 58:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:51

This is our experience together. So, really, to take a step back and say, what can we do?

SPEAKER_04: 58:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:57

Instead of just going into fetal position and saying we can't do this, right? So that was a case of really trying to recognize that as communities, we had power to respond. Yeah. And we might get it wrong sometimes, and there were some seriously high stakes. So we did our best not to. Yeah. Um, but we were taking a risk. Absolutely. And it was a risk worth taking. Yeah. And as soon as we recognized that that risk worth taking was about the education of young people for whom this is it. This is my shot. Yeah. It was worth it.

SPEAKER_03: 59:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 59:31

For wildfire, you know, our campus at one point was surrounded on three sides. Um, and it was the largest wildfire in the history of New Mexico. And we, you know, we had to get everybody out, everybody evacuated. And it was really a moment of first of all, you don't do a whole lot of, you know, gee, should we do it this way or that way? You move. And it's really, you know, I'm not the kind of leader who is a Top-down person. I really believe in distributed leadership. But boy, in a crisis, you say go, and everyone knows you don't argue. You do the part you know you have in order to make sure to get these young people and the rest of the campus community off campus safely.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:17

But we also provide water to a number of the homes on the mountains. So we also felt responsible for communicating to them what was happening. So there's the part of the leadership that's all about snap decisions based on the limited information you have. And academics love more information. Give me more information, more information. You don't get to do that in a crisis. You just take what you have and you act on it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:48

We did, I think where the learning started was really when we found ourselves in a camp, you know, uh a number of miles down the road, where our students, it took them a while to realize we were refugees in that camp. We'd gone from this privileged place of education where whether you're, you know, where whether you have no economic means or great economic means, everybody in a boarding school is privileged to be getting an education. And we went from that to being ourselves refugees. And it took a while to realize that at first the students felt, you know, really upset and they'd left their belongings behind and didn't know whether they'd get them back. And many of them ignored us when we said, bring all your school materials, because the second year students were telling them that it would only be one night because that was their experience a year ago, except it was a different fire. And so the, you know, the students are kind of all you know discombobulated until other refugees from the area started appearing.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:54

And these people, some of them had already seen their homes burn.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:00

Many of them, you know, we like to say in New Mexico, we're land rich but we're cash poor. So for people to have lost, right, their ancestral lands, you know, no insurance to help them rebuild. And the students started seeing our neighbors, our vecinos coming and showing up.

SPEAKER_03: 1:02:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:22

Suddenly the students stopped worrying about themselves and started asking, how can we help? Can we distribute water? Can we go and let people know as they drive into the camp where the, you know, where they can find food, where the cabins are. Um, and it turned into one of the most profound learning experiences ever. I just met with one of our graduates from that era, Aisha, and got to hear her account of how meaningful it was to find herself in that position.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:53

Many of the students were just upset because that, you know, we were about to do the huge exams, the IB exams, and uh they were displaced. But it got them talking too about how many students, how many young people in the world are displaced. Maybe not because of wildfire. It could be because they have no home. Yeah. It could be they're displaced because of political unrest. Yeah. It could be because of flooding.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:19

Suddenly they were seeing their own humanity in light of something bigger than themselves.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:24

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:25

That's when education starts.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:27

And I loved listening. I wish Aisha were here because she was far more eloquent than I could be, because she had that experience. And, you know, she actually was in Kenya during COVID, her first year. She wasn't able to get there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:40

So she had to deal with being online with the huge time difference. And she got through that. Talk about resilience. And then she comes her second year, and we end up evacuating because of wildfire. So I would venture to say she had a very unusual UWC USA experience, but grew from it. And I could see it in her sitting with her at breakfast, I guess, was it only yesterday? Oh my gosh. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:04:05

Yeah. And uh would you say uh, you know, in crisis, that's where the true leadership is coined to the essence of even if you have been a leader and you have not gone through crisis, you you might be lucky. But when the crisis hits, that's when now the true leadership comes in. And as you answer that, um UWC is known for its diverse community. How does the leadership foster an inclusive environment that respects and celebrates cultural, religious, you know, uh national differences, linguistic differences, financial economic differences in that environment whereby everyone is focused on ensuring that they learn, they become better, they they they go and influence back their their life and the community they come from. Or even if they go to a new community, they influence with our knowledge. And and I know the education systems and and and environment shapes a lot of that. So UWC, with a night over 90 countries coming in. That's that's that's uh mind-boggling.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:14

It's mind-boggling. It is.

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:16

You know, I think it's interesting that you put those two things together, MK, because crisis leadership on the one hand, and on the other hand, leading in a diverse community requires, I think, the same orientation. And that is to recognize others and the value they bring to the table.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:43

That's it's leadership.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:45

They don't have to prove it, it's there, you see it. So in a crisis, you know, you everyone thinks about the leader, right? I think about the people I needed to trust to get done what we needed to do.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:00

And and thank God I had people I could trust. And they rose to the occasion. Yeah, they did it. Whether it was the faculty and staff, yeah, you know, whether it was, you know, our security director whose home was right in the line of fire, and literally every time the wind shifted, if it shifted toward the school and we were all worried, it was going away from his house. And when it shifted away from the school, his home was in danger. And yet he showed up to work every day. He led a team, he made sure our students were safe. He made sure that the campus was secure even as you know, uh firefighters from all over the country were converging on our campus to stage there for the fires. To be able to trust Eugene was amazing. And that was true. I could I could name any number of our faculty and staff. To be able to trust our students to recognize that, you know, students like to get in trouble on occasion. This was not the time. Yes. And they rose to the occasion, they knew what they had to do. Leadership in that context was really trusting people. Leading in a diverse environment is the same kind of trust. Recognizing that what you bring, I may not understand. I may never have known someone. I remember the first year we got a student from Congo, first student at UWC USA from Congo ever. I didn't know a thing about it. Yeah. I didn't know a thing about the country. I'm ashamed to say I didn't know very much about its history. I've learned my history and my geography by having the students I have. That's been the wonderful thing for my education, right? But when you see these young people come with all of this diversity of background, you learn to trust them to teach you something in the moments that need a viewpoint and a decision. And it's it's not easy. And I don't always get it right. And sometimes there is no right. There are just a lot of not so great choices. And you make the best one you can. And guess what? That means you're living. It means you're not just working, it means you're living and you're living your leadership.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:24

And it's the same for young people who lead within our community. They learn through their leadership and they don't always get it right. And that's because we're human and because we're actually trying to do something that is interactive, that's not performative. Again, that's not transactional, that really requires that we show up for each other. Now, if I could figure out how to scale that so that that space is created successfully, generationally. I mean, look what's happening in Kenya right now, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:00

If I could figure out how to do that, oh my gosh, I could fund the world because I'd be rich. But unfortunately, we all have to just figure it out within the context that we find ourselves. Yeah. But I think the same kind of leadership in crisis is the same kind of leadership when we seriously embrace diversity.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:19

It's truly about trusting people to bring what they have to bring and to give it in the moment it's needed.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:26

Yes. And Gen Z have proved that uh if you put the tribal economic background and everything aside, you can achieve so much uh with what has been happening here for the last two weeks, with a reject uh finance bill 2024. And uh that actually has uh given uh hope where there was no hope. And uh I hope this gonna change the way you approach uh everything, uh, maybe going forward. But of course, that remains to be hoped because the more things change, the more they remain the same. We're gonna take a short break, and when we'll be back, we will delve more into more uh of your life.

SPEAKER_05: 1:10:03

Great. Welcome to Impact Master. Thank you. Quick pause, folks. We're stepping into a brief interlude, but stay tuned because after the break, we dive deeper into the incredible journey of our guests. Meanwhile, we'd like to send a massive shout out to our sponsors for empowering this exchange of ideas and innovation. We'll be right back on Impact Masters. Subscribe, follow, and share. Check us out at www.impactmasters.io. See you after the break.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:40

Thank you so much, folks. Um thank you so much uh for dialing in. And uh, we're gonna go into community, innovation, and uh strategic vision. Uh, but when you talk about community, uh, I have something to say. And uh, even when you talk about marketing, sales, a lot has been changing, at least in the engineering world, whereby you can't just sell what you have not used, what you don't understand. And not only that, you have to show the value before you ask for the value. And here means uh that engineers are more interested in what actually could make their life easier so that they use it to build more easy solutions. And in this case, Africa Stocking as a community of developers across Africa, you can join at www.afrikastalking.community.com. Uh, and in this case, you join other portfolio of developers in the 54 plus recognized Africa Union uh countries, whereby you learn from each other, build from each other's knowledge, and build a better Africa. So I encourage you to check out uh community.africastalking.com and join as a member. You'll access uh API experts who will guide you through building scalable solutions. And uh still talking about community. I know uh San Miguel County, where UWC is located, is one of the poorest in the US. How does the school engage with and support the local community and what impact does these have on students and staff?

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:24

Uh the interaction is really wonderful. And one of the things that I emphasize to our students and ask us always to remember is that while we provide service within the community, the community also has a great deal to offer us and does. And so people hear that San Miguel County is an impoverished county, but there is a richness there that I want our students to experience, even as I want them to ask what they can do to add to that richness. So our students do about 17,000 hours of community service annually among them in San Miguel County and sometimes outside the county.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:07

Everything from working with young people to teach philosophy, to study philosophy together, and that includes very little people, yeah, and uh learning coding, working with robotics. Wow. Um, or it could be learning to read, right? Reading level at third grade is an indicator of two things graduation rates and incarceration rates.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:34

At that grade.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:36

At third grade, you can predict what's going to happen.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:39

Oh.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:40

And so we have students who serve as reading buddies. They work at the animal shelter.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:46

They might work restoring a building. Yeah. They work with local organizations that are dealing with our rivers, which are under duress since the fires because of all of the debris that comes down and the flooding that takes place. So there are a number of different kinds of contributions that our community makes as service to the larger community.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:12

By the same token, the community welcomes our students as getaway families. And so students have a family that will essentially adopt them over the two years that they're there and invite them into their homes to learn about the culture, to learn about the food and the music, to maybe get out onto ancestral lands or to visit museums in a nearby town. Um, and so there's a kind of reciprocity that happens that is a wonderful part of the United World College USA experience.

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:47

Wonderful. So it's a give and take kind of uh symbiotic relationship.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:51

Absolutely. And you know, I worry, you know, so much of service learning. Students can get the sense that they're there to save a community. Communities know what they need.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:04

Usually people who go in to save something do more damage than good, right?

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:11

And so for us, service is giving of ourselves.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:16

But we want to know from the community what do you need?

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:19

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:20

And what do you want from us? And what can we offer?

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:23

And similarly, what do we need from you? What might you offer? And when you have that kind of reciprocity, then you have again, it's not transactional. Yeah. It's meaningful. It's meaningful exchange. And that's what I hope happens for these protests in Kenya, right? I mean, right now there's us and them. And and we, I'm gonna pretend I'm one of the young people, we actually managed to move something by having the retraction of that bill, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:55

Now's when the work starts. You know, what's the government gonna do? Is the government gonna invite young people in for deliberation?

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:04

Some of them off or betrayal, or what's that gonna be? Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:09

Because there are choices now to be made. Yeah, everybody's maybe breathing a sigh of relief, you know, that that something has calmed down. But the the underpinnings, right? They're there. They're right underneath the surface. Yeah. And it's when you enter into a reciprocal relationship that you start to have any opportunity for real improvement, real change, real growth, real interaction.

SPEAKER_02: 1:16:36

That's very powerful because a lot of that requires patience and listening and even understanding what is being uh shared and compromised to some extent.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:47

It does. It does. And that's not easy, actually. And I won't pretend I get it right every time. I mean, sometimes, for example, in my position, students will be saying something that for them is brand new. It's a new thought. Yeah, it's uh a new need, yeah, it's a new reflection.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:04

And there's a part of me that is sitting there appreciating that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:09

And there's another part of me that's sitting there saying, Oh my gosh, I've heard this before.

unknown: 1:17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:14

We're gonna try it. It's not gonna work.

unknown: 1:17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:17

Then they're gonna be frustrated, right? And and guess what? When I'm having that internal dialogue, do you think I'm listening?

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:24

No.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:24

No.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:25

You're thinking about yourself and what is gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:27

And I'm thinking about, okay, what can I really do this time? How could we really change this this time, right? But that's not reciprocity. And that's also not leadership, frankly.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:39

But it's tough. It's really tough because we all run out of patience and we we get exhausted by these kinds of things. And the only way change is ever gonna happen is if we meet each other and work on it together.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:54

Yes. So I know uh, you know, the Wilderness Community Service and Arts and Culture programs at UWC is a game changer for most of the, you know, the students, and it's an integral part of their life, uh, whatever time it takes. Can you please elaborate on these programs and their significance in student development?

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:18

Oh, nice. Yeah. So I'll start with wilderness, which is something that when we talk to our alumni, we're in our 42nd year, and when we talk, start in our 43rd year, and when we talk to our alumni, they immediately talk about the power of wilderness. And the first thing that happens when students come from all over the world with various levels of English proficiency, yeah, with very different backgrounds, with very different relationships to nature and wilderness. They come, they get packed up, and they head out on overnight camping with one another. And they have to figure out how to put up tents together, they have to figure out how to cook together, they have to figure out how to pack out everything that they packed in, and they have to do it cooperatively. And it's their first experience of having to depend on each other. And they will see some people excel at things uh and others at other things, and they learn to work collaboratively and collectively. And so the wilderness experience is both an opportunity to get out into nature and to recognize that we're a part of it, and it's an opportunity to recognize that when we are challenged that way, we're better together.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:48

And you don't know what's going to happen on a wilderness trip.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:51

You have all your plans.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:53

Um, your second-year students, if you're a first-year student, your second-year students are leading you through it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:59

So you're relying on your peers. Yes. But if lightning starts, you've got to move to cover.

SPEAKER_03: 1:20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:08

If the rains start coming down, you've got to figure out whether you stop now or head as far out as you plan to. You know, with the risk of not being able to set up camp. So all of that has to be a part of what you're doing. You're extra hungry, but your food has to last through the number of days of the trip, right? So there's a kind of learning experience that is collective, but also that stretches individuals. And one of the things that our founder of the United World College Movement, Kurt Hahn, uh, said was that there's more in you than you know.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:45

Right. And when you believe that, you can really rise to the occasion. So the wilderness experience is very much an experience that's meant to have you dig deep and find out that there's more in you than you know.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:59

The arts and culture experience is very different. And sometimes I have worried that our arts and culture performances can reinforce stereotypes rather than helping us to get past them. And so students will perform things that everybody expects them to perform, you know, the jokes about time, you know, Latin American time and African time and Austrian time, right? Yeah. And so they can get tempted to kind of fall into those, those expressions of stereotypes. Yeah. At its best, our arts and cultural exchange is really about giving people access to otherness in a very enjoyable, non-threatening way. Yeah. Right. When I watch someone dance or sing or recite something, I'm I'm interested, I'm curious, I'm open, right? Whereas if someone starts telling me that the way I do things is wrong, or that my religion has been oppressive to others, or that, or that I'm being elitist because I'm using English and I'm speaking too fast, right? I tend not to be as open and as curious. And right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:25

We kind of feel judged.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:27

We feel judged. But arts and culture gives us a chance to have that first entrance into otherness. Yes. And so it's it's an encounter with beauty.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:40

And and that's a way of opening a bridge. So for me, that's what our arts and culture um experience allows for students. Yeah. And service, again, I think it's a place to discover that there's more in us than we know. And more importantly, that there's more in others than we know if we just give them a chance to express that. And we start to break down those us and them, those us and them models. You know, we're privileged, they're poor. We know how to do this. They need us to help them. And when you start breaking that down, because you find out, guess what? They're us.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:24

We're there.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:25

I can see myself in them.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:27

I see myself.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:28

And and what I'm good at is one thing. And what I'm not good at, they are good at. They're good at.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:35

And fosters collaboration.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:37

Yeah. And coerciveness.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:39

Absolutely. Because again, we start out whole. The fracture is the after. It's not the beginning. We're whole as human beings and as communities.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:55

And the more we ask ourselves to remember that, to reflect on it, and to act on it, the more it comes back to the forefront.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:07

Yes. And I think Africans, we have uh Ubuntu. Yes. Which is I am because you are.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:14

Because you are. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:15

And I think uh Teddy might uh want to talk a bit about Ubuntu. I love it. And uh what it means even for humanity. Sorry. Yeah, I think at uh yeah, but as uh Teddy fixes the mic, uh one thing I've I've appreciated about Africans, and and when I get a chance, like this is a good chance to talk to Africans. Yes, the 1.6 billion of us, and so many young, over 70% below that five years of age. That's a huge capacity.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:54

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:55

Is that the strength, the true strength, is in us as people. And any leader who is gonna invest in us, may it be internal or external, yeah, is a leader who has good intention. And I know people have needs about infrastructure, you know, you know, anything that is besides the people, even if it's empowering the people, to some extent it takes away from us as people. And even for ourselves to invest in us, we just need to be more knowledgeable, be more aware of what is happening, and actually start to utilize each other's strength. And I know we have done that really well as as of now, because ideally, Africans, everyone is always thinking, always trying to see what is there to you know to take advantage of. But one thing that has kept us together and more happier, if I may say that, is seeing the positive in other people. If you think about how much Africans and what they have passed through until today, we're always welcoming everyone, you're always seeing positive things in others, and we're always seeing the good in others, despite the intention. So I would like to encourage the Ubuntu philosophy as Teddy uh talks more about it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:20

Thank you so much uh for the Ubuntu philosophy, which means uh you are because I am a while back when uh Victoria wrote the afterword for my book, I am from uh Teddy Warrior. So people ask me why I have a title of book called I Am From Teddy Warrior. They don't realize my father was called Teddy Warrior. So I'm really from Teddy Warrior. And uh one very profound thing when you're writing the afterward Victoria in my book, you wrote about the idea of the other. But you also fundamentally say that uh we are who we are because of our basic connectedness. And in fact, the truth of living is in being connected, but uh we're being connected in the sense that uh we pour into each other's glasses so that our glasses may be full and whole. And uh and with that, we we start healing ourselves. And uh for the continent of Africa, even from the first time that uh either the colonialists came here or explorers came here, they found a very welcoming community and people because inherently that is what we are. And uh you didn't need to book a place to stay. You're always greeted with a glass of water or a calabash of porridge, depending on where you went to. And uh at the very basis of it, this is all about uh humanity. And uh and given the situation that we're going on even right now in Kenya, we can emphasize the idea of compassionate listening. And compassionate listening doesn't mean you're just listening for the sake of listening, no, but you're listening to understand and you're listening to make the community in yourself whole. And to feel, and to feel what the other person would feel. And in fact, for majority of people who may be listening to this and also professing their faith as Christians, the Bible uh as a standard book states that uh love, the golden rule being love your neighbor as you love yourself. But the same Bible also tells us that we can do greater things than Christ did. So when MK asked me about the idea of Ubuntu, I could also say in full measure that love your neighbor the way your neighbor would like to be loved. So that I could call it as a platinum rule. In essence, if you think that you love me and uh you give me so much sugar, and for example, in that case, I could be diabetic, and you think loading me with cake and ice cream is a show of love for me. But it could actually essentially be killing me. So you're not loving me the way I would like to be loved. And that's the message I'd like at this time for Kenyans, especially as we remember the sons and daughters who passed on, and uh there's a memorial service on this Sunday at uh Uguru Park, which is incidentally in Swahili means the park of freedom. Or to play with the words you're doing uh the way you are rearranging words, or the freedom pack. So, how can you have a freedom pack and you're celebrating death, which essentially means the seizing of existence or the seizing of life, but we nonetheless we'll be having it on. Uh Sunday and uh the way my country has been, because even today uh uh in the afternoon we had the privilege of seeing the Turukana boy, it just emphasizes that it all started here, but it doesn't mean that it has to end here, so we can learn from the best uh uh all over the world. Like you'll be traveling to Rwanda in the next few days. Uh when I went there and they used culture and arts and uh traditional methods of resolving conflict, I'm like, don't Kenyans see that almost 30 years ago in 1994, our neighbors fell to killing each other or massacring each other based on uh on several things that led them to that point. So at this point, as you'd stated, the universe has spoken and it has given Kenya a chance for people to dialogue. And dialogue, we're known to be best in uh MPESA, which is one of our best uh uh mobile money uh uh platforms, and it's always a two-way process: the person who sends and the person who receives. So naturally, because we bear the mitochondrial, the gene of the mitochondrial Eve, meaning that life started in Kenya, we have the whole idea of being the mother of mothers. You see that? And uh what a good mother does, and in fact, in the situation that we had recently, I was only praying that mothers could call our presidents, our MPs, their mothers, and just tell them, guys, listen to these kids. Because at your school, where there were more than uh 90 kids from all over the world, or from no 200 and something from more than 90 countries, I enjoyed thoroughly having the dinners or uh with the kids from all over all over the world. Yes, and just hearing the experiences. Some countries I never even heard about. But I met them just because they were much younger than I was, of course. But just listening to them, I learned so much. Yes. And uh, and with that, you can uh even things that you thought were dark, you can uh shed some light on it. And uh and with the spirit of Ubuntu, uh the president has given access to a forum that the youth can be involved. But I wish that he could also let them, instead of just like my book, I Am From, I could have decided to ask these kids to write what I wanted them to write. But I told them I only gave them a template or a vessel and a framework, which is the I Am From framework, and they actually wrote for me their world, their thoughts, and their person. And they've turned out to be brilliant. So that's what I'd like to encourage uh the generation Z at this moment. And like you, I don't believe that uh this generation Z, Alpha, I meet people as human beings, first and foremost. And that uh also goes to what I believe as religion is that first and foremost, people are human and I have to meet them at that point.

SPEAKER_04: 1:33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:33:24

So I believe in Ubuntu, in my native language, uh the luo would say one kanyakla, which means we're in this together. And had you come, say, to my village in Kisumu, the biggest billboard says Waruakidala, which literally means we wear you and we welcome you as we wear you so that you become part and parcel of us. So thank you, uh MK, for asking that. And I pray and hope that uh Africa and Kenya brings back uh the spirit of Ubuntu uh to the world, especially at this time where things are volatile and where we have a leadership crisis. In fact, in Kenya, I don't think we have a leadership crisis. We have a constitutional crisis, and people need to adhere to the constitution, especially the integrity clause, which is chapter six, and and also live by values, not values that are written down in the constitution, but the values that our ancestors lived on for millions of years.

SPEAKER_02: 1:34:30

Yeah. Thank you so much, uh Teddy. Anything you want to say on that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:34:36

No, it's incredibly powerful, and it's one of the reasons I was so excited to write the afterword for for Teddy's book. I guess I would say this. Teddy sent me the uh electronic copy of I Am from, and uh when I opened it, I read the first couple of poems and I found myself crying. And I wondered why am I crying? And I thought, because these young people they know themselves. And again, they're whole. Yeah, they're whole. So how do we make sure not to fracture that? And you know, part of that is making sure that we do communicate to them fully that they are a part of something, that they matter, that they have deep, deep value. And, you know, as leaders, I think it's easy to fail at that because you've got a lot of concerns. You know, you are working on the infrastructure, yeah, right? You are making sure that the budget is made and that you can turn the lights on and that you can provide that scholarship to that deserving student. You're focused on those things, and it's easy to get so caught up in that that we lose sight of being with somebody. And when we lose sight of being with somebody, we don't really enter their world as other. And and you lose, you lose a lot. But when you do enter that world, I think the most amazing and transformative thing that can happen is that yes, you recognize the difference, but you recognize what you have in common. Yeah, you recognize the sameness and you realize we all want the same things. Yeah, and it's not an either-or, and it's not an us and them. We can actually do that together. There's enough. I think we live with a mentality of scarcity. If you get this, I don't.

SPEAKER_02: 1:36:41

Zero sum game.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:42

Zero sum game, but who made that up? That's just a story. That's a narrative that we've internalized. It's like we've eaten it and it's part of us, and we believe it. But who says?

SPEAKER_04: 1:36:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:55

Why can't we divide it?

SPEAKER_04: 1:36:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:36:58

Or even better, multiply it by taking pieces and giving to everybody. That's a kind of multiplication. So the stories we tell ourselves are a function of whether we take the time to be with one another. And I think leadership has a real challenge at whatever level with finding that time when there are so many pressing matters. But, you know, when I'm at my best, I remember that's one of the pressing things is to be with people. Yeah. The people that I'm trying to lead and to and to and to support and provide for.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37:36

Yeah. And that's the fundamental foundation of humanity. And this actually uh brings another question that is quite really interesting about the modern world or even the education as we know it. And I've had this conversation off um the microphone, whereby we we we diverse and dissect the essence of education as a brainwashing machine to make people think the same way, judge the same way, and even graduates to go to do the same things, which even fundamentally is a lie. As much as all of us make one thing, but all of us actually provide different aspects of that one thing. And and I and I and I like how we talked about CBC curriculum, which meets you where you are. But in essence, all these generations that have been made to compete for one thing, do it the same way, learn the same things. And if you're not thinking outside the box and be curious enough, you may never learn anything else. And you get stuck there, even when things change. And I feel even you know, Boomers and the rest of the leaders who are in crisis of understanding the newer generation, is because they know this is the way to do things. And if I'm a president, if I'm a prime minister, whichever position I am in, if you don't agree with me, you are enemy of the state. Rather than taking it in an essence that, oh, maybe this is the maybe maybe this adds to what we already have, and we can actually innovate together. And I don't know how we can really change that because it would take time, it needs a lot of patience, it needs a different thinking. And I like what UWC is doing. Yeah, it's because that's actually differently approached from the art and culture, philosophy, and that creates new wisdom. So, with the current education system, I'm not so absolutely sure how we're gonna address some of these things. But as you speak about this, I would like also for you to speak about Element Six Dynamics and tell us more about it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:39:54

Yes, so Element Six Dynamics was started by an absolutely wonderful visionary by the name of Steven Gluckstern. And Stephen uh had a profound experience having uh his first grandchild. Yeah. And realized that, you know, he'd spent his life as an entrepreneur and realized there was a single concern that had to be addressed for every grandfather and grandmother and every person who cares about another generation coming behind. And that was the problem of climate change. And so he also recognized that you know, people don't get excited about business that doesn't bring profit. And he started researching hemp as a crop, which in 2018 was um made legal. It was illegal prior to that in the United States. And Mitch McConnell, uh senator from Kentucky, who was an unlikely champion of something like hemp, which is very closely associated, you know, with marijuana. Um cannabis, he uh he championed it because tobacco was one of the major crops in Kentucky and was going the way of the dinosaur, less smoking, less need for tobacco. Started to look at hemp because of its many uses. Hemp can be used as a replacement for many of the ingredients that go into paper, for example, because it can replace soft wood, which means less deforestation, right? But it can uh replace as well some of its residual um uh some of its residues can replace petroleum-based um ingredients. And so he started down the road with a company called Santa Fe Farms, and we became Element Six Dynamics and now have partnered with a company called PayPal PAX out of Germany. And basically, we're looking to transform packaging and paper by replacing softwood pulp with hemp.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:12

And the exciting thing about this is that hemp is an incredible carbon sequester. Uh, it's also an incredible crop for being able to rotate with other crops. So it um it adds a great deal of value to the soil.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:30

Uh, and it uh doesn't use more or much more water than something like corn, a crop that's you know widely grown in the states. Yeah. And it has incredible number of multiple uses.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42:45

And the great news is that Element Six Dynamics is essentially creating the model for supplying hemp for various uses um in uh in industry.

SPEAKER_04: 1:42:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:00

And uh what I love about being a part of this is that, you know, we've failed forward. Yeah, we've had several challenges. Yeah. Uh you know, we've got a great CEO, Kim Kovacs, and an amazing board that sees the value of what this could be for the world. I mean, think about the packaging that you use. Yeah. Think about when you open something up, how much of that gets thrown away. What if that really were sustainable?

SPEAKER_03: 1:43:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:35

Instead of polluting our waterways and, you know, and you know, our children. I mean, think about plastic.

SPEAKER_04: 1:43:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:43:43

Recently there was a study that each one of us is essentially ingesting the equivalent of a plastic credit card a week. Think about that. You have been eating four credit cards a month. I have been eating four credit cards a month just because of the plastic that's in the environment.

SPEAKER_04: 1:44:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:01

And hemp really has an opportunity to start contributing to packaging in ways that move us away from that kind of plastic packaging. So I'm just really excited to be part of this. And, you know, like any startup, uh, it could be the next huge thing and it could fail miserably.

SPEAKER_04: 1:44:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:22

But if we don't innovate, if we don't try, if we don't follow what's good for the planet at the same time that we demonstrate that it can be profitable, we'll never make change.

SPEAKER_04: 1:44:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:36

Because it can be the best thing for the planet. And if it's not profitable, it won't get investment. And so partly what I love about being part of this company is that we're getting past that either-or mentality that stops us in our tracks in every part of life.

SPEAKER_04: 1:44:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:55

Right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:44:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44:56

If it's either or, then it's my way or your way, no relationship.

SPEAKER_04: 1:45:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:01

If it's my way or your way, there's no compromise.

SPEAKER_04: 1:45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:05

If it's profitable or good for the environment, then there's no improvement and we're looking at a planet that's dying.

SPEAKER_02: 1:45:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:13

But we don't have to think in terms of either or. And that's what I love about being part of this company.

SPEAKER_02: 1:45:17

And the price is huge to pay.

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:45:19

So do you think uh uh this uh has influenced your strategic vision uh for UWC?

SPEAKER_00: 1:45:25

It has actually, and it and it's and it's a challenge because UWC curriculum is the international baccalaureate. And the international baccalaureate um is extremely rigorous and takes a great deal of our students' time. So I can just hear some of our students, you know, listening to this saying, yeah, but when do we get a chance to do that because we have to study so hard? And of course, the reminder is this is only one part of your education. You're gonna take what you're learning and you're gonna do more with it. Because guess what? This isn't a transaction and you're not, and my return on investment isn't when you receive your diploma. It's years later when you're seeing things differently and doing things differently because of the education that you, you know, that you attended to. But I think too, strategically for me, what it makes me think about, I guess it goes back to the how versus the what. It makes me realize that as we do the work of uh the international baccalaureate, we can be focused on some of the major issues that our students and all of us are facing. Issues like polarization, issues like inequality, issues like climate crisis. And if we do that where we are in a place-based way, here's the how while doing the IB, not adding something new, but really looking through the lens of some of these issues that these students are going to face day one as they enter the workforce, as they themselves become entrepreneurs and innovators, then we're doing something rich with the education. Doesn't mean leaving the IB. It means approaching that content through a lens that is immediate and that is relevant right here, right now, and facing the 21st century as it unfolds. And I think that's that's a place where I feel like thinking strategically about, okay, how do you replace some of these materials? How do you cut down fewer trees? And what kind of crop could do that? And what kind of, you know, what kind of opportunities for different kinds of products are there with this incredibly adaptable crop? Yeah. That kind of thinking is thinking how to do something differently than we have. You're still doing the what, you're still making packaging.

SPEAKER_03: 1:47:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47:59

You're still, you know, you still need to put things in something.

SPEAKER_04: 1:48:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48:04

But do you have to cut down a forest to do that? Actually, you don't. You can rotate hemp with other crops.

SPEAKER_03: 1:48:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48:12

The farmers win. The planet wins, the shareholders win. Everybody wins. Yes. Right? That is possible if we are willing to think outside that proverbial box that was made with all of those, that tree fiber, right? Like we can do that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:48:30

Yeah, absolutely. And uh here brings us to uh, you know, you as a leader, you're also a person. As it turns out, and I would love to know a couple of things about you as a person. And one of those is your personal and professional goals um for the future, and also how do you see them impacting your leadership at UWC? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48:59

So professional goals, I think, are um really tied to becoming a better listener and better at following through on the insights I gain by listening without getting stopped by the um, you know, the constant challenges of the day-to-day, but to really learn how to implement based on what I learn and hear from others in ways that have lasting impact, not just in the moment. So it's really as a leader balancing the immediate needs of the day-to-day and the long-term opportunity to get someplace that is truly transformative.

SPEAKER_03: 1:49:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:49:53

And in some ways, personally, I think it's pretty simple. I want to become a more human human being every day. And I want to make space not only for the people I love, but for people who irritate me.

SPEAKER_04: 1:50:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:50:11

And who, you know, who who I'm not necessarily um, you know, in a place where it's obvious. I mean, you know, with my kids, yeah, with my husband, with my 87-year-old mother, you know, uh uh it gives me great joy to make space and to and to, you know, really hear them.

SPEAKER_04: 1:50:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:50:32

Um, not always if someone's coming at me strong and and and you know, not uh not in a flattering way, right? That can be really tough.

SPEAKER_04: 1:50:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:50:41

But I just want to keep deepening my humanity because that's it. That's what we're born with and that's what we die with.

SPEAKER_02: 1:50:48

Yeah, and I love that. And I love it from three angles, indeed. And uh, you know, this word is love. As we started talking, we started with if we had more love for anything, we would actually live prosperous, uh, purposeful life. But you see, life is made of three components there's mind, there's body, and there's a soul. How can we accomplish this with your experience and even you know interacting with different diverse uh people innetting that so that we are all we're not only loving from external but also internally, we're really you know, full. We have a cup that we can pour to others.

SPEAKER_00: 1:51:36

Yeah. I think it probably starts with awareness, and I think that's something I've had to really work on, especially in terms of myself. Yeah, I tend to be very focused on what needs doing and what needs attention or fixing. And I remember once my son said to me, like, mama, what would life be like if you stopped just pushing through it?

SPEAKER_03: 1:52:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:52:04

And it took me a heartbeat to think, what does that even mean? Like, of course that's what you do. You push through it. But I think the insight was, what if you were just to be with it? Whether the it is something hard, something painful, or something, you know, that uh you just need to get through. What if you just sat with it? And so I think awareness is the first thing. Yeah. That you really have to register what's going on with yourself, but also with others and with a community. And it's very easy to skip past registering when you're the fixer in chief, right? When you're the problem solver in chief. Oh no, I've got to figure out how to deal with that, right? Versus resting with it. I'll give you an example. I remember during the fires, my strategic leadership team, you know, which was making those decisions with me every day, every day. And we were sitting at the table and I noticed at one point that everyone had erupted in some way. Sometimes it was tears. Sometimes someone raised their voice. Sometimes someone was just interrupting constantly. And I and I remember going home that night and telling my husband, I have not felt anything since this started. Literally, I have not felt a thing. And I'm worried it's compromising my decisions because I'm watching my team hurting and worrying. And I'm basically like just in the back of my mind thinking, oh, look, just push through it. We've got to figure this out now.

SPEAKER_04: 1:53:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:53:58

Right. And so I don't know if any of you have done acupuncture, but I think acupuncture is profound medicine. And so I went to the acupuncturist and I said, Listen, I haven't felt anything since I've been dealing with this. Yeah. And I just want to do an acupuncture session that helps me to like release some of this pressure, whatever it is, this pressure that's not letting itself go.

SPEAKER_04: 1:54:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54:24

So she did the acupuncture session.

SPEAKER_04: 1:54:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54:27

And during it, I just started pouring tears. I mean, literally just pouring tears. But then when I left, I was still pouring tears. So I called her back and I said, Can you reverse that?

unknown: 1:54:39

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:54:40

I'm going to walk into a meeting. Yeah. You know, trying to deal with questions of exams and, you know, whether we're going to send kids home and what are we going to do? And I don't think I can go in if I'm just pouring tears. But it was really one of those moments where it was like, you've got to be aware of where you are before you can serve others. Yeah. And I never really understood that until some of the crisis management that we've done. I you've probably heard the expression, you know, put your oxygen mask on first, and then you put it on someone else. And as a mother, that just used to irritate me.

SPEAKER_04: 1:55:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:55:16

Like what mother puts her oxygen mask on first? You slap that mask on that baby first. But then I really get it, right? Like if you can't breathe, your child can't breathe too. Then you can't get the mask to your child. But it took me a very long time to understand that. And I think awareness is the first step. And it took my child to teach me that, right? We as parents think, oh, my job is to teach my children everything. Oh no, if you're always teaching your children, you're not getting the best out of being a parent, which is learning from them.

SPEAKER_04: 1:55:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:55:49

Because they come with their own wisdom. They know things that we've forgotten.

SPEAKER_02: 1:55:53

Yeah. And in this chaotic and, you know, a lot is happening in the world, it's very easy to disconnect from the spiritual and the soul.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:56:03

How do you keep it connected?

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:07

I don't know. I think the spiritual just stays with me.

SPEAKER_04: 1:56:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:10

Yeah. I think I'm very blessed that way.

SPEAKER_04: 1:56:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:12

I'm I'm always aware of myself in relationship to something larger and something deeper.

SPEAKER_03: 1:56:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:19

And it's, you know, part of it is still having my mother in the world at 87 and seeing her become more fragile. Yeah. And recognizing how fragile life is. Yeah. And being blessed with a big family where there are usually babies coming along.

SPEAKER_04: 1:56:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:35

That also reminds you how much hope there is and how much possibility.

SPEAKER_04: 1:56:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:56:40

So I think it's being part of family. I think that's a great place for me to, you know, recognize the spiritual. And then just, you know, those moments of leadership can be very lonely. And, you know, sometimes, you know, people always say, oh, we want vulnerable leaders. And then you show any vulnerability, and it's like, oh, you're weak. You're a weak leader. It's like, wait a minute, what was vulnerability? Like, how does vulnerability become weak that quickly? And if you're a woman, it's even trickier, right?

SPEAKER_04: 1:57:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:57:12

Right? A man who shows vulnerability, oh, that's so impressive. A woman is like, oh, she can't stand up to the job, right? So I I find that it's really important to go into myself. And that is the place of spirit where you, I don't know, it's a kind of um, it's a kind of tapping into something that is deeper than what people can observe. And all of us have that in us.

SPEAKER_02: 1:57:40

Absolutely. So I don't know which camera you're gonna look at. I think it's this one. So it can be advice that you could give yourself when you are five years old. It could be an advice that you like someone who is so young and so ambitious as you are, and looking to create something new and curious and ready to face the world, and tell them how should that look like.

SPEAKER_00: 1:58:07

How nice. I think I'd say to both don't worry about whether you belong at the table. Just sit down and take your place, and don't take anybody else's place. Just take the one only you can take and give as much as you get, and it'll all be okay.

SPEAKER_02: 1:58:32

Amazing. That's quite deep and powerful. And and as I've uh learned from Spicm for those who listen to different leaders who come and uh dissect raw conversation about what is going on and what could be better, we have made it uh a habit to conclude with African proverb. And since uh love is quite an amazing thing if it's nurtured and taken care of, I'd like to finish with an African proverb. Love like rain, does not choose the grass on which it falls. Do not treat your loved one like a swinging doll. You are forward of it, but you push it back and forth. Love yourself, love others, and love what you do. Thank you so much for joining us. Subscribe, share, like, and ensure that you leave a review. And uh, if you like our guests, please let us know so that we can keep bringing this kind of Impact Master as well as Africa to continue talking. Until next time, stay inspired and keep making the impacts.

SPEAKER_05: 1:59:50

And that's a wrap on today's episode of Impact Masters. Thank you for tuning in and sharing this space of growth and empowerment with us. Remember, every step you take. Has the potential to create an impact. Keep exploring. Keep questioning. Keep implementing. And most importantly, keep mastering your impact. Remember to check us out on all platforms by searching for Impact Masters. Subscribe, follow, and share. www.impactmasters.io. See you in the next one.