 Welcome to tonight's vital conversation young leaders reinventing social change. We are grateful to Bridgeway Capital Management for sponsoring our fall vital conversations community series including tonight's event. As a united way agency Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston brings people of diverse faith traditions together for dialogue collaboration and service as a demonstration of our shared beliefs. Interfaith Ministries provides four main services. Meals on Wheels for Greater Houston and Galveston County delivers more than two million meals each year for homebound seniors and people with disabilities across five counties. Refugee Services in conjunction with the U.S. State Department resettles hundreds of refugees in Houston. Interfaith Relations and Community Partnerships provides community services fostering understanding respect and engagement among Houstonians of all faiths. And Volunteer Houston connects volunteers in transformative projects with area nonprofits. Tonight's dialogue is the first in a three-part fall vital conversation series inspired by our original conversation with three amigos Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenzo Reverend William A. Lawson and the late Rabbi Samuel Karf. For over half a century these three Houston faith leaders have been joining their voices and influence in support of civil rights. Together they found that when they stood together as a multi-faith trio their presence and voice was more powerful than if any of them spoke out individually. The three friends joined forces in partnership with Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston to present a virtual discussion on fighting for justice equality and respect as part of Interfaith Ministries summer series the dialogue project vital conversations with our community. In the June 19th opening conversation the three amigos covered many topics but one of the topics most important to them was how to cultivate the next generation of leaders. The three of them have said many times that the pillars of light at Interfaith Ministries Bridget and Bashar Kalai Plaza of Respect are not meant to be monuments to their legacy but rather inspirations for leaders here and now. Honoring their work tonight's vital conversation will explore this important topic. Welcome. My name is Kim Maybury program manager for Interfaith Relations and Community Partnerships affectionately known as IRCP and we welcome all of you to tonight's event before turning it over to tonight's panel a little housekeeping. Please make sure that your chat box is up and available as resources will be placed in the chat box and finally a quick reminder this evening's event is being recorded and also live streaming on Facebook. I will now turn it over to our for the evening to our co-chairs for the impulse young professionals group and the moderators for tonight's discussion. Ms. Wendy Cooper and Ms. Alina Thala-Kanali. Sam Dike joined rice management company in 2020 as manager of strategic initiatives. In this role he is responsible for ensuring strategic investments like public policy and external partnerships aligned with RMC's core real estate strategy. Prior to joining RMC, Sam was vice president of programs for the Houston Land Bank where he was responsible for managing programs to develop affordable housing as well as overseeing partnership development and intergovernmental relations. Prior to joining the Houston Land Bank he spent nine years on staff at Houston City Council with seven of those years as chief of staff for the vice mayor of Pro Tem. Sam received a BS in political science from the University of Houston and is a Texas legislative intern program alum. He was appointed by Houston City Council to serve on the board of directors for Harris County Improvement District number 23 and has actively involved in community and economic development efforts around Houston serving as a member of the board of directors of local nonprofits, TXRX Labs Inc, East Ender Maker Hub, Architecture Center Houston Foundation and Truly Home Inc. Victoria Hart is a native Houstonian. She is also a proud alum of Texas Southern University where she received a bachelor of arts degree in English. Currently she is pursuing a master's degree in public relations at the University of Houston. Her focus throughout her career has been to serve people. Previously she has worked with local nonprofit neighborhood recovery community development corporation as business relations director overseeing their loan program Community Loan Center of Greater Houston an initiative implemented to combat predatory lending in the community. She currently serves as community coordinator for HEB. As a new addition to the team she works to bridge the gap between HEB and a local community engaging in service-minded efforts throughout the year. Further showcasing her commitment to the Houston community, Victoria serves as vice president for the Houston Area Urban League Young Professionals and is a member of the Texas Southern Alumni Association Houston chapter, Houston HBCU Alumni Association and the Greater Houston Black Chamber where she is part of their leadership program Houston Black Leadership Institute. Trisha Nerula is a Stanford medical student who took time off from her classes and rotations to work full-time in the real world of public health. As a native Houstonian and rice alumna she returned to her hometown in 2017 first as an intern in public policy with Senator Carol Alvarado and then as a inaugural fellow in population health at Harris Health System which serves a community of nearly 300,000 patients 90 of which are uninsured or underinsured and most of which are for minority groups. She has also been influential in the field of organized medicine and health advocacy having served as elected speaker for over 50,000 medical students in the American Medical Association and appointed counselor on several of these position committees as well as authored resolutions that were influential in establishing new state laws. She has an academic background in psychology and epidemiology and plans to pursue residency in psychiatry in the future building a synergistic career in clinical medicine and the social determinants of physical and mental health. And last but not least Raj Sahotra is a native Houstonian and is executive director of momentum education. He attended Rice University and graduated in 2013 with majors in economics and policy studies. After Rice he joined Teach for America and was placed at YesProp Southwest where he taught pre-calculus and AP statistics. While YesProp he co-founded OneJump an educational technology nonprofit that connects high school students to enrichment properties opportunities. After YesProp he attended Harvard Law School where he focused on researching public policy issues and representing tenants with being evicted from their homes. Also during law school he started with students with a mission to go swag to college a mentorship program a mentorship nonprofit that provides underserved high school and college students mentors to help them get to and through college. After returning in 2018 Raj deferred a job with Baker Botts to run for Houston City Council at large one. He secured a spot in the runoff however ultimately lost to an incumbent. Now Raj has launched Momentum Education which combines OneJump and swag to college to serve under-resourced high school and college students. And we can get started with the first question. Can you each tell us a little bit more about yourself and what led to your current positions? Sam can we start with you? Oh gosh I thought the bio would have done that. I am I'm actually not a native Houstonian I was born in Tyler Texas but I got here as soon as I could. I've lived here for the majority of my life. I love this city one of my passions is just having a good conversation with my neighbors. I love people I love community organized efforts and I just love everything about Houston I call this place the land of opportunity because I truly believe here in Houston more than anywhere else in the world and anywhere else surely in the United States you can make something of yourself and people aren't looking to see what your last name is or you know your particular background but they're just wanting to know if you want to work hard and be something and that's why I call this land of opportunity and I want to make sure that I'm working to keep it that way. Thank you Sam. How about you Victoria? Good evening everyone. Once again I'm Victoria Hart. I am a native Houstonian so I was born and raised here in Houston went to all schools and Houston Independent School District graduated from the high school for performing and visual arts. I grew up on the southeast side of Houston so the culture everything about that part of town has made me who I am. The opportunities that were in that area or the lack of made me want to go into the field that I am in as far as community making sure that we have the resources we have the opportunities that that not many people are given and so that's what led me to my current position as community coordinator. I've been in this role for about two years with HEB I'm sorry a year with HEB but within the role itself the career with for five years so I continue to do that because that's my passion giving back to my community. Thank you Victoria. How about you Raj? Yeah no thanks again for having this and for everybody for joining us. Yeah really echo a lot of what was said you know for me I think I think you know becoming a teacher I think really kind of showed me the both the vast inequity in the city but also you know the incredible potential kind of what Sam mentioned and so I think for me it became you know how can we try to leverage people's innate strengths and communities sort of endowments to try to you know ensure folks can be successful and then I think the sort of last piece of that came kind of during Hurricane Harvey when I saw like everybody in the city really came together and I'll never forget you know going to NRG and seeing like more volunteers than were actually needed there and I think that spirit of kind of volunteerism and being involved in the community coupled with the you know inequity that I mentioned earlier but also the potential sort of all came together to try to launch momentum as a way to channel volunteers to you know provide supports for students to help them get to and through post-secondary education into the workforce. Thank you Raj and Trisha. Yeah thank you so much Alina for the intro and to Kim Wendy and the whole team behind the scene thanks for putting on this event thanks for having me be part of it and thank you to everyone in the audience for joining the conversation tonight. As Alina mentioned my name is Trisha Nerula I was born and raised here in Houston another native Houstonian. My parents immigrated here from India in the late 70s early 80s. My mom actually growing up in Calcutta India worked with Mother Teresa and so I think you know a big part of my upbringing was hearing their stories of how they came here for more opportunity for us than learning that you know I was lucky and blessed growing up to be a privileged person with those opportunities. I always wanted to learn to see how I could get back and so date and time for college at Rice study psychology along with Raj here who also is a Rice Owl and then after college I went to do more training in public health and then to medical school as Alina mentioned and then after finishing that and finally being done with school and so taking the more traditional path of going on to clinical residency I just really wanted to dig deeper into public health and population health and it felt like a way to make a difference on a larger scale for me and so I came back home to Houston dabbled in public policy for a while and then found my way most recently to Harris Health System as a fellow in population health and so that's a little bit about me and my journey so far again happy and honored to be part of this panel and really looking forward to the discussion tonight. Thank you Trishna. Moving on one thing everyone mentioned either being a native Houstonian or going to school here from a young age and so I just want to ask how do each of you think that experience of growing up or going to school in Houston influenced your idea of community and community engagement so Raj do you want to start start us off? Sure yeah you know I'm although I'm not born in Houston born in California moved here when I was one and so I vividly remember the move I'm just kidding but spent obviously my whole life here really and I think for me it has just become and I think I saw this sort of even more on the campaign this past year and and I think all of you will appreciate this just like this city is so diverse and has so many people from all walks of life and yet and and although there is real residential segregation based on income and certainly race and ethnicity and it's definitely something that has got to be addressed at the same time I do feel that there is this unifying sense of being a Houstonian which isn't necessarily the case all across the country certainly not the case in a lot of cities where folks are sort of in and out which is I think much less the case here in Houston and so I think that seeing that sense of community seeing that sense of folks willing to kind of help each other you know this is a city that has always kind of done the extraordinary from you know being started basically on a swamp to you know go into the moons everything else in between and so I think it's that sense of possibility that has always excited me and I think that kind of ability of folks to kind of come together to achieve a goal that seems tough but but is actually very doable I think that's what sort of drives me every single day thank you Victoria what about you I think for me growing up where I grew up I knew all of my neighbors and my neighbors knew me they knew our family we just had that that collective community and then even outward with the civic associations my parents were part of those and so we just had a really great sense of community and then as I grew up post college I think I became more more aware of how diverse like Raj mentioned like how diverse Houston actually is I think when I was working for a bank I didn't realize that certain areas just had certain niches of cultures and which makes it so awesome to be a part of a city that has that many different ethnicities and cultures and and races all together just in this huge melting pot I found out maybe a couple of years ago that Houston is the number one city for cultural diversity which is awesome and I feel that everything that we do here in this city actually acknowledges that everything that we do how we try to make everything inclusive of every every person's background so that's what that's what I feel most most about how growing up here in Houston then of course as an adult what I see now in Houston thank you Trisha how about you how do you feel like Houston's influenced you yeah I think Raj and Victoria really hit the nail on the head I think one of the most celebrated loved exciting things about Houston that's also one of my favorites is its diversity you know growing up in Houston you have friends from all sorts of backgrounds cultures religions political affiliations and that really leads to just a lot of learning and a richer life I think the diversity is definitely one of our strengths I will say that like in Houston like most places in the world along with the diversity we do also have some disparities that is one of our weaknesses and coming from the healthcare world I think that's one of the places we do see inequalities in Houston you know on the one hand we have the Texas Medical Center which is literally the world's largest medical center with 60 plus institutions they see 10 million patient encounters every year just the TMC itself their GDP is 25 billion dollars that's on one hand and then on the other hand Houston and Harris County also have the largest number of uninsured in the entire United States almost one in every five people in Harris County is uninsured and so I think when you have the city with the haves and have nots that if you're one of the privileged ones you kind of feel the sense naturally to try and get back to your community and make things better and I think as Raj touched on it's on us to change that I think Houstonians own that we do feel that sense of responsibility and unity and we are working every day to improve that thank you and Sam even though you're not a native Houstonian we still we still claim you here so how do you feel like it's influenced you you're muted Sam sorry I was reborn in Houston so I'll claim that you know I grew up in a Nigerian household and so everyone was your aunt or your uncle and one thing that really helped me was watching my parents as as they interacted with people they were very very hardworking they were they they were not the richest people but they always found time to help other people in need and that's something that stuck with me as a child all the way to my adulthood is that that's just what you do and I see that so much in Houstonians here that are working hard every single day you know we were a family of three I have two sisters and you know there's so many families parents that are working hard every single day and they still find time to help their neighbor out or to help a family member out or help a stranger out we saw that even yesterday as we had some localized flooding but I love that about Houston is that no matter who you are people find ways to help each other out and that's just something really special that has left a big imprint on me and it's a challenge for me every single day because I want to I want to live out the the best of what it means to be a Houstonian thank you all and now we'll move on to the next question Alina do you want to set us up for that one? Sure what do you see as the greatest obstacles to creating equity and justice in our community and how can we as young professionals dismantle these obstacles it's an open floor so who ever wants to start? Where do you start? You know I often say that in order to confront the world you have to confront yourself first and oftentimes one of our greatest obstacles is is recognizing that not everybody sees the world or has the same experiences as you you may be fortunate you may be less fortunate you may have gone through certain experiences that have shaped you as who you are but one of the challenges that I see is that oftentimes we we don't put ourselves in other people's shoes and it requires us to really think that not be satisfied it's this this agitation within yourself to not be satisfied until everyone has a place here in Houston everyone feels like they're welcomed here in Houston everyone feels like they have an opportunity here in Houston for me as I think about it every single day I always look at how can I be better as an individual because I know me being better as an individual is allows me to offer the best to other people and to look at things and other and other people's shoes into so I often think about that self-reflection is so important and we often don't do that as individuals we get kind of tunnel visioned into our own lives instead of stepping out of that and saying you know what there are folks that I I I haven't had the opportunity to engage with here in Houston or communities that haven't had just take some time get away from the computer get away from social media drop your phone and just experience Houston experience other people take the opportunity to have a conversation with people and that's just my thought is I think it's we need to confront ourselves and ask ourselves hey you know what am I just sitting in my little tunnel my my little bubble here or is there an opportunity for me to engage people and and find out what I can do to be a better Houstonian what I can do to contribute to helping someone realize their full potential you know maybe I can just add kind of like one one thing that that comes to mind and I've kind of seen this kind of recently with momentum is I think Sam touched on it is like I think a lot of folks before they're going to take action are going to need to see the data and I think a lot of people don't understand the level of disparity that we have here in city of Houston so you know when I am talking to folks particularly about education obviously now you know when we share the fact that only 15 percent of low-income young folks are completing education beyond high school but two-thirds of jobs require such education I think what folks understand that wow this is a huge disparity there there there's a greater spur to action I think it's not because folks are not good people or whatever I think it's just that they don't understand some of the challenges and obviously part of that is incumbent upon folks to get out and and you know try to understand the situation of others of course I think part of it is you know for those of us who have sort of taken this cause whether full-time as a profession or as like a hobby or because we just like believe it's the right thing to do I think part of what we can do is just helping to sort of illuminate the reality for those who may not currently know it whether through data or stories or experiences and just to piggyback off of that I think that I totally agree with everything that's been said so far and I really like that Sam started with you know the biggest obstacle sometimes we have is ourselves and I think that's truly true our own thinking you know thinking that how can one person really change the world or what can we do we're kind of helpless and how will anything we do change the status quo I I don't think that's true I think all of us are powerful all of us can make a difference I saw a question and the panel just come up that we might get to in more detail later but about voting I think it's really timely to talk about this yesterday was national voter registration day obviously the presidential election is coming up the deadline to register in Texas is you know less than a couple weeks away and a lot more people have registered already this year than before but we know that you know tonight is about young leaders affecting change and historically young people are very passionate about a lot of issues but as you know someone just asked in the chat they often don't come out to vote the last presidential election only half of the electorate eligible to vote between 18 to 24 years came to vote and it's much much less in local elections which still matter a lot so I think that's one very tangible thing that we can all do to make a difference if you ever feel that hey the government doesn't really care about my interests or my generation's interests they're kind of out of touch with us the way to change that the best way and the easiest way is to vote and Michelle Obama said recently you know in the last presidential election the winning margin averaged out to just two votes per precinct two votes so it really is true that every vote matters I won't tell you who to vote for but please please if you can vote this year I know there's some concerns about COVID and safety but at least in Harris County there's a bunch of drive-thru locations that you can use you know wear a mask be safe but if you can please exercise your right to vote it's free and it really does make a difference if I can kind of I guess piggyback off of everyone what Trisha said is it's just so true I feel like getting over some of these obstacles when it comes to dismantling inequities in our community is voting we have to not only preach it we have to actually do it and so I think um when I've been I've been working with the Houston area Urban League Young Professionals for the past two years and every year we push we push not even not so much for just the not just for the presidential election but also for the local elections because we know that when we vote we're voting for the mayors we're voting for the city council and these are the people that actually represent those neighborhoods represent those areas and if those people's views don't align with what you feel or what you feel the change needs to be then vote for someone who will it's really that simple and I feel that a lot of people don't exercise don't take that opportunity to actually get out and vote and and elect the people that are going to stand for your for your platform the things that you want to see change I think that now more than ever especially um since the the passing of Ruth our supreme court justice I just it's to me it's more now so than ever to actually exercise your right to vote. Wendy can I add an additional item I think is important since we kind of transition to voting um democracy is a continuum uh it's an effort that it is a continuum voting is a very important part of the process and it is one of those abilities for us to participate in our democracy sometimes we talk about government as if it's this distant third you know you know foreign entity that we you know we have no connection to but in the united states the government is the people even if we at times don't feel like they represent the people what we're afforded here in the united states is the opportunity to shape our form of government but it doesn't just end at the ballot box it is a continuum it's a process that requires constant engagement and vigilance uh and participation it is getting out there you know it's doing the things that Raj was doing you know when he was running for office you know knocking on doors talking to your neighbors and when I say talking to your neighbors it is having real conversations with people oftentimes we talk past each other and when you stop to just listen and listen beyond the words that people are saying you find oftentimes that you're saying the exact same thing and so what I would encourage all of us to do is that I know that it can be extremely frustrating when you go vote and it doesn't turn out the way you want to or you see a process that just looks beyond hope but I would encourage you that change doesn't happen overnight that we talk about change like you know it's like we snap our finger and it it's supposed to change we have to be able to have this deliberate patience about ourselves and what I mean by that is impatient with being patient uh be patiently impatient I should say uh and and for me that means I'm impatient I want to see things happen and so I'm going to keep pushing and I'm going to keep working I'm going to keep organizing I'm going to keep talking and having the hard discussions that move us forward but I'm going to be understanding in the sense that it will take time to see all that I want to and it may be and not in my lifetime I won't be able to see all of it but I need to be able to pass the torch to the next generation thank you Sam um I love this conversation about just really engaging with one of one another and like having those conversations whether they're difficult whether you agree whether you disagree so I want I want to try to turn it a little um because yes we want to have all of these face-to-face conversations but also our generation has the ability and the knowledge to use technology to help these things too to advance this mission in ways that prior generations just weren't able to do because they didn't have access to the same technology so I just want to open it up to everyone how do you think we can best utilize the connective power of the internet of social media and other technological innovations to bring about social change I um me personally I feel that conversations like this it opens that opportunity um um we are in a time now where we have to rely on technology for a lot of things as far as connectivity with with our within our network I know that when we host events with the Hussinary Urban League Young Professionals we have to kind of just be mindful of where we are with COVID but we still want to be able to put on a programming that benefits everyone that that we touch um I know that with everything that's going on I'm I'm happy that we're still able to kind of have this type of dialogue at the end of the day I think I'm I personally want to know more about other people of different ethnicities and races and how they feel about um about what's going on now and then be able to connect in a way so that we can kind of make some positive change that way where I'm it's it's all about honoring the diversity but then also having the the inclusion there totally agree with Victoria um I think of course Wendy you alluded to this and the introduction at the beginning um social media and technology is definitely here to stay um it is a double edged sword I think we are all very thankful it exists during the pandemic it's helping us stay connected and keep in communication keep working for a lot of people um talk to loved ones across the world that we can't reach by travel otherwise um during COVID definitely to be able to find any information at our fingertips 24-7 online um I think I've used social media more than usual this year um from a public health perspective just trying to spread awareness and information about COVID and I've seen a lot of other physicians and epidemiologists kind of doing the same thing and I think that's been helpful um at least for me um at the same time you know on the other side of the coin there has been a lot of misinformation um from a health perspective going viral really pun intended online um that is you know hard to control damaging um and sad in many ways um when people believe things to be true that are not that could affect their health their studies showing that you know almost 30 percent of YouTube videos that are watched around the world um about COVID are false or contain false information um and that's reached you know 60 70 million people in the world and that study was from March so you can only imagine now in September um how prevalent that is so I really think that at the end of the day Victoria said like the phrase being mindful I think that's key um nowadays you know everybody whether they realize it or not is really a micro influencer um we're used to having one-on-one conversations with people or um you know dinner party conversations and now things that we post online can be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people across the world so I think just being mindful when we're publishing and sharing things on social media knowing that it's going everywhere and then also being mindful when we're viewing and consuming um social media realizing that for the most part nobody's back checking things um and even more importantly you're usually seeing only part of the picture you're seeing the pretty part the perfect part the filtered part not the full reality um and that impacts you know not only physical health potentially with COVID but also your mental health um and thinking hey my life sucks everybody else is out there having a great time and that's just not true um you know again it's a double edged sword there's speaking of mental health great benefits that some people feel comfortable sharing their stories and struggles um with strangers that they wouldn't be able to otherwise and people realize they're not alone um that there's you know more people in the same boat so again there's good and bad and I think we just have to continue to be mindful um when sharing and when consuming social media and try and maximize the good and minimize the bad you know I I always like to ask the question um you know we're involved in an innovation district here in in town it's like what is technology you know at one point you know a candle is technology it it's something that is is constantly evolving I think the real question for all of us in in the self-reflection mode should be with all of these things that we tried to harness it should be through the lens of of we of how does it impact others how can we do things better how can we lift up the least of us the least among us and so that we're together moving our society forward if you think about for example harnessing fire you know it serves one person great but it serves a lot more people when you can warm a community right or water that is able to not just serve us one person but can go through pipes and and provide water for an entire community I think as we look to technology the things that we call technology we have to be of that same mindset of how can we make this a collective good it is when we think selfishly about things about only the way that it can benefit us or or meet our immediate need that we tend to abuse the things that can be used as tools to actually progress us for and as a society and I think when you look at social media you know we see the the the opportunities with as a collective effort as it's been used in places to get messages to people that you know weren't able to connect with people families who are able to connect across the ocean who normally wouldn't be able to see each other's faces but there's a dark side of that and it tends to be when we focus only for our own benefit and that's why I say I think through any lens that we're excuse me through any technological tool that we're using the lens should be how do we do things better and how can we bring up our neighbors around us yeah I basically agree with all that I'll add two two quick things that like are very concrete examples that I think about a lot so on the voting front we now have apps that will mobile apps that will look at your contacts compare it to the voter registration file and tell you which of your friends are a not registered and b are registered but haven't voted so you can literally just text your friends only to make sure they go vote and so many people on this call do not like to phone bank do not like to canvass particularly during COVID but everybody should be taking the time to talk to a few friends and it is so easy to do now in a way that it was not pre these apps I'm happy to refer folks apps later on the second thing is like at a minimum you know technology has made it so easy to you know I think about in the education context support students who you may not necessarily see on a day-to-day basis so by way of example everybody in this call could give a career presentation to high school students who have not yet heard of what that career might be because maybe nobody in their community has gone you know into that career for example or everybody on this call could review a college application essay for example because the high school has 300 kids per college counselor and the college counselor does not have the wherewithal to review every single essay as is common in very sort of higher income high schools so those are just things that technology has made super easy and so I think what I think about is it is now much easier to volunteer and to get involved and to enact social change because the sort of barrier to entry so to speak is dramatically reduced from where it was before Wendy I just want to add one quick thing I thought about that I've noticed a lot this year especially is I feel like a lot of people especially in 2020 feel like we live in a divisive world at times nowadays and it seems a lot easier for people to tie things out on a screen to a stranger that they would probably never say to that person face-to-face because it's not as kind as they would be face-to-face and that's not just our generation or young people anyone on social media I think myself included should always be mindful that you know the golden rule applies in the worldwide web too in the virtual world be kind talk to others with the respect that you'd like to be given remember there's a living human being reading whatever you're writing on the other side of the screen you know if you're having a conversation you're really passionate about if you're trying to advocate for change or fight for something you believe in that's fine just be nice and polite and patient try to put yourself in their shoes see where they're coming from find common ground you probably have more similarities than you do differences and you know that's not only the right thing to do if you're really trying to change your minds about something it's probably going to be more effective that way too so that's something I constantly remind myself and I think you know all of us could do a better job of thank you everyone that was great to hear and then on the other hand as young professionals sometimes it's overwhelming to know that a lot of the systems and policies and companies and organizations that were created before we were even born to have so much power and it can feel like history is something we must work against rather than build upon do you have any words of wisdom on how we can change certain elements in society for good be impatiently patient I go back to that it's like it's frustrating I worked in government for for nine years and you know as a millennial you know we come from microwave generation there are things that we just we don't want to wait around for like it's like we know what to do let's just get it done you know and what I realize is that nothing great happens overnight it just doesn't it requires consistent and diligent work to get something done and that's just something that we have to realize within ourselves to prepare ourselves for things that that could be a fight there you know as you mentioned there are a lot of systems that have been in place for long before we were here uh and on this earth I like to always say just because something exists doesn't mean that it's the best way to do things we have the opportunity to shape our future but we don't get to shape it if we get frustrated and decide not to participate in in in doing that and so I love just being impatiently patient uh and keep pressing forward and come up with ideas I mean we're blessed with the the the ability to you know you were young and so we don't tend to be as jaded you know even if one day we're jaded the next day we're like okay I got another idea you know and and we're ready to go again so let's use that to our advantage and keep keep pressing forward I just you know it is frustrated and I definitely want to acknowledge that it is frustrating to see things the way that they are because we know that they can be better but they don't get better by us just complaining about it right it's like oh man the house is dirty what should I do well I get I get up and I do something it may not be cleaned in that minute but if I keep at it it's going to get cleaned and we have an opportunity no matter what the obstacles are no matter what anybody says we have the opportunity to shape the future that we want to see I totally agree with uh with Sam thank you so much for saying that um I have to admit today was one of those days where um a lot of people within my network a lot of friends were having those feelings of um of being disenfranchised um because of what happened today in Kentucky and I and I don't want to kind of like to quote that it's just it's really hard to to see that on the news and to see a situation like that and then people are not being held accountable um but once again um just like Sam said that we have to kind of uh in patiently patiently wait is that which is in a patiently way like I think we're at a at a moment now where we are demanding change and we're we're speaking it so loudly um that we have to make our voices known um whether it be posting something on your um on your on your Facebook just to let people know your your your feelings about it and then that could just that can create a dialogue that helps people to understand maybe where you're coming from someone that's not from the same the same culture to understand why you're feeling the way that you're feeling I've actually had a lot of my friends who I grew up with in high school and middle school who've asked me personally like hey Victoria how can I help how can I how can I show my support and to me that means the world to me because that means that you want to listen that means that you want to hear um you want to see change you want to you want to be able to help and be able to push that that narrative out as well and so I think that now um it's it's really just more so about like getting with your networking and and and having those those harsh conversations now so that people can kind of rally together and be able to to to get on board with what we're trying to do and we're trying to make these changes uh known and and make them evident in our police and the police reform social justice and and all of that I just like I said I just want people to understand that your voice is what matters. Thanks Sam and Victoria um Sam something you said made me think about um one of the quotes by RBG. Victoria you were talking about RBG earlier um so she said that real change enduring change happens one step at a time just like you're saying Sam it doesn't happen overnight so we have to be impatiently patient and I remember my first week working at Harris Health System my first real job I had a 10 minute meeting with our CEO Mr. Massey at the time and um there's like one minute for questions at the end and I asked him what do you think is the biggest strength and biggest weakness of this large system serving the underserved population of Houston and he said our biggest strength is our you know almost 10,000 employees that come to work every day wanting to make a difference putting their best in that day um and our biggest weakness is because we're such a large system um he compared it to you a Navy ship massive Navy ship he's a military man if you're trying to change course for that ship sometimes even you know a few degrees east or west takes a day or two to move the ship and so you know such a large system such a large city of Houston or country of America or the world changing things that have been you know ground in history does take long but that doesn't mean we don't chip away a little bit at a time in each step each thing we do as small as we think it is builds up and makes an impact eventually and so you know your question was what do we do when history feels sort of heavy um I think think to the past and see how far we have come you know this year was the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage can you imagine 100 years ago women were not given the right to vote or we didn't have you know cards or claims or phones or computers most you know medical therapies um and how much we've progressed in terms of the civil rights movement and then looking to the future something that gives me hope and optimism that someone once told me growing up and it's sort of one of those things that's stuck is that you know 100 or 120 years from now everybody walking this earth will be totally new from today it won't be us or those of us around today it'll be you know our kids our grandkids our great grandkids fresh you know new set of people complete turnover um you know maybe one guy left from the Guinness Book of World Records he was 130 and still alive but for the most part you know they'll know what we lead for them they'll know what we teach them what we choose to pass on it doesn't necessarily have to be what we grew up with it can be if that's what we want to pass on to the future but it can also be what we think is best for them what we think would be ideal and you know then they'll have their own ideas and create their own ideal that we probably could never imagine today but I think that's an opportunity for a total reset and that gives me a lot of optimism and hope and promise yeah so I'll keep it super brief I think about two things one is the number 800,000 that is the number of Texans who have registered to vote since 2018 the last senate race in Texas was decided by 200,000 votes so the point I'm trying to make is it's incredible that so many folks are showing up to get registered to vote because they want to be part of the process so that's the first thing the second thing is Julian Castro former of San Antonio said the American dream is not a sprint or a marathon but a relay and I think he's so right about that that it's our job to move the ball down the field as much as we can and then pass the baton to the folks coming behind us to keep moving it down the field just a little bit more and so what gives me hope is you know every day I'm lucky enough to work with high school and college kids who are ready to take the baton like they are ready to do their part and I think if we and all of us sort of are ready to sort of coach and support and then ultimately pass the baton things are just going to get better and better thank you Raj all of these have just been truly inspirational answers before we open it up for Q&A we have a lot of young professionals on the call here tonight and so just building on this inspiration Victoria mentioned you know the conversations about justice and that these are conversations we want to have but I I want to ask each of you if there are young professionals who feel like they haven't necessarily reached a level of power yet or influence do you have any words of advice for how they can have these conversations of justice within their community and within their workplaces I'm happy to start Wendy um that's a great question I think one of our participants Jay Harberg also had you know a similar question like how do you get people more involved and how do you spread this enthusiasm and what can you really do and I think something that we've talked about a little bit already tonight is you can just start really small and one of the one of the quotes I really like by Mother Teresa again is if you want to change your world go home and love your family first and I think we can extrapolate that to say you know if you want to change things in the world change things at home first change things at your workplace change things at your place of worship or even in your social media circle or like Sam said you know even with yourself look in the mirror take a look at your own behavior your own actions your own beliefs see how you can constantly improve you know be the change you wish to see another cliche but it really is true um and like John Lewis said you know if you see something that's not right if it's something not fair not just you have an obligation to say something and do something and you know a lot of times I think um people think that doing something or saying something means getting elected to political office or founding your own startup and that might be true for you but that's not something you have to do to make a difference um it can be something small but still very impactful and I want to give a quick concrete example um because you know it's easy to say and hard to imagine what that could be um I remember there was a story I read online sometime in June this year it was the in the wake of George Floyd's death a couple weeks after all the Black Lives Matter protests and it was a very everyday situation um it was a white Caucasian woman who went to a Starbucks in a Target store um she got her coffee she was ready to go Starbucks in one hand large purse in her other shoulder and she was exiting the Target um and another customer um was also leaving at the same time he was an African American gentleman um and they're both heading out the alarm goes off the detector on the way out super loud reflexively they turn back to see what's going on um and of course everyone else in the store turns to look at them and the lady the Caucasian lady who was writing the story said it seemed to her all eyes went directly to the Black man and uh Target employee rushed over to them to you know figure out what's going on immediately looked to the white lady and said you're good to go and then turned to the Black gentleman and asked him for his receipt he obliged everything was fine and he said you're okay to go as well but the white lady stopped and she asked the employee why don't you want to check my purse and he said I don't need to and she said why and just that one word and he didn't have an answer for her and they all kind of knew what she was getting at um but it didn't need to be said and so on their way out you know the lady and the man are exiting Target finally and the Black gentleman says thank you to the white lady and he asked her you know if this had happened a month ago before George Floyd's death before all the Black lives matter discussion and protest in this country would you have said something and she said no I actually probably wouldn't have been even noticed and he said this is what this movement is about these are the things that matter every day small things that a lot of people don't even notice these are the things that are important and that's what really disrupt means disrupt means you know saying even one word that can make all the difference that you know the story was left with you know three people probably thinking about it still today and people like me who have read the story and are also still thinking about it um and it's not necessary that the employee in the story is the bad that he may not even have thought about what he was doing or realized he was being you know racist but he's been conditioned like all of us in society and so I think small ways like that one word that this lady said is such a good way to keep ourselves in check and keep those around us in check and really make an impact over time oh that was uh it was very powerful Trisha I just kept thinking as you were telling that story about empathy and you know in the spirit that goes with empathy and is is very powerful and oftentimes we don't exercise that enough in our lives uh and we don't give that to other people and it's when we when we talk about motivating other people to be part of something you know it's it's hard for folks to when they feel frustrated that they're hearing frustration from from us to feel motivated to be part of something but it can be as simple as just doing good you know just doing good that what that lady did she didn't have to do she could have walked out and monitored her own business stayed in her bubble and moved on but the fact is when we choose to confront ourselves and our potential biases our potential our potential privilege that we may have it allows us to see the world through other people's lenses to see the world through their experiences and then to think man what can i do in the way that i interact with people to demonstrate to this person that their life has value just like mine and that is powerful when people are talking to you and they feel that you have value them as much as you value yourself we've been given this great platform social media and you know and and wherever else in our different leadership roles and there's a tendency as human beings to project project we want to project but we don't want to listen we don't want to learn we don't want to see we're only guided by the things that we have in our mind and our self-interest but when we sacrifice those selfish interests for others we allow the opportunity to to change the world and we allow the opportunity to change the way we see the world uh but in order like i said before in order to change the world you have to change the way you see the world and i ultimately believe that helps to motivate others when you communicate that spirit of giving and a willingness to learn and listen i want to kind of touch on what trishna said i think for me um i've just been encouraging a lot of my friends um who don't feel that they have um that political voice or they're not so uh knowledgeable about what's going on um just to just kind of reach within their close network i know for myself um recently we've been talking about how much um how much our city is impacted by the census um when people are not counted how much money that we lose uh within education schools uh roads um uh different programs and state representatives things like that that just need to be able to to speak to that i've been making sure that i had a group text where i literally text everyone in my family just to ask them if they had completed the census and that little one thing right there is just to make sure that we are being counted i think that's something that's important so that's something that's very small that you can do um but it makes such a huge impact in the greater scope of things um right now i am choosing to also just focus on um my platform as a leader i i won't sit here and say that i have the biggest network but i want to make sure that the things that i'm um i'm posting or talking about i'm knowledgeable about and i have um some um i've actually read up on it and to be able to speak to it uh so that someone asks me a question i can answer to it um that's the time that that we're living in like i said even with the smallest network that you have you just still have an opportunity to have a voice and to be able to speak to those around you yeah i i would just add um cori booker was asked why why he was running for president um the ask the questioner said um you have a lot of similar ideas to a lot of other folks who are running and he said i'm running because i think there are a lot of incredible people on the sidelines who want to get involved but aren't yet figured out how to get involved and i'm running to get people off their couch and involved in the process and i think all of us on this call are clearly involved in the process in whatever way that looks like in your life and so what i just think about all the time is like vitoria said like we all have a network big small whatever and i think it's all incumbent upon us to say let's make sure that everybody in our network is involved in the process whether that for them is filling out the census whether that for them is registering to vote whether it's going to vote whether it's contributing money whether it's contributing time you know whatever it it might be um until we get everybody in our network on sort of involved i think it's going to be very hard to truly have the change that that i think we all want to see thank you everyone um thank you roge vitoria trisha sam for all these thoughtful responses to all the questions we've asked um and i'm going to open up the floor to um q and a portion of our event for many generations people were told don't talk about religion or politics in public how has this rule of etiquette been a detriment to society uh does your generation think differently about speaking to religion and politics in public yeah you know politics is you know i tell people all the time i you know again i've worked in politics for nine years uh i'm just some days i'm still in politics i tell people all the time i worked in government politics is in everything that you do okay you go to my politics just happens to do with government right your your politics may be in finance or whatever if you go to work you're gonna have politics okay so it doesn't do us any justice or it doesn't move forward any conversations to not talk about something it's like oh i have a problem i gotta talk about when has it ever worked in any point in our lives uh i i i think it's always helpful to have a conversation with the understanding that you may walk away and not agree and that's okay it's okay but i'm willing to bet that a majority of the time when you're conversating and you're actually truly having a conversation you're gonna walk away from that conversation agreeing about something well the first thing is you agreed to have a conversation so that's your first step right and and i think we have to get to a point as as individuals where we're okay with without with having a conversation without setting preconditions that the only time we have a conversation is if we agree to a hundred percent of the outcome you know it's like it doesn't make any sense i mean what we don't apply that standard to anywhere else in our lives i always use the example of traveling i say you may travel with the group and not agree to everything that you're going to do when you get there but that doesn't stop you from getting on the plane i mean so why are we having these standards that we don't apply to anywhere in our life or even our own families well i'm not going to talk to you because i don't agree with you that's you know i i think in terms of the online conversation just like any tool whether it was on the phone online we have to be careful that we are we are giving people the opportunity to have their position it may be something that we totally disagree with but in terms of progress in how we move forward unless someone feels like they've had an opportunity i've always worked off of this philosophy people are more willing to listen to you if they feel like you've listened to them and so i give people the opportunity express where they even if i totally disagree and i'm like where is that from where like where did you get that from i still give them the opportunity to express themselves because then i have the ability to exchange and share my worldview and my thoughts and then we either come to some consensus or we don't but we had a conversation and we're at least dealing with each other on a level that is civil and that's what we need to return to society is a point where we can have a civil conversation even if we disagree i'm sure i'll chime in this is carmela walker um what are some outlayers of ideas that you may have aside from kind of like the same trojan horse pathway that we've taken for years you know um to to change and to move the needle and to create probably more action around um what needs to happen um voting is great um you know census is great but i think that there's something a little bit more impactful that needs to happen particularly from from from the lobbyist uh position um and i saw a lot of that in austin and um the influence and the impact that it has in terms of um getting um folks on committees to um to make to to to vote on certain items so what's your what are your thoughts on that in terms of coming up with maybe unique ideas to broach that subject in and approach it from a different perspective well thank you i'll give a quick answer to that you know i i tend to approach things from the the common person the everyday person and the reason why is because i i you know when i think about moving the needle i think about the the people that are you know they they have their head down every single day and they're working they're not watching the news and they're not politicos like myself you know they may not even know who represents them but i always say one of the things that you can do that doesn't require you turning on that news is volunteer help do something in your neighborhood you know somebody that is in need somewhere there are things that we can do every single day that can help move the needle in our space and if everyone is working to do that right so i put volunteer use if everyone is working to do that man you would see the the world a better place you know all we say relationship is is is essentially an exchange it's you give i give you give i give where it breaks down and where we see it breaking down in society is where it's you give and well i i get right did the exchange is broken and that's where we need to go back to this you give i give if everyone is in the mindset of doing something doing just something little and you could see some changes and yes there'll be people that step up and do even more things they'll get organized they'll leave rallies they'll they'll leave protests you know i say people protest in different ways you may not recognize it as a protest but people the within the way that they live their lives it can be a protest it can be an advocacy and so as long as we are doing something every single day and it's not just focus on ourselves but focus on how we can bring again the least and the last of us uh i think that's moving our society forward thank you sam um i appreciate that answer and carmel i really appreciate that question um we have one last question to get to really quick um i want to throw this out there and see if anyone's brave enough to jump on it um the question is do you ever feel conflicted about encouraging people to vote who you're pretty sure want to vote for the outcome that you're not for so basically someone of another political party um why or why not and how do you handle this yeah so so so i saw that question i tried to put some kind of answer it's not clear to me what the right answer is here but but my gut feeling tells me that we want people in the process like period like we we want people who who who care about the process because i think folks who vote probably also are going to get involved in their community might get involved in their faith organization might follow martin's advice and go to volunteer houston uh and volunteer organization um and so i think we definitely want to get folks involved but i go back to sam's point about just engaging with folks at a relational level i think part of it is step one is asking folks to vote but steps two is to have a conversation on some of the issues and why a certain candidate or a certain party or a certain platform has an impact uh one way or the other you know i think about um a recent semi-recent law called sp4 the pastor in the state of texas that basically said if you're uh pulled over you can be asked to prove uh that you're here with documentation and i think a lot of folks when they hear that think yeah that like might make sense like you know we all should be you know required to do that but then when when i would go around and talk to folks sort of give the example of you know a student i taught or a student that you know um others have taught who who you know was undocumented and gets pulled over for like a broken taillight or for an expired registration like that's something that all of us you know may have done at some point and then you explain to folks that hey the consequence of that is this individual might actually get deported because of this and i think when you take the time to have that conversation folks begin to realize like wait a minute maybe this has different impacts than i initially thought it goes back to the empathy it goes back to putting yourself in other people's shoes and so i think short answer is yes but it's more than just go vote it's it's an explanation of who's running what the policies are and what the impacts are beyond just on me but on the lease uh like this thank you raj i appreciate that answer i feel like this conversation could keep going for a long time but unfortunately we are running out of time um i want to thank you all for participating i'm actually going to turn it back over to kim and she has some final words for us tonight thank you all for attending this vital conversation which is the first in a series of three conversations we are hosting this fall please join us on october 27th and then again on december 1st for the rest of our fall series our october vital conversations dialogue partner will be from the fifth ward crc and the center for urban transformation highlighting their work transforming communities through transforming lives their work and juvenile diversion out of the prison system is especially impressive on december 1st our dialogue partner will be scholars from rice universities houston education research collaborative sharing their research on the state of education in the houston area and what can be done to improve the education of many but more immediately we hope that you can join us next week for our program sponsored by empower our women's initiative from ircp who is hosting megan felps roper a former member of westboro baptist church a notorious hate group known for picketing military funerals and espousing hatred and bigotry she will share her compelling story of her personal journey of spiritual transformation moving from hate to love please visit www.imgh.org to learn more about these events to register and to support our work with a financial gift a link is also in the chat box now i want to thank bridgeway capital management once again for being our sponsor for this evening bridgeway's passion and commitment for doing good here in our community and globally is deeply inspiring and appreciated thank you to our panelists and thank you to members of the imgh family who have attended especially our president and ceo martin