A Time for Leaders to Wake Up.

 .,            

            I spent most of my 20's sleeping. My day-to-day life felt as if I was on a treadmill. While I was "performing" a career that was service orientated after a while I disconnected. I say perform for a reason, because sometimes our work becomes too comfortable that we are performing our duties not fully living in them. Sleep at work.....not physically, mentally.

            I was tired of what the world had to offer as a career option for me. I spent most of my career in the nonprofit world and also working in Government. Last year I was in a rigorous graduate program studying Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. While my fellow classmates started looking for jobs in policy, I began searching for a job that would fit my desire (travel, work with people hands on, provide opportunities to developing communities).  At the time, the #BlacklivesMatter movement was pivotal and the recent killings of black ad brown bodies were on the rise. I felt both helpless and angry. I also knew that the struggle of my people stemmed from  slavery and poverty played a starring role. I sought to join the movement, but by equipping people with the knowledge necessary to organize effectively but also by asking the right questions to our elected officials. Lastly, from my studies at Penn I knew advocacy without policy was useless.

I knew I didn’t attend this rigorous privileged program at Penn to acclimate and work in policy as a regular staffer(there is nothing wrong with the job it just wasn't for me).  In addition, I spent the year critiquing other organizations throughout my masters program and on my personal time. What I found was that I was spending a lot of time critiquing other programs and to be honest, I was tethering the line of hating and critiquing. How many times do we sit back and look at other people’s lives via social media and judge? As if we know them personally. Let me be honest, it is easy to talk behind a computer screen and judge! Seriously, we can easily look at someone’s life and decide we have all the information. We can also look at an organizations program and think, “they are not doing enough”.

            So part way through my program at Penn I decided to stop being a spectator and I started to participate. I also knew that my contribution to the world and society was beyond what I could do behind the desk in Senate or in the White House. The fact is this: one organization cannot solve the social issues of the world such as racism, gender inequity , and classism. Every social organization has a mission and vision and as global active citizen, we should learn to RESPECT other organizations mission and vision and when we feel like something is missing we can insert it into the world. Sometimes that’s in the form of creating our own program; however, I challenge you to work with existing organizations to help strength their day to day programs. That is what the Social Change Agents Institute (SCAI) is: a place where people can add to the world despite their career, upbringing, or socio-economic status.

What is the Social Change Agents Institute?

The Social Change Agents Institute (SCAI) is an interactive think-tank, which aims to prepare individuals to transform both their lives and their community through advocacy, policy and social entrepreneurship.

The institute seeks to address poverty by working with people who are already addressing issues of poverty and development through trainings, social change trips, research and social enterprise development.

SCAI is a place where people can come to contribute to the world no matter the location and learn new tools in order to address poverty and development.

All in all, it is time to STOP sleeping and it is time for us to come ALIVE and contribute.

For more information on how you can get involved in the Social Change Agents Institute Please email Scaiglobal.com.