… and I have tried to do this whenever possible, as loudly as possible, with my World-Changing Kids (WCK) work … as you can see in these photos.
I started WCK with a book that consists of 75 Acts of Kindness that kids can do in their community. The foundation of my work has always been kindness. But this work then led me to learn more, with the kids, about community building … which then led to learning more about social justice and environmental activism and human rights and decolonization and the belief that we are all interconnected and none of us are free until we are all free.
I learned about the Holocaust when I was young and my heart took in the message of never again. Recently, with my Upstanders, we interviewed a survivor of the Rwandan Genocide – a beautiful man who was orphaned as a child in the Genocide and is now working to bring peace and healing to other children around the world who have experienced loss and trauma – and my heart took in, even more deeply, the message of never again. And it is because of my love for humanity, and my belief that we can and must work towards living together in peace, that I support calls for a ceasefire and a Free Palestine.
I can’t sit back and stay quiet while 26,000 people have been killed in Palestine – with estimates of 10,000 of those deaths being children. I know that the history of this conflict is long and complicated, I know that this topic is a very difficult one to bring up because there is trauma and pain and hurt on both sides … but in my heart I know that the amount of people being killed in Palestine, and the fact that so many of them are children, is not right, it is not OK.
If my hope with WCK is to teach children that they have the power to make a difference in this world, that they have important things to say, and that they should speak up even when their voice shakes … it would be cowardly and hypocritical of me if I did not speak up for Palestine now.
But I do hope that my Jewish friends, neighbours and community members know that when I speak up for a ceasefire and a Free Palestine, it is all coming from a place of love for all people – in no way do I wish any harm on the Jewish community and I will always speak out against any incidents of Antisemitism in our communities.
I will do what I can, within my circle of connections, to work towards a world where all children are safe. At this moment, I believe that the most urgent place to do this work is through calling for a ceasefire … which also includes a call for the release of hostages on both sides.
While I hope it would be obvious that I would also be against Hamas’ actions on October 7, I will state that here to be completely clear: Hamas’ attack on Israeli citizens on October 7 was terrible and horrific. I do believe it is possible to hold that as true and also be able to say that the alarmingly high level of deaths in Palestine is also terrible and horrific. I think we need to be able to hold those two things in our hearts together.
I will be sharing more about things we can do to help Palestine. So I wanted to put this message out ahead of those future posts.