 |
| Image thanks to Pintrest |
Hello everyone, welcome back to the Traveling Activist with your favorite host Zachery Ramos.
Today we have a very special guest on, her name is Terry Hawkins and she is an educator, business women author and mother of two. Ms Hawkins throughout the interview not only shared with me projects that she has worked on but she also taught me how to love life more.
I hope you all enjoy the interview as much as I did.
Can you share with us a bit about the Brick Fields Terry? (The Brick Fields is a collective term for areas, predominately throughout Asia and the sub-continent, where child labor forces children to work in often unsafe and unsanitary environments and hazardous working conditions in brick kilns.)
I found out about the Brick Fields in India though a friend who was already raising funds to support these kids. Children who are born into the Brick Fields are the lowest, most disadvantaged children in India. Some of these children don't even have names; they are just born to be a pair of hands so that they can build the bricks and make some money for their parents.
Through my friend, I met an incredible Nun in Calcutta, who ran a private Catholic school. She asked the parents who had their children in the convent if they would be happy to have 700 street kids sitting next to their child in class because she could educate them all for the same amount of money. All the parents had said yes to her. What woman! She is the one who started the Brick Fields funding. She realized that if you teach the children math and you give them an education, they'll work out that the Brick Fields are actually exploiting them, and they could possibly start making different choices. For $5000 a year, 100 children are fed one meal a day, and three hours of free education. How could I not do it? The parents send them for the meal … and the kids get an education. It was incredible to visit them…
Tell us about Operation Smile and your involvement in it.
Operation Smile provide cleft and palate operations to children living in low resource countries. When I was the President of the National Speakers Association (NSA) in Los Angeles, I happened to be on the cover of the NSA magazine. One of the founders of Operation Smile saw the magazine and contacted me asking if I would be willing to speak at their youth conference in Ireland. I was already a sponsor for them and had donated many times - $240 is costs to change a Childs life. a donation point of view.
I was lucky enough to go on a mission and watch Dr Bill Magee, who is one of the founders along with his wife Kathy, carry out one these life changing operations. With $250 they can actually change a child's life. Some of these children are killed or their parents keep them in hiding because it is considered to be a shameful thing if a child has a cleft palate.
The Operation Smile youth conferences are for 600 to a thousand high school & university students who represent their schools in fund raising events. They contribute ton well over a $1,000,000 a year in funds. I speak at the youth conferences to inspire these teenagers to help Operation Smile continue their journey. I think, especially in the teenage years, it's difficult to think outside of yourself about the needs of others and many of these students find that after the conferences they become very compassionate about the changes they can make in other people’s lives.
Kathy and Bill Magee are two of the most unbelievable human beings I've ever met. Taken Mexico, for example, it took them five years to actually convince the heads of government that they actually even had an issue with children living cleft palates. At their first ever event in Mexico, Operation Smile had two thousand people show up yet they could sadly only performed a couple of hundreds operations.
What other charity works have you done?
I seem to help as it is needed. I’ve helped a Ugandan minister to rebuild a children's classroom that had been burnt down. A friend of mine who is a remote healer living in the Philippines does a lot of work to raise money for local orphanages. Through him, I learnt about an orphanage for teenage girls. The orphanage didn't have any computers and the girls’ learning was quite limited so I provided funding to the orphanage to purchase of the computers for their computer center.
Often, I give my time for free. I've done about a hundred speaking engagements at different high schools. I encourage the students at these high schools to fundraise for a charity. I also provide the students with a copy of my book “Why WAIT to be GREAT? It’s either NOW or TOO LATE! and a ‘Flipman’.
Flipman is a character that I created to help show people how they can own their own lives. Many, many years ago I trained two teenage kids who killed themselves because of their high school leaving result. I was devastated but it also inspired me to create 2 characters which I use when I am teaching about the brain and the brain’s dynamics.
I also have a series of children’s books aimed at teaching children from three to ten about how they can actually own their own lives, control what they think, feel, see and do.
Another charity that I have supported for many years in Australia is "Tour de Cure”. They do numerous bike rides around Australia to raise funds for curing cancer. I wrote a children's book called "Let's Do Well" which teaches children about making really healthy choices and wellness. "Tour de Cure" have given out over 100,000 copies of that book to children all around Australia to help them understand how they can make better choices. There are numerous other things I have done over the years but that gifs a quick overview.
I also have a very deep compassion for helping the homeless. Since we've been living in Los Angeles, my kids and I, would give out a little ‘Flipman’ character, a dental hygiene pack and twenty dollars to the homeless.
People living in homelessness - they have such incredible gratitude when you help them in a small way, whatever they're going to spend their money on, I don’t care because I don't believe it’s for me to make a judgment. I've been told by people that I should just donate food stamps because they are just going to go and use the money I gave them on alcohol. Even my son said that to me. One day he said, "Mom don't you think he's just going to go out and buy alcohol?" I told him probably and today it’s going to be a really nice bottle because it's not our place to judge what they do with the money, they are just looking for relief wherever they can get it. I just want them to know that someone noticed them today. The funny part is though they actually make you feel amazing.
Recently my oldest son told me that when he was feeling really crummy he gave a man living homeless $20 and I asked him how he felt afterward. My son struggled to speak and I knew he had tears in his eyes. He told me he felt amazing helping that person in need.
It's in my nature to help others. I've actually given out thousands and thousands of my books so that people have more information and knowledge about why they make certain choices. People can become stuck in repetitive negative patterns that keep them so lonely or keep them hurting and from making different choices. When you have knowledge the best part is you can't blame anybody else for where you're at. You have a choice now so if you choose to stay a victim well then that's your choice. That's a bit of an overview of why I do what I do.
You had mentioned you work in the education industry.
I am a speaker and an author and I have an enterprise education business. My company goes into organizations and we develop online and face to face training for them in sales, management, leadership, personal breakthrough training etc.
I am also a conference speaker where I talk about brain dynamics. I am also an author in this field.
How many people have you presented to?
I have presented to over 500,000 people.
Do you have any ideas for any future projects?
Yes, I am actually working on a program that through technology, we are able to help teenagers transition through the period from 12 to 22 years-old. During that 10 year period a teenagers’ brain rewires itself. This is why we lose them to suicide or they hurt themselves, because their brain is rewiring and they don't know how to navigate their anger, confusion, angst and frustration. This is one of my projects, which I’m very passionate about - to develop a program that will help teenagers navigate through that process.
In America, there has been a show released called Thirteen Reasons Why that has quickly become a large hit with many teenagers and, some middle schoolers in the country. Thirteen Reasons Why is a thirteen episode series of a girl who ended up committing suicide. Before she did it though she created thirteen tapes where she tells those who caused her to go this far how they affected her. Many teenagers and some adults think that this series is a good thing to have because it is causing many to open their eyes to bullying and how it affects those around us.
I'm fascinated by this show. So this girl recorded her whole experience of what caused her to commit suicide?
I actually tried to kill myself when I was about nineteen. I've been sexually abused, emotionally & intellectually abused. I also had warts all over my body from the time I was 5 to nearly 18. I had a whole multitude of different things that actually happened to me, so I really get how challenging it be through these years.
That's why I'm so involved with teenagers now, because they make these choices and because they feel like they don't have any control. So what I do is I show them that they do have control and you can make positive choices, and that you don't have to stay around where you've been hurt.
Many parents that see what is happening believe that the show is romanticizing suicide.
Exactly, and you know what's interesting is that we all have stuff that happens in our life. Like I mentioned with a few of my stories …. that’s why I really get to these kids because it's about resilience. You can trace anything back to when someone hurt you and then keep playing that story over and over. It's not really about that. It's not about the pain and it’s not about being hurt. It's actually about owning our past, walking through the pain and going "What can I do now".
I would not have the life I have now without resilience. I am who I am because I came through it. I think of my past, and the pain that came with it as my apprenticeship for my true life's work”. I think as kids we don't learn how to do pain well. We want to find someone and make them responsible for the way we feel. When teenagers get this they get the chance to redesign the way they think about what happened to them, and that is my number one passion on the planet.
So you've triggered something in me. I really love the idea of this show, so how did you get involved in this show? What's the thing for you?
For me personally, I watched it because I had lost a friend to suicide. A very close friend whose father disowned her because she was a lesbian and she had gotten so tired of it all that she finally killed herself one day.
How old were you when this happened?
I was in middle school at the time and now I am a senior in high school.
Really? I thought you were in your thirties. I had no idea you were so young. I could cry right now because sometimes I want to say to people we didn't come for us. We came to use what happens to us to help others. Sometimes we get it before our parents.
My husband and I split up ten years ago and I've been the breadwinner and raised two boys. Their father is not a present father.
The saddest part about wise children, about children born to parents who don't understand them, is that the parents are so far behind. My kids have felt this at times and I have said to them, that sometimes it’s their job to teach us.
Your friend was living her true life. She was the example of a life lived truthfully, even if she never spoke to her father again. That's what kids need to know - that it’s okay. You don't need the approval of other people to live this life in a brilliant way. And brilliantly doesn't mean happy. It means to experience all the emotions.
Take what you’re doing Zachery. You will never know the thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people whose lives mean more to them because of you. Most of us want to make a difference on the planet and that's what you're doing. I don't even know you but I am so proud of you as a human.
Thank you for that Terry.
I have a close friend who knows almost everything about me, and he knows as well that I don't take certain topics lightly like suicide, self-harm, rape or abuse because, when people begin to take those topics lightly there are people that are out there that you don't even know who they are, they could be right next to you and when they see you're making a joke of it that could make them think, "Am I A Joke?" If you don't take action when things are happening things get worse.
You’re so right and I actually said this to a friend the other night. We were trying to work out why I've been single a long time. I've dated a little bit but I said to my friend that I wonder why I stop or reject the advances from people who want to date me.
You might think it's because of fear. I have been sexually abused inside the family, outside the family by my music teacher, I was sexually harassed when I was twenty-three, twenty-four. It was because I hadn't learned to say no. I hadn’t learned that my body was my body.
My siblings and I were also very badly abused when we were younger because my father was very violent. You don't learn the boundary, you don't learn to go "This is my life and you're not allowed to do that". If you don't learn to take action whenever you see something, people get really familiar with it and they just keep allowing it.
I'm going to give you a dozen copies of my book and if you meet someone who might need it you can give it to them. I'm not saying my book is the best thing in the world. I’m saying that because I have walked that journey, I can never go back, and I would hope that my book my help others in a similar situation. There's a wonderful author called James Thurman and he wrote a book called "Rejection" in 1982. In it, he says, "You can't go back and make a new start. But you can start right now and make a brand new ending."
I got into alcohol when I was 18 under the guise of partying but it just nummed everything I was trying to deal with. Like I said, I tried to kill myself when I was 19. I had eating disorders. All of this stuff trying to stop the noise in my head about what had happened to me. When I was four I was also really badly pigeon toed so I had to wear those big boots with steel poles down the side . I had warts on my face, legs and body from when I was four to 18. So my whole high school years I used to call myself the freak. I wanted the noise to stop. I just wanted it to go away. I was jealous of the other people that had happy families and who didn't have to live in fear every day of their lives. I just wanted it to be different.
That was when I realized that it was never going to be different. It will never be different but I can be different. I can see things in a different way and I can pick up the diamonds in that Pit.
I created this place that I called "The Pit of Misery". This is where we go the we feel sorry for ourselves. We tell a friend the story and tell another friend and soon enough the story becomes our identity. You don't want that.
The sad part is people hurt themselves and so does someone else. Sometimes people does this because it means "I want you to notice me and you may not notice me when it's me just being me, so I will do something so shocking that I'll get noticed".
I tell these people to stop telling the story that keeps you sad. I don't tell the story of my abuse in the first person ever. I always tell it in 3rd person; as a woman that I know and love very, very much, this really dear friend of mine, and then I tell the story.
How old are you Zachery?
I am turning eighteen this Tuesday.
I asked because as I mentioned before, I’m working on a digital program for teenagers. Can you imagine when you are traveling through life as a teenager and your brain starts to rewire. Imagine if you've had a terrible upbringing and you've had to deal with so much crap. There might be a father who rejects his daughter, or a girl who has had everything come to her under the sun but hates herself; they're both hurting. They're both feel the same.
Can you imagine as a teenager being able to sit in the driver's seat, while your brain was re-patterning, rewiring.YOU get to choose your story. You don’t have to keep telling the story the keeps you sad. This is the basis for my program for teenagers.
The story you tell about your friend is part of your legacy - you gave her two weeks of happiness, you gave her two weeks of where she felt supported and loved and good. You gave her that the day that she died. You're an amazing young man.
Whenever I ask someone or some company to do an interview I always try to get their attention so that hopefully they will agree to talk because I want to help get their story heard. That's why I call it the Traveling Activist because I want the world to know about what is happening right now at this very moment.
In today's society, it is getting to a point where people are forgetting events that have happened in the past, and even events that are happening now in the present. To the point that people don't even care anymore, they just continue doing the same thing over and over again. Completely ignoring what it could possibly be doing or mean to someone else around them.
You're absolutely right. We actually desensitize ourselves. People look at my story and go "Oh my gosh, you're so amazing coming through all of that". My story was nothing compared to half the stories I've heard. One woman was abducted when she was nineteen. She came into one of my training groups, and came up to me and said, "I really loved what I learned and it really helped me based on what's happened to me." I'm an educator so when someone tells me their story and says "based on what happened to me", I know that it's a comma, not a period.
I asked the woman what had happened? She told me, "I was abducted by a group of eight guys and kept in the boot of their car and raped continuously for a week. I feel really great now because I help children who have experienced sexual abuse." I remember just standing there. It was before a retail sales training program and I'm just standing there before this unbelievable soul and I thought "You worked it out, you worked out why you came".
We get stuck sometimes on our journey, but it's not about what happens to us it's about our souls learning.
There was so much more that Ms Hawkins shared with me that I wish I could share with you all but Blogger wont allow so much text. Before I end this post I want to share one last thing with all of you that read this.
Ms Hawkins called it a “sliding door moment” for how the two of us met, and I am so thankful for that moment because even though the interview was short she taught me something that a school never could. She opened my eyes to others, helped my heart grow stronger and open wider to others. In my sliding door moment I was introduced to another golden hearted angel like Irene Miller. Ms Hawkins is one of the interviews that I am never going to forget. She is the perfect example of why this blog was created.
That’s it for the Traveling Activist and, like always if you can dream it you can achieve it as long as you put your whole heart in it.
