I Am Because We Are: Ashlee George & Leoni Wainwright on Safe Spaces for South African Youth

Transcript auto-generated from the episode audio; formatting has been cleaned up, but wording is verbatim.

I'm Cynthia Marks and I head up the Holistic Psychoanalysis Foundation, established by my late husband, Doctor Bernard Bail. Welcome back to And Now Love. On this show, we talk a lot about love as a force for personal and collective transformation. But what does it look like when love is actively putting boots on the ground to heal and protect our youth? Today I am so thrilled to have two incredible women with me who are doing exactly that. We have Ashlee George, the Executive Director of CTAOP, the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project. Welcome, Ashlee.

Thank you. And we also have Leoni Wainwright, the visionary founder of the Vaul Institute in Cape Town, South Africa, which is one of a wonderful program partners. Leoni, it is great to connect with you too. I am just so inspired by both of you. And today we're going to dive into how community led development, mentorship, and creating spaces of deep psychological and physical safety can break systemic cycles for the next generation. We'll explore how investing in our youth is truly the ultimate expression of love. So let's all settle in and let's get into this beautiful conversation.

Thank you again. Thank you both so much. You lead with the powerful South African philosophy of ubuntu, the profound understanding that I am because we are. Help us understand deeply what that means, what is at the core of that passage. Thank you so much. So ubuntu is an African philosophy, which are roughly translates into I am because we are and there are many interpretations of this exhibition. But for us at Vaul Institute, how we interpret it is that it is something that emphasizes community and compassion, and the idea that an individual's well-being is deeply intertwined with the well-being of the collective and of the community and of the group.

And it is through that shared understanding of humanity as compassion that we are able to create change not only within ourselves, but within our communities as a whole. I feel like to some degree, because of the strife in the world right now, it is really bubbling to the surface in many of us as individuals. We're finally looking around and saying to ourselves, there's so much going on that I don't feel like I have any control over. And what have I been doing? What have I not been doing? How do I do something to mend what's happening in our communities?

And I think people are realizing that they've got an important task to do, and it's just part of being human. So I love that this is something that you just work with sort of innately. Yeah. And it's quite powerful, as you have mentioned, because there is a lot of stuff in the world. We see it in the work that we do, and I'm sure that Ashlee sees it as well. It's difficult to deal with trauma at such a huge level when you actually think about it. So it also makes a question then how do we deal with trauma when it is so vast and so large? Yes, and I imagine that along with that, there's a lot of urgency mixed in with this trauma and wanting to heal things rapidly or undo things.

So there's a whole a different element about it to contend with, too. Ashlee, tell us about CTAOP at Large. How did it come about and what is it that you're doing? Yeah. Before that, I wanted to just add on to what Leoni was saying from cops perspective. And and I snap everything that you said about ubuntu, Leoni. You know, obviously we are we're working in South Africa. We're funding programs in South Africa where, you know, have deep relationships with partners in South Africa because of Charlize’s connection to the country as her home country.

But often we're asked, why are we not doing more work in the US? Why are we not funding in other places? And it's funny because in my head, I always think it's it's all. Once you start operating from a place of ubuntu and thinking about this, it's all connected. It's all. So this is the part we're playing. This is this is our piece of the puzzle. But it's all one puzzle still. So whether you're working in the US, whether you're working in South Africa, it's like the way I see it is really we trying to progress good generally in the world as one humanity.

And that's like, that's ubuntu. It sort of sits at the core of everything we do. And what is it that you are working on in South Africa? There are two. I'm sure there are thousands of issues that could be contended with. Have you narrowed your scope to deal with a particular part of the population? Officially, CTAOP’s mission is to strengthen the health and safety of youth in Southern Africa, with a particular focus on South Africa. We've always had our roots were in HIV prevention, so initially when we were founded, it was focused very much on HIV prevention for young people and specifically adolescents is really the target population we're trying to affect.

But through the years we've brought in that scope and really our pillars are around sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender based violence prevention. And then there's this added piece of community leadership that kind of flows between everything, right, of how do you one support leaders like Leoni and our partners, but also how do you start cultivating the next generation of community leaders to continue on the work for for years and generations? I see so some of the people that are receiving assistance through your program, through the other programs that you sponsor, will then end up becoming active members and perhaps even helping to lead the programs.

That's the dream, right? I think that's the dream that we share. That is absolutely, absolutely. I feel like we're seeing it already with some of the young leaders we've worked with of just giving back. We just today we were doing an update newsletter, talking about some of the youth leaders, and they were one of them is running career workshops in their community for young people. Another one is doing has been doing for years actually Chess Club, where he teaches and he's been running those for young people. Another one is doing app like application assistance for tertiary education.

So helping young people in the rural area that she's from being able to. How do you apply? How do you go through this process? Because they don't have the resources around them that are to support through that process. It was one of my favorite newsletters. Just seeing like, this is it, this is what we're talking about is just hanging spire, that sort of love for being able to give back. And we were talking about this earlier, of that feeling you get when you feel like you're part of something good and that you are capable of doing this also, and it doesn't.

It's like your piece is it can be just this, and it's so meaningful to not just your community, but to you too. Yes. And what that feels like. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. That's one of the things that we talk about here often is, you know, once you've seen that what you're doing is creating goodness for someone else, that you get this beautiful feeling inside. And it's it's really motivating. And you do this for someone else. And then that someone hopefully does it for one other person or seven other people. It's and that's what we need community to be really.

I guess that's what community is. So what part does the Vaul Institute play in this big picture? Do you offer specific services and are you are you helping individuals in a small community? What what are you guys up to? Yeah. So Vaul Institute is a community based youth organization, and we work across four communities within Cape Town, South Africa. Our work focuses predominantly in a catchment or geographical area known as the Cape Flats. And just for context, the Cape Flats is a geographical area in Cape Town where nonwhite people were forcefully relocated to during the apartheid regime in South Africa's history, and our work with young people focuses around creating, engaging in, and safe spaces where young people are able to thrive, where they are able to have access to vital information such as health topics, particularly sexual productive health, where we can discuss social ills such as gender based violence, where we can discuss life skills which are so important for adolescents, and the stage of life where they are going through.

We have a strong focus on mental and emotional wellbeing, so we are really trying to to create this holistic container where young people are able to feel safe. We they are able to essentially acknowledge what has happened to them and that they are able to heal through the process. And earlier on. You mentioned, Cynthia, that healing does not occur overnight. I don't know if you've ever heard the expression, the only way out is through. And so we have to be able to acknowledge what has happened to us, our trauma, so that we are able to heal. What is it about your organization that invites these youngsters to want to stay that long?

It seems like getting through the trauma that many of these young ones are faced with would be so huge that it would be really difficult to to even trust you and your organization well enough to hang on that long. Yeah, and you order the work is quite immense. I remember when we started all institute, the initial program proposal to CTAOP was for 25 to 30 young people maximum. I was shocked for an entire two weeks because I did not know what to do. But from our initial pilot of just wanting to sort of worth 20 to 30 young people, we had 276 young people who were interested.

It really showed the need of this program within the communities where we work. One of the things that really helps us retain beneficiaries is that we do work with schools, and we work with community centers, where young people would generally wind to young people in those schools, in those communities where we are now working and are ask them, what is it that you would like to receive from a youth pro program? What is it that you would like to feel? What are the experiences? They wanted to feel valued. They wanted to feel loved. They wanted to be in a space where they could truly be heard and where they voices mattered.

And those were the four things that really stood out for me and still brings me to tears, because we had 14 year old saying, this is what we need, because this is what we do not receive. With the context of South Africa and the fact that we have a lot of young people who, unfortunately, do not grow up in stable family home in five admits having some level of and support is so important for them. Many of our beneficiaries or in some ways child headed households. So you have this child who comes to school and puts on a day face and all they want to do is be a child.

But then when they go home, they have to look after the siblings. They have to make food. Some of them have to work on weekends to support the the family. So in essence, that young child has matured and grown far beyond what the normal expenses for that particular age group. People that are coming to you are they are coming to you of their own will rather than. Well, let's say I would imagine that there's a large group of people who are suffering from some form of abuse, violence, and as you said, no amount of love at home. And to a large degree, those are things that make us feel shame that we want to hide from, and we ourselves want to hide from it, and we also want to hide it from those around us.

Is there something about your organization or some of your potential youth leaders that can see that and create a safe space for those people who sort of automatically go to the feeling of shame place rather than saying, I see that I need help. Yeah, I think they would always be a percentage of young people within our groups who do feel that way. We do not trust us immediately to be able to share, and that takes time. If I can speak about my own experience growing up in the same communities we have beneficiaries come from. I grew up in a household and a community where, unfortunately, gender based violence was viewed as normal.

Sexual assault was viewed as normal, molestation within families was viewed as normal. These were every single day occurrences. These were things that we experienced, but we never spoke about because we never had the words. We never had the courage at such a young age. And from my personal experience, I really came across someone within my peer group who was not physically assaulted by someone who they thought loved them, who was not sexually assaulted or molested. And the sad part about this is, is that this occurred when I was a child and while I was growing up.

And the sad reality is, is that this is still continuing in the same communities, because these are social norms that perhaps occurs within a family environment. So everybody knows about it, but nobody talks about it. It becomes that secret thing that we are aware of, but we don't talk about, and so we hide it underneath the carpet. With that being said, when we were thinking about creating a safe space, we were quite clear on that. We wanted to create a space where learners could just be themselves. We are so focused on every single beneficiary needs to be part of every single talk at all times, but sometimes that is not what the beneficiary needs.

And that is one of the things that I appreciate about the CTAOP We are always told, you know, if at any point in time things become a bit overwhelming within the main summit, you are more than welcome to step out. But if we know instinctively that this is important for us, then we need to afford the same opportunity with the young people that we work with as well. And given that this is the idea of sexual violence at home is so pervasive and, as you said, sort of swept under the rug, but in a way culturally acceptable. Yes, it's seen for a large part in a lot of communities, it is seen as a community norm, especially when I grew up.

I think over the last few years, since 2020, there has been an awakening in South Africa with regards to the scourge of gender based violence. And we do have stronger laws now that takes women and children, which was not there before. But the reality is a policy doesn't always translate into actual community change. I do strongly believe that where we are currently in South Africa and where we are within civil society, that we are starting to make some inroads when it comes to gender based violence and sexual assault within our communities. But it is going to take time.

Well, thank you. I think what you're doing, which is offering education to youngsters who would not otherwise get that, will in the future, certainly make a difference in their families when they're raising their own children, I guess. Two across all of the programs that you support, this is what you're seeing. A lot of cultural norms that are unhealthy, that need to be looked at in a different way. Yes. But I also think if you the flip side of that is think of all that that is possible here. And how do we work with the partners of just being able to provide more resources, provide more access, provide more opportunities, and try and where we can take away barriers and wrap our support.

CTAOP support around partners like Leoni and Vaul, and make sure that their teams feel as strong as they can with what we can give, so that they can do the same thing for those young people. Yes, well, that's a good way to put it. You're sort of serving as a mirror. And Leoni, you mentioned the summit. So as an organization, you have a summit every other year where you bring all of your program partners together in typically in South Africa. Always in South Africa. The summit, when Leoni was talking about what young people were asking them for, I think we we kind of had the same experience of talking to partners of what do you need?

And and what are you experiencing and what can we do? And, and part of what we were hearing back is this incredible weight that they carry that you will carry as leaders in your community and and being able to step back and, you know, we're all just human. And I see you as a human and I want to create space for you as a human. I want to make sure that you have community within our partners. And that was really the vision for the summit. And it's named after we had a council member, one of our leadership council members, Elisa Swindler, who was this incredible human.

She sadly passed away, and it was right around the time when we were conceptualizing the summit. And so we named it in her honor. So it's called the summit. And it's really like a beautiful tribute to her. And she was a super connector. And so it really what you see at the summit is just like these incredible connections happening between partners, between, you know, guests that we've had come in. I told you, we're bringing in some of our donors who have been long term supporters coming this time, which is so cool because I would love to see CTAOP just break down walls of what is this work really of?

We it's our partners on the ground. Yeah, we're a funder. Yes, they're a funder of ours. But it's all one team. We all are trying to achieve the same thing. So we should be all having in relation with each other. And we're just I think we see ourselves as just a portal, even like today. To you of now, Cynthia, you know, Leoni, you know the great work of all and and can be an advocate for them. And you know what Cynthia is doing and I just I love that about my job and the role we can play. And I think that's such an important piece to furthering all of our work.

It's just like, how are we generous with our connections? How are we thoughtful in them? It can really do a lot of good with that. And people don't think about that. You know, everyone automatically goes to money like it has to be money. It doesn't always have to be money. No, there's so many parts to again, a puzzle. And it's interesting because hearing what you're talking about in terms of your organization, in a way, I as you were saying, that I'm applying it to my city of Los Angeles. We have so many organizations that are doing good work on the ground, and other organizations who are trying to provide the funding, and if we could have some healthy sort of summit where everyone comes together and honors the parts and pieces and supports each other, we might be able to, you know, make more headway.

That could be pie in the sky for us in Los Angeles. But it's beautiful. And to the part where you notice how important it is to take care of the people who are taking care of the people is is huge. Because I think, and Leoni, you can share about this, I think there's this question often about how are we doing our best work as humans to help each other? How do we help someone who is in a situation of such trauma without going deep, which means your heart gets broken a little bit, but it almost feels like in order to do your best work, you have to open yourself up to the experiences of the people you're helping, and therefore you then need a safe place.

Do you find that to be true? I do, yes, I know that Ashlee has heard me say this before, but I always see myself as a beneficiary of CTAOP as well, not only as a partner. I was a lot younger than what I am now. I was this young youth and I was like, I want to create change in the world and we have to do it now. And you know, so much agency. One of the things that I realized with attending the CTAOP of summits was that you can burn out very, very quickly in as much as you are trying to do the best you can, you actually burn out, and sometimes you don't even realize that you are burnt out.

And the summit gives us a space to actually pause, to reflect upon ourselves and how we are feeling. It gives us space to also reflect upon our work. I remember I think it was two summits ago. The CTAOP of South African co-ordinator looked at me and she said, Lenny, I want you to take a breath and then I want you to relook at what you have drawn out here. And I want you to ask yourself is really something which one person can do on the own? And what are the things that perhaps you could get other partners involved? And that was something which probably I knew at the back of my mind, but it wasn't something that came to me at that moment in time.

Sometimes in you wanting to do every single thing humanly possible, you're actually realizing essence. But I'm not actually doing anything. I'm not doing my best work. I'm not doing quality work. That it has been one of my biggest learnings within the summit. Because many times when you attend summit of this nature, really it's about the target, whatever the donor has set the target to be. And so it becomes about, have you reached the target which we agreed upon? And if you have not reached that target, what are you going to do to to reach it?

One of the things that are absolutely love, and that I have learned from CTAOP of, is that it's okay to work with a human being and to recognize that it is only through working with the human being that change can occur. It was something which I so appreciated and so needed and actually helped me grow as a person go, I think at a professional capacity as well. And to be able to actually take a step back and say, maybe this particular thing is not what we need to do right now, and that is okay. And and you then actually, given what Leoni was sharing with us, how did you as an organization come to know how important that was, that you would actually devote so much of your summit to the well-being of the people that are providing care to others?

I was going to come out and say, well, you know, there's this, that we based it on this research, that it. But I honestly, if I'm thinking back and I should ask my colleagues this, if I'm thinking back, it was more driven from a real conversations with partners and hearing that, like real talk, hearing them, seeing them and understanding that they're like what we said of talking to a human. And then just it's sort of who we are, where you're like, well, this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense to not be supporting them in this way, because we're seeing this across the board with all of our partners.

So why would we not want to strengthen in this way? Yes. You know, the goal. We have shared goals around impact and what we're trying to affect with young people, but also in our minds, part of the goal is this if like we're just we want to help humans, we want to help the world, and it's not off the backs of other leaders. Like that's not how we're trying to make change all of it. The approach itself should be part of the goal, and that's where this comes from. Yes. So to support Leoni is no less important than supporting any other human on earth.

We say this all the time, and I'm sure our donors aren't always like, oh, it's just right. I was like, this is just the right thing to do. You like respect people, respect their humanity, respect their their mental state, respect our partners safety. We, you know, we're always bothering them. And sometimes I'm sure it's annoying. We're like, is it okay that we use this image? Is it already. Because it's it's about our respect for them as people and as leaders. So also take a step back as philanthropists, funders of going like I don't think as a sector we're getting it right most of the time.

So we wanted to we're smaller and relatively nimble and we've got flexible funding that we were like, we were a good guinea pig to be able to try doing this and if we can improve that, this type of approach is effective in terms of outcomes. Also, maybe some of the larger funders will start to pick it up and start to change their own practices. I feel like maybe there is more of an openness to this approach that you, you guys are talking about. Or maybe that's just me and being on this program where we sort of talk about these kinds of things.

But I feel like we've discovered as humans that, okay, there have been all these situations where we're doing our best to help others. I feel like you've brought it back to the beginning to you're talking about what matters is our how we're relating to each other. Yes, yes. And that's all of us. Like you and I were talking earlier, all of us have a super important position in this world. We're all human, right? There is super important. And and how do we support each other to the best of our ability. So we haven't talked too much about HIV and Aids.

What do the youth of South Africa no feel about this and what is happening to change their lives relative to HIV and Aids? That is actually quite an interesting question, and I'm smiling right now because I don't know if Ashlee is away, but South Africa, I'm just signed what I thought was a landmark agreement with regards to the fight against HIV and Aids. So South Africa has been known to be almost like the epicenter or the home of the HIV epidemic since it started as a country and as civil society for the last 20 odd years. You know, we have spent a lot of time creating awareness on the ground with regards to what HIV is and ways in which we can prevent HIV.

And I think looking at that and all of the research that has taken place since then, we now have a biomedical solution that has the potential to actually, in a few years, perhaps ten years in HIV completely. So it is an injection which young people or anyone can take who are HIV negative, and they take it twice a year and that will prevent them from contracting HIV. It does not prevent STIs and unwanted pregnancies, but it does prevent HIV. And what we have found over the last few weeks is that there has been a lot of interest from young people regarding these biomedical solutions in terms of prevention, which is great, but what we still need to work on is the behavior, because you can, even though the is something which is quite extraordinary for South Africa.

If we don't have the conversation around the behavior things, then people might just only take the medication and they might still get infected with STIs, unwanted teenage pregnancies. So the fact that we do have a biomedical solution now is light years ahead of what it was a few years ago. But I agree that you still need to address behavior. And to that is is the idea of HIV or Aids for youth in Africa just kind of an accepted part of their experience as a human, that there will always be a certain amount of people in their community that are dealing with HIV.

It's just part of life. Or do the youth you're meeting with understand that it doesn't have to be like that, that this can change. So it's actually a combination of both from our experience within the work that we are doing within the community. We work in communities that do have a high HIV prevalence rate, meaning that the amount of people who have HIV currently in their communities is quite high. And because the amount of people who have HIV in their communities is quite high, they are seeking ways to protect themselves from that. And so we're seeing kind of like both instances at the moment occurring at the same time, where we still find a challenge, which is quite interesting, is within the youth mark between the ages of 16 to about 28 years old, between young people, between those ages.

That is where we are seeing the highest amount of incidence rates of new infections occurring this big. The question as to what are the reasons why our incidence rate within young people are higher than all other age groups for this, from behavior to poverty as an example to intergenerational relationships. And all of these sort of combined together to create this unhealthy situation where young people find themselves in some of our beneficiaries and fortunately have told us that they do have relationships with older partners, because those older partners are able to provide them with some financial resources, which they can then use to buy food.

And so these storms action or relationship which occurs, I've never met a young person who actively wants to be in that situation. These are request that we have never heard before from young people. It gives me hope that within time, and perhaps within the next 10 to 15 years, that we can reach a point where we have almost zero to little new infections occurring. Our information campaigns ever worked, but now we need to work on the softer side of things. We need to work on the things that young people need, communication skills. We need to work on those behavioral challenges we are still experiencing.

So a lot of new cases then are coming from as a way to put food on the table. Yes, absolutely. And that is also why we work with adolescents from the age of 14 years old, so that we are able to create awareness around these harmful behaviors at an early age. They were informed with regards to if you are in a relationship, if you do have unprotected sexual intercourse, that these are the consequences for those young people who were infected with HIV at the time, we then had to work with them in terms of how do they adhere to their treatment so that they are able to live a long, fulfilling life and that the HIV does not have to define them.

But as I mentioned, we we still need to work on is the behavioral aspect. Beneficiaries that seem, you know, that I think we're talking about one type of relationship were like transactional in nature. But even Leoni, correct me if I'm wrong, even just in a regular 14 year old boyfriend girlfriend situation, right? It's it's the same things that I'm sure this is not just specific to South Africa, like teaching young people. How do you know and how do you understand? And especially in a culture that is, you know, like has patriarchal tendencies of like, how do you help young women be able to negotiate safe sexual relationships for themselves?

But then you layer on to your point, Cynthia, you layer on this prevalence rate of HIV in South Africa, which is about 13%, I think is where we're sitting of the population right now. And it's just, you know, the stakes are different. But I think the point I was trying to make those what Leoni is saying to is this is young people. It's a skill that all of us need. I wonder to it, and I think this is a worldwide issue where oftentimes women don't even feel like they're entitled to ask the question. Women don't feel like they're entitled to have an opinion about their body.

And that's something all of us need to do as we walk this earth. We have to help everyone understand that, you know, women in no way deserve that kind of treatment where they are made to think that they don't have a say. That's one of the things we want to do here, is really help uplift women in every situation so that they have a say as they should, not a say, because they need to be equal to men as say, because they're human. And so I think you're you guys are doing that really well, helping these young women realize that just because they're a woman doesn't mean they're stuck in a yucky place.

But the work, the work doesn't stop there, right? It's we talked about this. It's all got. It all has to move at the same time. So it can't just be like helping young women understand their rights, being them get, you know, feel empowered in their own voice. But it's got to come up with all the work we do with young men, young boys, with parents, with youth, with it's all got to go. And that's where I think is, why is this so hard? Because it's all all has to move together. It does 100%. It's it really isn't that just young women need to understand their position.

Young men, all men, all people need to understand what it is we all need to be doing for each other and what the best way to treat one another is. Everybody's generational circumstances isn't the same as everybody else's. And so not only do we need to lift ourselves up as a community, we have to understand what it is we're dealing with and how that affects our space on the planet. And and how do we get to the place where we can do not only our best good for ourselves, but for the community? It's more than paying your taxes. So on this podcast, we often talk about the importance of a of an imprint, which I was just alluding to a little bit, in that when we come to have our place on earth as a child, we've already been imprinted with the experiences of the generations past, and we come with the experiences that our parents had even in utero.

And so we're already as newborns, as children, as teenagers, carrying a huge amount of trauma that isn't really ours. And it is disguising our our real place. It's we're so busy dealing with all of this stuff that we are holding all of this weight that we can't operate from our true identity. In, in your work, do you feel like it's easy enough to help youngsters get to a place where they can see that, that they can separate who they really are from the experiences that they've been given, and that those experiences do not in any way turn them into something bad, or that they just are not.

Those things can do. You see that youngsters are able to, with your help and guidance, discern that? Yes, absolutely. I think that young people are more resilient than what we give them credit for. A lot of the times, I think of what institute and the work that we do and the work of so many of the partners within the CTAOP network, which works with young people. And I can promise you that if they were, everyone would say, young people are absolutely amazing. They have this incredible ability to be able to recognize certain things within themselves.

Sometimes they might not understand it fully, and that takes time, but just that a cognition of this happened, but it does not define me. That is part of our work as partners. When you provide young people with the opportunity, when you provide them with a safe space so that they are able to really reflect and to think about what it is that they want for their lives and what it is that they would like to work with. Amazing things happen. Young people create projects which was fueled from the trauma which they experienced, and they want to give back to other young people and to the communities.

It does take a village. These things do not happen in silos. You can use the hurt and the trauma that you have experience, and you can, in time, let that go. You can use it as a catalyst to something greater, I can assure you. An example. We worked with a group of boys a year and a half ago, and this group of boys were absolutely amazing. They were between the ages of 14 to 16 years old. This group of boys do up in households where they did not have a father figure in their life. They created this group to support each other and to help each other learn how to be a man.

And they did not have a father figure in their life. I found that to be so profound. They came to me one day and they asked me, miss, we started this group. Can you teach us how to be a man? And I'm like, I don't, I don't know if I can do that because I'm not a man, but I can assist you with other things, with life skills. Eventually what they consent. We got someone in who who was in teaching them how to be a man. And so young people are just absolutely incredible. I wanted to ask you to, Lenny, because you struggled with a lot of the same traumas that your youth struggle with.

How were you able to come to terms with it? How were you able to understand that you were not? That that is actually quite interesting. Through summits and the conferences that we had, we often have a lot of speakers coming in talking about trauma and healing. At one of the summits, I actually stepped out for a little bit. One of the partners came out and they came to me and they asked me, is everything okay? And I was like, I don't think so. At that point in time, I never spoke about my own trauma to anyone. I never spoke about what had happened to me.

I always tried to have this persona, that there's nothing wrong with me. I'm okay. My conversation with this person daily changed everything. When I was talking to this person, they then disclosed the same things happened to them. How sometimes the things that we hide within ourselves, the things that we don't want people to know about ourselves, is sometimes the very things that a beneficiary needs to know, that to say that you are not alone. And it wasn't easy. To be quite honest, I felt like an imposter. Yeah, I am talking about life skills and I have not even dealt with my own trauma.

And through the healing, through the recognition that this did happen to me. And that started a whole, like I said, a completely different of my life and eventually led to me no longer having that imposter syndrome, which I struggled with for so long. I've discovered through the course of these podcast episodes that there are so many of us who have experiences of trauma that cause us to feel like imposters, and I'm just so touched every time someone comes forward and shares this secret, and somebody else is listening and realizes that it's a shared experience and that they don't have to operate for years feeling like an imposter, or the shame that feel the shame that so many of us carry.

It's just the biggest gift. Thank you so much. It's very touching. Thank you. You're doing such great work. As are you, of course. And you must find that so many of your program partners are coming from a place like Leoni, where there's just some deep love of humanity and. And this, this knowledge that we need to help the people who aren't able to help themselves completely. I think also, one of the things that I've come to is it's always a work in progress, you know, like we're all just we will always be a work in progress. So like as as we as individuals work through our own past or whatever we're carrying, it's like there is no there there.

It's just we are constantly flowing. And I think about our organizations in the same way. And that's been like a relief for me to think about things that way, because it's just like, okay, I don't have to feel like I haven't gotten to someplace. This is just where we are now in the process. Yeah. Provided relief. And I think that can just provide relief to all of us if we can think in a similar fashion and that life is it's a learning experience from beginning to end. And there's there's no point where you finally figured it all out. And that's part of the the joy of life is knowing that there's something different around the next corner.

So speaking of around the next corner in your wildest dream, or maybe not so wild, what do you see as kind of the ultimate goal for the youth that you're supporting? For me, my wildest dream for young people all across the world is that they are able to dive and that they have safe spaces. A safe space for me is not only the safe space that is created within our community structures and within our home, but it's a safe space that we also create within ourselves. Because a lot of the times we have this internal conflict where even when we are at home with ourselves, we feel unsafe.

And so my biggest wish for young people is that they feel safe, that they feel safe within themselves so that they are able to ask for help, that they are able to dream and deem without limitations, either of the circumstances that they find themselves in and that they thrive. It is through the diving of one person at a time that we will see this ripple effect occurring within our households, within our communities, and within the world at large. That would be my biggest, biggest hope and dream for young people. And look at how healthy those families would be in the future.

I, as she was speaking and it's like she's stealing my answer I have, but I think that's why we're partners, right? As we share, we share the same dream. Yes. I just think about all the time of I'm personally so inspired by diversity and by what come what is possible based on how different we all are. And like everyone's a gem in their own way. And I like seeing that play out. And if we can get to the point that Leoni is talking about where everyone has a chance to be healthy and safe, and you remove all these other pieces and everyone can just be the brightest them that they can be.

At the risk of sounding cheesy, I just I'm so excited about what that could look like and and how that could shape the future when everyone is allowed to be who they truly are. Yes, it does sound kind of like a pipe dream, but we have to start talking about it. We have to start doing this. You did ask for wildest dreams. We shot big. But I'm with you. I say the same thing all the time and I say, this sounds really corny, but the only place we're going to make a dent is if we come from love. So thank you. Thank you both for being here. Leoni, thank you so much for what you're doing.

It's it is so awesome. And the people you support are so lucky to have you. And thank you for lifting them up. Thank you so much. And the same goes to you, Ashlee, that you're doing this in such a far reaching manner and that you are respecting and supporting all of these programs from afar and the trust that you have coming from your donors to you, to your partners. I mean, it's just a fabulous way to work, an organization whose actually then able to do good. And of course, many, many thanks to Charlize’s and the rest of your team. Thank you, and thanks for having us.

It's one of the greatest joys of my job is being able to meet, I mean, work with partners like Leoni and then meet other incredible leaders doing this and sharing stories and like, being surrounded by people who really want to make a difference is such a joy. So thank you. It is pretty great to open the door and see. Oh my gosh, there are other people who are doing this. So if somebody wants to offer some amount of help, is there a place they can go to do that either with Leoni directly or through your organization? For CTAOP, our website is www.ctaop.org And Leoni, your website is? www.vaulinstitute.co.za Thank you again both for being here.

Please follow, rate and share this podcast and pass this episode along to someone who might need it. This is and now love. Listen to your dreams and live from your heart. Thank you. So much.