just in case I turn into a raisin in
front of you guys g5 society
I loved the theme for this evening
because it reminded me of that quote
here’s to the crazy ones The Misfits the
rebels the troublemakers the round pegs
in the square holes the ones who see
things differently because to me that’s
what defying society means seeing things
differently not following the rules but
following your passions I was asked to
be here tonight to talk about arts and
activism I am an actor with a passion to
combat human trafficking and save the
elephants but when I really had to look
at what connected the dots for me
between arts and activism it came down
to one thing playing the odds because if
you want to be someone who defies
society you need to figure out what it
is in your life you’re passionate enough
to gamble on I always knew I wanted to
be an actor when I was starting out I
hated that everyone would say oh you
want to be an actor it’s the hardest
profession you should do anything else I
always thought that being a brain
surgeon would be hard or a lawyer or a
social worker or a teacher being a
teacher to me seems like a monumental
task what I realized over time was it
isn’t necessarily acting that’s the
hardest thing it’s the lifestyle it’s
being okay with the instability and the
rejection and the fact that every now
and then you’re gonna look in your bank
account there’s gonna be four dollars
and nine cents or in my case after
moving to New York to pursue my dreams
of Broadway being misdiagnosed for
almost a year and having to go straight
into surgery to remove a polyp in my
head the size of a tennis ball kind of
derailed things
the time there was only one 11-year old
boy who had one bigger than me so
sometimes things aren’t totally gonna go
the way you planned them to but if
you’re passionate enough about it
so luckily I ended up getting recruited
into a modeling agency and that was
going to end up paying my medical bills
a hell of a lot faster than bartending
so I ended up modeling and that
snowballed into a commercial career for
me and if you’re wondering if my face
seems somewhat familiar it’s probably
because at this point I have sold you
nearly every item in your household on
television I have been lucky enough to
kiss Tom Selleck and mark-paul Gosselaar
and Charlie Sheen on television and
while I would love to get a regular gig
on a TV show my commercial campaigns
have allowed me the financial freedom
and flexibility to pursue my other
passions so a few years ago I was asked
to be ambassador to an organization that
was using the entertainment and fashion
industry is their platform to spread
education and awareness of human
trafficking I had always had an interest
in human rights specifically women’s
rights and I had supported organizations
working to end the Virgen cleansing myth
and female mutilation and those were
fairly intense subjects so human
trafficking didn’t seem like that much
of a stretch for me but if you’re going
to talk about human trafficking you’re
going to take playing the odds to an
entirely new level because most people
would see these statistics and run the
other way the Internet has made it so
easy to exploit children that 70% of
child sex trafficking victims are sold
online which is why I just last week
we saw ashton kutcher making a plea to
Congress to help fund the technology
they’ve developed to stop online
traffickers and just to bring it a
little closer to home Newport Beach sits
in between San Diego and Los Angeles two
of the FBI’s highest child sex
trafficking areas in the nation so I
don’t say this to scare you but just to
point out if it was your child that went
missing wouldn’t you play the odds well
I was ambassador I ended up spearheading
a crowdfunding campaign we named hope to
Thailand we went and visited multiple
rescue and rehabilitation centers there
we wanted to support the NGOs doing the
frontline work on the ground and while I
would love to talk about each and every
one of them that would be a whole other
talk so just one of the things that I
did was I ended up teaching a couple of
jewelry making workshops and I taught
two girls roughly aging between 11 and
17 we were operating on the premise of
give a man a fish to eat he eats for a
day teach a man to fish he eats for a
lifetime one of the most important parts
of rehabilitation for a trafficking
survivor is vocational training because
if you don’t have another way to sustain
yourself the chances of you being Reed
trafficked are extremely high one of the
little girls that was in one of the
workshops I taught had been reached nine
times
so human trafficking has been dubbed the
modern-day slavery of our time and
although the term human trafficking
umbrellas child trafficking sex
trafficking labor trafficking and organ
trafficking eighty percent of that are
women and half of that are children so
this is where my passion as a women’s
rights advocate comes into play now
there’s a lot going out around about
feminism at the moment and I just want
to point out that feminism is not just
about women the UN is working extremely
hard
to promote women’s health care education
and equal pay because studies have
proven that this is what’s going to fuel
sustainable economies and benefit
societies globally and if that doesn’t
mean that much to you it essentially
means that if your wife is pay the same
is the guy sitting next to her doing the
same job you aren’t gonna have to work
so hard for that vacation at Disneyland
so feminism is really about helping all
of us which brings me to one of my
favorite subjects elephants I know crazy
this girl she’s talking about polyps and
feminism track me well here’s hanging a
link human trafficking and elephants in
most of us might remember this hashtag
when it circulated a few years ago if
you don’t in 2014 two hundred and
seventy six girls were kidnapped in the
middle of the night and taken by Boko
Haram in Nigeria human trafficking and
elephant conservation are inextricably
linked because most of Boko Haram and
the other terrorist organizations
committing these type of atrocities are
funded by illegal ivory and rhino horn
poaching so if you don’t if you care
about a little girl but not an elephant
you should you also should care about
elephant because they are the most
loving emotional family-oriented large
mammals on earth they laugh they cry
they play they hug each other with their
trunks when they see each other their
babies are just as silly and naughty as
human toddlers and they flail their
trunks around trying to figure out how
to use them as hilarious but because an
elephants gestation period is two years
they’re being slaughtered at a higher
rate than they can reproduce 100
elephants a day so the numbers have
shown that in less than 10 years
elephants in the wild will no longer
exist
a few years ago it was a projected 10
years it’s less than 10 years now this
is because poachers want elephants and
rhinos to go extinct so that the price
of ivory and rhino horn goes up so as
much as I don’t want to admit it to you
we’re fighting a losing war and here’s
we’re playing the odds matters if I know
I’m fighting a losing war do I still
fight if I know that we can only save
one girl or one elephant and not the
thousands of others in that moment do we
still try see I believe that we do
because it’s at that exact moment in
time you decide which side of history
you want to be on complacency is the
norm of society at the moment and if we
go back to our theme of the evening defy
society we’re going to see that the
definition of defying means to openly
resist or refuse to obey and this is
where we have to resist complacency
because complacency leads to stagnation
and human beings by nature long for
evolution so there’s something there’s a
lot of issues going on in the world
today and one of the reasons why I think
that is if something is hindering
evolution something is stopping us from
moving forward see when they say resist
you can be on one and to one of two
playing fields one that moves us forward
or one that moves us back resistance
goes in both directions so again I say
to you which side of history do you want
to be on now your gamble may not pay off
right away
nothing changes overnight and they’re
examples throughout history of big wins
but the women’s suffrage movement began
in the 1840s and women didn’t earn the
right to vote until 1920 and even though
women won the right to vote in 1920
black women couldn’t vote until the
1960s and then one light one and we made
a few steps forward but we won’t go
see I believe that if just one of us is
enslaved we all are and I believe that
if you can have an effect on just one
this little boy stood from afar was
watching one of the jury worse upset
workshops I was teaching and he was so
shy but he he finally snug up and sort
of sat down quietly beside me and he
picked up the tools I was teaching with
and he picked it up so fast and put
together such a great combo of beads
that he chose that before the day was
over he had sold three pairs of earrings
while I was still sitting there now as
some might say who cares Kelly youyou
left was it really worth teaching that
workshop do I think that I solved any
big problems that day or issues no
absolutely not but I think about that
little boy often and I wonder if he
continued making jewelry and possibly
found a new way to sustain himself for
his family because there is one in a
million chance he did and I’d rather
play those odds so there’s going to be
big wins and there’s going to be small
wins and sometimes you’re gonna have a
polyp in your head the size of a tennis
ball but to be someone who defies
society you’re gonna have to stay on the
roller coaster ride one way or another
so I asked you what passion do you have
in your life that’s going to give you
the courage to play the odds that’s
going to make you step up and roll the
dice thank you [Applause]