[Applause]
tell your story change the conversation
organized by students TEDx youth at shc
if I said to you boy I bet your butts
are sore from sitting so long that’s
empathy and if I invited you to stand up
and stretch out your legs for a bit
that’s compassion I get excited about
empathy because it has the power to
bring us together empathy is the ability
to identify with what someone else might
be feeling and that connection is what
motivates us to treat others the way we
want to be treated it motivates us to be
compassionate
which means empathy has the power to
change the world
now to understand why I say that we have
to go back to the summer of 2014
every summer I would usually go to camp
to have fun or to learn something new
but that summer I hadn’t signed up in
time so my plan was to just veg out for
three months well unfortunately my mom
said Audrey vegging is not an activity
you’d better find something productive
to do so I decided if I couldn’t go to
camp I create my own camp I’d be the
camp director the program director and
all of the campers now the program
offered unique and random experiences
that would be fun or adventurous to try
my camp for random experiences lasted 30
days and each day was different like one
day I decided to eat only carrots
another day I decided to go barefoot
well barefoot day happened to coincide
with the day my family and I went to
visit a goat farm and let me tell you
trudging through that muck let’s just
say since that experience I have never
appreciated shoes more so in August I
plan an experience designed to show me
what it’s like to go
life in a wheelchair I needed help with
this one so I went to my mom again and I
said hey mom can I have a wheelchair so
I can go to the mall and get some stuff
and she had said yes to my crazy
requests all summer so when I asked her
for a wheelchair all she said was you
wanna what
okay I’ll see if we can borrow one and
when I finally convinced my cousin to
push me around at the mall all day we
were set and I was super excited until
we rolled through the mall doors and
something terrible happened I completely
disappeared suddenly people were talking
slowly or loudly to me as if I had a
hearing problem salespeople talked over
me to my cousin assuming I couldn’t make
my own decisions
I thought is this how all people in
wheelchairs feel like like others see
them for their disability and not for
who they are as a person I never would
have known how hard it is to go through
life treated that way if I hadn’t put
myself in a wheelchair and that day I
vowed I’d never treat anyone the way I
had been treated the next summer I went
to the Dominican Republic on a service
trip where I experienced real hardship
and that summer my empathy for others
grew exponentially as I learned what
it’s like to not have enough so the
third summer the summer of 2016 was
shaping up to be really boring but this
time I thought okay I have one crazy
self run camp and a little real world
experience what if I combine those into
some sort of camp where kids could walk
in other people’s shoes and that’s how
project empathy started so I contacted
all of my little sister’s friends
parents and said hey I’m running this
awesome experiential learning camp to
promote empathy and youth would you like
to sign your kids up and I quickly got
15 campers most
around 11 years old so within a few
weeks project empathy was off and
running the camp was four days long with
a four to five hour block on each day
that concentrated on one specific
experience for example one day the group
put on eye patches so they couldn’t see
another day
I put the campers to work for pitiful
wages the day that probably made the
biggest impression on kids was the day
they learn what it’s like to live in a
drought stricken area so at the
beginning of each of these days
I told kids to write down how they
thought they would feel as they did the
activity and then at the end of the
simulation they’d write down how they
actually felt on visual impairment day
Anna thought she would feel helpless but
she actually trusted her guide and
didn’t feel lonely on poverty day Sophia
thought she probably wouldn’t have
enough money to buy everything she
wanted at the store but she wrote how
hard it was to choose just the things
she needed on drought day Mira thought
she feel the same after lugging two
gallons of water home but she wrote I
felt like my arms were going to rip off
it was remarkable to see how much these
kids grew as they walked in someone
else’s shoes so on the last day of camp
I asked campers to give a PowerPoint
presentation to their families and
friends and their presentations
summarized their experiences at camp
their insights inspired everyone and my
personal favorite came from a boy named
Alvaro who said I think empathy is
important because it gives you a reason
to help others I mean how cool is that
this 11 year old boy was able to
summarize why my entire project exists
because empathy gives you a reason to
help others it helps you develop the
compassion to help others so that was
last summer fall in spring of my junior
year this year
i expanded project empathy into the
local middle school my high school peers
and I from the Campo Lindo interact club
ran Experian
learning stations for the eighth-grade
leadership class and then we taught them
how to run their own workshops for the
entire sixth grade even with these small
steps I’ve taken I can see how empathy
has a snowball effect one person can
have empathy for many people inspiring
many more to be empathetic those people
in turn spread empathy until there are
enough empathetic people to have an
impact when people recognize the common
humanity between others in their own
communities they can create small-scale
change acts of compassion like
volunteering at a homeless shelter
participating in a canned food drive
when there’s a greater swell of empathy
people recognize the common humanity
between others that can extend beyond
just communities to around the globe
during the universal March to support
women in January among their ranks were
men they marched to show solidarity and
that was an act of compassion driven by
empathy we live in a time of division
and rapidly growing hate where acts of
terrorism and closing of boundaries are
real threats when we become aware of the
lives and the feelings of others our
embassy grows we’re inspired to treat
others with compassion compassion that
can extend beyond summer camps beyond
classrooms more empathy can lead to
universal tolerance no more walls fewer
Wars former President Obama said
learning to stand in someone else’s
shoes to see through their eyes that’s
how peace begins and it’s up to you to
make that happen four years ago
when my mom told me to find something
productive to do I came up with my camp
for random experiences today I’m
bringing empathy workshops into schools
and there’s nothing random about that
and in these past four years I’ve
learned a lot
empathy and how it has the power to
unite us and make us more compassionate
I have more to learn and more to do and
I don’t know where my empathy workshops
will lead me but wherever they take me I
promise you and my mom I’ll find
something productive to do thank you
tell your story change the conversation
organized by students TEDx youth at shc
if I said to you boy I bet your butts
are sore from sitting so long that’s
empathy and if I invited you to stand up
and stretch out your legs for a bit
that’s compassion I get excited about
empathy because it has the power to
bring us together empathy is the ability
to identify with what someone else might
be feeling and that connection is what
motivates us to treat others the way we
want to be treated it motivates us to be
compassionate
which means empathy has the power to
change the world
now to understand why I say that we have
to go back to the summer of 2014
every summer I would usually go to camp
to have fun or to learn something new
but that summer I hadn’t signed up in
time so my plan was to just veg out for
three months well unfortunately my mom
said Audrey vegging is not an activity
you’d better find something productive
to do so I decided if I couldn’t go to
camp I create my own camp I’d be the
camp director the program director and
all of the campers now the program
offered unique and random experiences
that would be fun or adventurous to try
my camp for random experiences lasted 30
days and each day was different like one
day I decided to eat only carrots
another day I decided to go barefoot
well barefoot day happened to coincide
with the day my family and I went to
visit a goat farm and let me tell you
trudging through that muck let’s just
say since that experience I have never
appreciated shoes more so in August I
plan an experience designed to show me
what it’s like to go
life in a wheelchair I needed help with
this one so I went to my mom again and I
said hey mom can I have a wheelchair so
I can go to the mall and get some stuff
and she had said yes to my crazy
requests all summer so when I asked her
for a wheelchair all she said was you
wanna what
okay I’ll see if we can borrow one and
when I finally convinced my cousin to
push me around at the mall all day we
were set and I was super excited until
we rolled through the mall doors and
something terrible happened I completely
disappeared suddenly people were talking
slowly or loudly to me as if I had a
hearing problem salespeople talked over
me to my cousin assuming I couldn’t make
my own decisions
I thought is this how all people in
wheelchairs feel like like others see
them for their disability and not for
who they are as a person I never would
have known how hard it is to go through
life treated that way if I hadn’t put
myself in a wheelchair and that day I
vowed I’d never treat anyone the way I
had been treated the next summer I went
to the Dominican Republic on a service
trip where I experienced real hardship
and that summer my empathy for others
grew exponentially as I learned what
it’s like to not have enough so the
third summer the summer of 2016 was
shaping up to be really boring but this
time I thought okay I have one crazy
self run camp and a little real world
experience what if I combine those into
some sort of camp where kids could walk
in other people’s shoes and that’s how
project empathy started so I contacted
all of my little sister’s friends
parents and said hey I’m running this
awesome experiential learning camp to
promote empathy and youth would you like
to sign your kids up and I quickly got
15 campers most
around 11 years old so within a few
weeks project empathy was off and
running the camp was four days long with
a four to five hour block on each day
that concentrated on one specific
experience for example one day the group
put on eye patches so they couldn’t see
another day
I put the campers to work for pitiful
wages the day that probably made the
biggest impression on kids was the day
they learn what it’s like to live in a
drought stricken area so at the
beginning of each of these days
I told kids to write down how they
thought they would feel as they did the
activity and then at the end of the
simulation they’d write down how they
actually felt on visual impairment day
Anna thought she would feel helpless but
she actually trusted her guide and
didn’t feel lonely on poverty day Sophia
thought she probably wouldn’t have
enough money to buy everything she
wanted at the store but she wrote how
hard it was to choose just the things
she needed on drought day Mira thought
she feel the same after lugging two
gallons of water home but she wrote I
felt like my arms were going to rip off
it was remarkable to see how much these
kids grew as they walked in someone
else’s shoes so on the last day of camp
I asked campers to give a PowerPoint
presentation to their families and
friends and their presentations
summarized their experiences at camp
their insights inspired everyone and my
personal favorite came from a boy named
Alvaro who said I think empathy is
important because it gives you a reason
to help others I mean how cool is that
this 11 year old boy was able to
summarize why my entire project exists
because empathy gives you a reason to
help others it helps you develop the
compassion to help others so that was
last summer fall in spring of my junior
year this year
i expanded project empathy into the
local middle school my high school peers
and I from the Campo Lindo interact club
ran Experian
learning stations for the eighth-grade
leadership class and then we taught them
how to run their own workshops for the
entire sixth grade even with these small
steps I’ve taken I can see how empathy
has a snowball effect one person can
have empathy for many people inspiring
many more to be empathetic those people
in turn spread empathy until there are
enough empathetic people to have an
impact when people recognize the common
humanity between others in their own
communities they can create small-scale
change acts of compassion like
volunteering at a homeless shelter
participating in a canned food drive
when there’s a greater swell of empathy
people recognize the common humanity
between others that can extend beyond
just communities to around the globe
during the universal March to support
women in January among their ranks were
men they marched to show solidarity and
that was an act of compassion driven by
empathy we live in a time of division
and rapidly growing hate where acts of
terrorism and closing of boundaries are
real threats when we become aware of the
lives and the feelings of others our
embassy grows we’re inspired to treat
others with compassion compassion that
can extend beyond summer camps beyond
classrooms more empathy can lead to
universal tolerance no more walls fewer
Wars former President Obama said
learning to stand in someone else’s
shoes to see through their eyes that’s
how peace begins and it’s up to you to
make that happen four years ago
when my mom told me to find something
productive to do I came up with my camp
for random experiences today I’m
bringing empathy workshops into schools
and there’s nothing random about that
and in these past four years I’ve
learned a lot
empathy and how it has the power to
unite us and make us more compassionate
I have more to learn and more to do and
I don’t know where my empathy workshops
will lead me but wherever they take me I
promise you and my mom I’ll find
something productive to do thank you
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