We explore the concept of social entrepreneurship and the power of reimagining the world around us. Highlighting the importance of taking risks, learning from failures, and empowering others.
Guest: Dalia Najjar, General Manager at Farouk Systems and Social Entrepreneurship Faculty Leader at Al-Quds Bard College for Arts and Sciences
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalia-najjar-ab212643/
On YouTube | https://youtu.be/KBwjaHq3G3c?si=uvUt0EkoSGvnF7Y5
Hosts:
Alejandro Juárez Crawford
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/alejandro-juarez-crawford
Miriam Plavin-Masterman
On ITSPmagazine 👉 https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/miriam-plavin-masterman
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Episode Introduction
Dalia discusses her experiences in teaching social entrepreneurship and the impact it has on students. She emphasizes the need to identify problems and find solutions that meet the needs of the people we serve. The conversation also touches on the global collaboration and the power of humor in developing connections and innovation. The conversation explores the dynamic nature of truth and the power of constantly re-deriving old truths in new contexts. The conversation also touches on the challenges faced by students in Palestine and the impact of the political situation on their projects. The concept of solidarity and the sense of community that arises from working together to create change is discussed.
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Resources
How to Launch Your Own Social Enterprise – Love the People You Serve: https://youtu.be/CRVtKfnKkfs?si=WBzERS8u7TNxT_Lq
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For more podcast stories from What If Instead? Podcast with Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman, visit: https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/alejandro-juarez-crawford and https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/miriam-plavin-masterman
Everyone is Living in Different Parts of the World, but There's Something That Attached Us All together | A conversation with Dalia Najjar | What If Instead? Podcast with Alejandro Juárez Crawford and Miriam Plavin-Masterman
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (00:01)
So I'm not trying to force some metaphor here, some analogy where social entrepreneurship is all about going fishing in the rain, in high winds, with the wrong clothing, never having fished before. But basically that is what it's about. At least that's what I'm thinking today. I hear, not that I'm willing to admit that I might have done something like that today, but I hear that stories have already reached you.
that some phishing of this kind, some social enterprise of this kind might have happened today. Yeah, I heard some people went fishing today and it was their first time fishing. And I heard it was a failure. Yes, yes. And I appreciate you putting this in some people, right? None of the characters in this story, living or dead, are fictional, right? So good, good, because I have a team of lawyers right next to me. So what did you hear about this phishing expedition? I heard that there were three people.
who went on a boat. Who shall remain nameless, yes. Exactly. And the circumstances were very unpredicted. So the weather was really bad and it was windy and they could not catch not even one fish. Not even one fish. And I hear one of them whom we might have interviewed recently on this podcast was very insistent in bringing a large barrel with us. Yeah. Because we were going to catch so many fish. Yeah. Yeah. Just fair.
Yeah, you don't know until you try that's right. So I I have to say we're not gonna stretch the metaphor too far, but sometimes Going at something which you haven't tried before how else are you gonna learn to do it? Exactly. We have this saying in Arabic about fishing actually it says don't give people fish But instead teach them how to fish. I love this thing. Will you say it for me in Arabic?
See it. Oh Matt. I'll let my husband see this so much. Oh Matt. I'm sorry. I said it wrong. I said it the other way So the message is don't teach people the fish just give them fish So they can go and fish whenever they need the fish rather than just being fully dependent on someone
supplying them with fish whenever they need them. So this is actually a cross -cultural idea. Yeah. Very definitely the Arabic version came before the 90s hip hop version, but we do have a song that goes, give a man a fish. Okay. I'm not going to sing in this podcast, but you get the idea. So Arrested Development, look up the track, speech, pretty excellent. At least in that sort of 90s, very philosophical hip hop sense.
But before we go any further, I would love to take this moment to introduce one of the guests that I'm really most excited to have here on What If Instead, and also to be able to be with in person here for this episode. Dalia Najjar is the youngest general manager in the history of Farouk Systems, the global hair care firm.
And most of us would stop there and we'd say, well, look at me. I'm a high roller. I'm an executive, blah, blah, blah. Instead though, Dahlia has spent every week for the time I've known her, at least in the fall of every year. She commutes. Is this true? It's two hours? Yeah, almost. Yeah, depending on the unpredicted circumstances. Goodness. So yeah, it could take up to two hours.
The minimum is one hour. To work with a group of young people and help them ask the question we focus on here, which is, what if instead this worked differently? And what's amazing about that is I had worked with you for several years, always over Zoom, without knowing. You made it look easy. So this is really what this is about. And I'd love to, in a moment, just ask you why you do that.
why you left your cushy office to go and enable that, what the fruits of that have been, what some of the stories of the people you've worked with have been, and how, as you've done that now, training groups in other parts of the world and supporting faculty and facilitators in other parts of the world, what led you to also move to West Africa, to also work with folks in Kyrgyzstan, folks in Belarus and the like. But before we get there,
I would love to just say that our question here is about looking around you and thinking, this is just backwards. We've all done that. What if instead it worked this way? In this podcast, we explore what it takes for people to reimagine the world around them and what stands in their way. I'm Alejandro Juarez -Crawford, and my co -host is Mim Plaven -Masterman. We're on a mission.
to make experiments of your own feel as normal as watching videos on your phone. Welcome to What If Instead, the podcast. So talk to us, Dalia. Why am I doing that? Why? Why all this effort? You know, it's a very hard question because I used to ask myself, why am I doing that, you know? I'm still young. I have a good career.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (05:41)
you
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (05:48)
I should be enjoying my weekends instead of like driving for two hours. This is the moment when Dahlia stops doing it. This is why we had this podcast. And then it only like took me four months to switch the question to why is not everyone doing what I'm doing? Really? It's very rewarding. And it took me one semester to see the results of
what I'm doing in the student's eyes. So I want you to break down two parts of that for us. One is what are those results? What changes in the student's eyes? And maybe tell us a story or two. Also, even before you get there, can you speak to us about that second question after four minutes? Why isn't everyone doing that? And I'd love to ask you, is this something that others are qualified to do?
Didn't you have a decade or more of experience doing this? Could others do that? And is it really reasonable that many people around the world might do what you're doing in addition to their career? So two questions. I mean, of course, I had a lot of experience doing that. I had zero experience in teaching. It was my first time to teach a class when I started teaching social entrepreneurship four years ago.
I found this out three years in when we met in person for the first time and I was blown away because by that time I had asked you to train instructors in several parts of Africa, mentor and facilitators in Kyrgyzstan and take over when an instructor needed to take a leave in Lithuania working with students from Belarus. So you had no experience. But this is crazy. So what...
Enabled you to even start and why does that apply to anyone else or only superheroes like yourself? No, I think it was just crazy for me to say yes I will teach when I have no experience It's like a fishing trip, but more successful. You just need to be a little bit brave and You need to have the will to do it and you will succeed. What is that bravery and that will for you Dahlia? I think because I was very curious to see the results of me teaching
So you call it bravery, but it's really curiosity. Maybe I should call it a little bit. I was very selfish at the beginning to see, will I be able to do it? And if I do it, will it be rewarding? And how will I assess if I succeeded or not? And it was much more difficult than I imagined. But at the same time, it was much more rewarding than what I wanted or what I was looking for. I've got to know what was more difficult.
what surprised you about the rewards and I want to get to what changed in the eyes of those you were working with. But before we get into those surprises, difficult, rewarding eyes, I wanted to open this up now because my co -host tends to ask the good questions here after I've had some fun. That's the division of labor, it works for me. Mem, what would you ask?
Mim Plavin-Masterman (09:07)
Well, so you actually took two of my questions, but that's fine. I have plenty of questions. So I guess my first question would be, how has your approach changed in the past four years, both working locally and working across multiple time zones and cultures? What stayed the same in your approach, really, and what's changed?
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (09:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I think it's important also to stress on the fact that it's true that I was teaching the students, but also I was learning through those students. I was learning through the network I was working with. I was learning through the international co -instructors I was working with. So the approach has to change because the environment I teach at changes every time I teach new students, even if they are from the same country.
from AQB, but you work, each student has their unique thinking and their unique approach of tackling a problem and finding a solution, because at the end it's the student's work, it's not my work. And I don't teach them to find the problem or the solution. We just basically unleash their potential to tackle those problems. Now, what would you say to people?
who say that's crazy. Students don't know anything. You're supposed to only teach stuff you already know. Break this down for us. Yeah. So I'll just tell you how I do it, the approach that I do it. Perfect. The beginning of my first class for the semester, we talk, we have a conversation, like with my students, and we brainstorm what bothers us around us or in this world. What if...
the world is different, how different we want to see this world. What would we like to change if we have this magic stick to make a change in this world? And we start brainstorming our problems, whether they are personal problems or things that we struggle with or things that we see people around us would like to see different or even issues that just like gender -based issues.
that just frustrates us. Why is there, why are there, why do they exist those issues? So when you're facilitating that brainstorming, can you actually put us in the scene? What do you do to elicit those? Do you actually say if you had a magic wand or do you focus on their frustrations? Talk us through almost the details of how you draw this out. So we go around, we imagine that we have this magic wand or magic stick.
And every student, including me, we say, if we have this magic stick, what would the first thing that we would change around us or in the world or anything. Now, are you sitting in a room when you're doing this? Yes, we're sitting in a room in a circle. And it's just like a discussion. You know, we brainstorm, we tackle our brains to find and we it takes us a while to come up with an answer because we.
We don't usually have this time to sit down and think of what bothers us. We complain a lot as human beings, but we never think what if we can't change it. So we're good at complaining. And it's the hardest part to find the problem. We whinge, we fetch, we're all gironas, but you're explaining something different. Talk to us a little bit about the mindset difference. Do you see, and I want to go back to the light in the eyes.
Do you, or the eyes, do you see a change in mentality? What is it, what shifts and how does it shift between being someone complaining about what bothers them around them and creating alternatives? Yeah. So I still give my students space to complain, but in addition to complaining, you need to come up with a solution. So tell me, I don't like this and I would prepare, I would prefer this to be like that. Then I would listen.
If you just tell me I don't like this, no, that's not okay. Tell me what would you like instead of this and how can we work together to make that better?
I would love to hear examples of this.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (13:37)
Same.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (13:40)
So I'll tell you an example, but not specifically on this. I had this student who was taking social, going back to the fishing trip. I had this student who took the social entrepreneurship class, I think two years ago. And during this session, when we were brainstorming our problems, he was like, I don't have any problem. Is there anything that bothers you? He was like, no.
If you had this magic stick, would you change anything? No, I think life is perfect. I've never met this human being. I don't think you'd find this person in New York, but go ahead. And we see that, you know, I could not imagine that I would see that. And I was like, perfect. That is amazing. And by the end of the semester, he came up to me and he was like, I worked on this problem, but I just found out that I have so many problems that I want to work on.
And he asked if he can access RebelBase after the course so he can actually list those problems and find solutions for them. Now he's suffering from depression. No, I'm just serious. I don't mean to make light of mental health, but what... And he created a project that is very successful right now and he's still working on this project. Really? Will you tell us about that project and also for listeners who don't know what this RebelBase thing is?
Mim Plavin-Masterman (14:47)
I love it.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (15:06)
So Rebel Base is basically the platform that the students use to put everything they're thinking about on this, like on paper, but on a platform, basically on a website where they can work into teams and have access to see what they publish. And they can get thousands of comments and constructive feedback to edit their work and make it even better. So whoever is working on a project, we can all see this project.
the team members can see this project, they can comment on what they would like to see better in this project, give some good feedback, and the students themselves can actually also give feedback to other projects. So it's basically a platform that makes their thinking much easier and make their projects rather of just being in their imagination, but we can actually see the project. And it evolves over the semester.
So let's talk for a second about what you just said, this interaction and all these comments. When Nikola Clark was on this podcast, he used this line, he said, their mindset, the person making the project is challenged by someone else's mindset in another part of the world, and that liberates our mindsets. And so I'm curious. Nikola's fine like that. He's good at that. I mean, that stuck with me, but.
you talk about all this constructive feedback. I'd love for you to comment on is that harder for people as they're interacting with distinct cultures? And also when Bermette Tsupikova was on What If Instead, she talked about a practice that I think you innovated, which was actually incentivizing students to respond to the toughest criticism they get and maybe specifically criticism they get.
from Sebastian Kroll. So talk to us about how you came to that stuff and this process of feedback from around the world. Because when I started, let's say, I don't like to use the word teaching, you know, but when I started... What is it if not teaching? You've already said you're teaching and learning. Yeah. You're in the circle. Talk to us. What is this thing you're doing? Yeah. I think we're just empowering each other.
You know, everyone in this circle, students, faculty, and everyone, we're empowering each other. You're giving each other power? Yeah. And how, where's this power coming from? Just trusting the fact that we can do it together. You know, when we believe that we can actually do it together. And I had a student, Angela, you know Angela, right? Yes, yeah, incredible. After she took the class, like a year after she took the class, she sent me this amazing email and...
one of the sentences that struck with me she was like I didn't know that I could do all of that not only in the class but after the class she came to the US she had an internship and she was like you unleashed those powers for me and I didn't I only gave her the class you know and she keeps just telling me how grateful she is for taking this class because we just empowered her to unleash that potential that she did not know it existed within her personal personality.
So it's just, I think we do it unintentionally and we do it all together to each one of us. So the students as well empower me when I read this email, I am empowered and I am fueled to continue to do what I'm doing. Mim, I know you work with various contexts that make it possible to create solutions, entrepreneurial, innovative. I wonder how...
someone who rigorously studies this, how you would think about what questions you would ask about this process of empowerment. Because it sounds amazing when you say it, but I want our listeners to really get what happens, what makes this possible. And then let's go back to some of these other questions.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (19:16)
Sure. So I guess how I like to think about it is you have to involve the people on the ground in solving their own problems versus tell me what your problem is and I'll solve it for you. And that sounds like what you're already doing by putting them at the center of the problem, right? What's your problem? How do I help you solve it? But when we think about how they see their sort of local problems, I guess I'm curious about what's the local space or unit that they're using. Is it a neighborhood? Is it the city?
Is it a region? Like, how are they thinking about their local community? And then how are you helping them make sure that they're serving those local people in whatever their solution is?
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (19:56)
I think that each person uses a different method to identify their own problem. Some people use it from their personal experience. Like we had Melodys for Palestine, the project. The project founder came up with using music in Palestine as therapy for people, for Palestinians who don't have access to music. Christina. Exactly. Talk to us about her. Yeah, go ahead. So Christina is a musician.
And when she started brainstorming what problem she wanted to work on or what did she want to think to change in this, in Palestine or in this world or something that she would want to have, like to have better access to, she chose Melody for Palestine as her project. And the problem was not having enough access to music in Palestine. And she sees music as a way of therapy.
So she created this project, Melody for Palestine, where she ensured that music could be accessed by as many Palestinians as possible, where they use music as therapy specifically during the war now. And this came from her personal experience, from something that she is struggling with. I have another group working on providing shelters for women.
going under domestic violence. And this came from a group of students, males and females, who are against violence against women, and they think that we don't have enough laws and shelters to protect those women. So the problem started in Palestine.
And they teamed up with students from Bangladesh who are facing the same problem in Bangladesh as well. So basically it's not a country -specific issue. They thought that it only existed in Palestine until they started teaming up with international students and they found out that this issue actually exists in other countries. And they also had another student from the US who helped them find a solution like
compared to the shelters they have in the US and the laws, and they all created the solution that could be implemented in Palestine or in Bangladesh. So it's not always an issue that, because you feel sometimes that you're the only one who's having this problem, or your country, because we think that this problem only exists in Palestine, but in reality, it could exist everywhere. And with everyone's power and with everyone's experience, we can find a solution for this problem.
implemented in different countries around the globe. This is a much different application of what you're saying, Mim, than I'm used to hearing, because it applies this idea of needing to be, did you use the word close to the ground or close to the problem? But in this case, the global isn't some all -knowing umbrella, it's this multilateral point -to -point
Mim Plavin-Masterman (22:55)
same.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (23:14)
sort of co -creation and crossing of ideas. Can you talk to us a little bit about, so as they discover that these problems are in each place, are they rooting it in what, in specific social or legal or other economic circumstances, say in Bangladesh and Palestine and the United States, and talk to us about how that interplay matters and...
Mim, I may not even be taking this in the most interesting direction, but let's see if we can enrich the theory a little bit here. So, you know, I taught social entrepreneurship in two different cohorts in two different countries. So I teach it at AQB in Palestine. And last semester, I taught it in Lithuania, Belarus, EHU, the European Humanities University. And I was very curious to see how would...
the mentality or the mindset of the students differ from Belarus and Palestine and how the projects would differ from Belarus and Palestine. And surprisingly, they all use the same methodology. The struggle could be different, but they all wanted to end the struggle through their projects. So in Belarus, I had
projects working on empowering refugees. In Palestine, I had people wanted to empowering refugees as well, but in Palestine, going through different circumstances, but the results are the same. The end result is one end result. The approach is different. The methodology is different. But the light at the end of the tunnel was the same. They all wanted to see this light, to end.
the suffering of the refugees and they both have different struggles and different suffering. So they can't team up even if they tweak the project a little bit to be implemented in Palestine or in Belarus in different ways based on the cultural differences, the laws, the legal issues. But same project solving the same problem in two different countries with different approaches.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (25:33)
So I love this. Yeah, I know. I was like waiting. I'm like, I have a moment. So I love this because there's almost like a hyperlocal -ness to what you're saying, but then the collaboration is happening globally. But it's not a global solution. It's hyperlocal solution with global input, which is very different.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (25:33)
I don't pause often.
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. When you say it that way, it makes me think this is the first time in history that global could mean lots of hyperlocal interacting. Because, I mean, we've seen each other twice in person, you and I, and all these students point to point.
And it makes me wonder why that's the first time I've ever heard someone formulate what you just put in a nutshell, Mim, based on what you said, Dahlia. Really, this idea that it's not hyperlocal versus centrally, hegemonically global, but that actually global could become this interplay of hyperlocal problem solving. Exactly, exactly.
And that's why we keep saying like each one of us can make a difference, but together we make change. We don't say together Palestinians, right? We say together globally, internationally, we make change. It does not matter where you come from or what struggles you are facing or what you are suffering from. You just need the will to make change. And that's what we were doing, right? As co -instructors.
Each of us is from different parts of the world, but we all gather around the same will or around the same result that we want to see. Change whether through our students or through their projects or through all the work that we're doing or through this podcast.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (27:36)
I mean, I think about the original story, right? Where you guys opened our podcast talking about the fish and teaching someone to fish. This feels like a, that to me equals local solutions. Well, what kind of fish do they catch where you live? How do you catch them? What does it look like? But you're still trying to teach them how to catch fish, right? I know, no, I know. I'm not saying, no, I know, but I, but no, but I meant her,
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (27:55)
Yeah, just to be real, no fish were caught in this experience. But we'll catch some next time or the one after that. Yes.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (28:06)
the Arabic proverb that she said. But I'm hearing sort of echoes of that in this, of what does problem solving look like for you where you live? We can help you, but the implementation piece is all specialized and customized. And so there's a way in which you're there so much more engaged in the solution, it feels like, because you're not just telling them here, here's a manual, go implement it. You're like, no, go write the manual.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (28:32)
Because there's never only one solution, right? We don't care about what solution you choose as long as you solve the problem. So what matters is the problem itself. What matters is to fill the need of those people, right, you serve. That's what matters. You can find so many solutions for one problem. And this is the thing that usually the students struggle with because they want to find the solution before identifying the problem.
But it does not matter what solution you choose. There are hundreds and hundreds of solutions that you can implement. What matters is to identify the problem and make sure that you know the need of the people that you serve. So you're blowing my mind a bit right now because I'm so conditioned to thinking that we're always looking for the best solution, the optimal solution. What I'm hearing is that, and actually when you say it, I'm like, of course, that any problem...
Mim Plavin-Masterman (29:01)
Haha.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (29:28)
most problems have more than one solution, right? Whether it's AC and DC current or multiple approaches to regenerative agriculture, whatever it is, that actually, to your point, there's not just a couple of solutions. There are many solutions. But what blew my mind isn't that. It's something connecting that to something you said in the first moments of our conversation today about this, the,
the person's eyes changing when they do that. And what you've made me think is that perhaps less important than the best solution in some abstract sense is the power I'm discovering as I learn to create that solution so that the worst thing about top -down, handed -down, cookie -cutter solutions from somewhere else is that I don't build...
the muscles of learning to create solutions that work and can evolve. Exactly. And this is how we empower the students again. We unleash those powers. So to be a problem solver, and this is a version of the old, you know, give a person a fish and she'll fish for a day, but it's beyond that. It's almost like if, if I, it's not just that I'm learning to fish,
It's that I'm deriving ways of fishing. I'm improving fishing as I do this. So we're going to redo the parable, the aphorism that you stated, and we're definitely going to end with the Arabic version that's all about changing how we fish, for sure. And you enjoy the journey, right? You may not. So today you did not catch any fish. Yeah, I'm not sure we enjoyed being on the journey, but we definitely were happy when we got back from the journey.
We had a lot of fun. It's and I'll just say this much so this was Folks from three parts of the world in one fishing boat not really big enough for the three of us and none of us had ever fished more than once and But the key thing here that that that is actually worth noting is that in the first 20 minutes as we drifted way
way toward the wrong place and tried to get the worms on the hook and just everything went wrong. We were cursing and blaming each other and complaining and taking ourselves way too seriously. And then we crossed this incredible threshold where we started to laugh, right? We started to be in that space where we're like, you know what? We don't know anything. Everything is wrong. And that's kind of when the learning actually began.
for us. I often refer to my good friend Steve Fire Riff, who runs Innovation High School in New York. And he talks about how the sense of humor is the greatest way that the human spirit learns to benefit from or learns to deal with suffering and adversity. But what you're making me realize is that maybe we only learn to innovate.
as we begin to take ourselves less seriously and experiment. I don't know if I'm being crazy here, but we're in this international group all gathered in the woods this week, hence the in -person versions of What If Instead. And yet we're all making fun of each other. I mean, you convinced our good friend Tomas Mora, you were so intent that he actually changed the dish he was making for all of us, right? So like, how is it that we're all making fun of each other like this?
and yet we're creating something together. How does that work? It's very strange, taking into consideration that we only met twice. Like last year we met for a week only, and we've been for a week now, but we've been working together for four years. We've been doing great things for four years, but we actually never, like we never spend that much time.
physically together. But whenever we see each other, so this is the second time. Now we're never going to work together again, right? It's like we know each other very well. Again, we are, because we do have the same, because the same cause, right? So we feel that we're very close, although we're all from different cultures, have different backgrounds.
different joking methodologies, right? And yet we can joke with each other as if we might've been in plays together when we were teenagers, for example. Yeah, and we all speak different languages, but we still can communicate. But how does that work? We're in this hypersensitized world. I don't know, Alejandro. Where in my country, everyone is offended by everything all the time. And here we're making fun of each other's cultures and cuisines and histories. Like,
Really? Are we allowed to do that? Is that working? It seems to be what happens. It's working. It's working. We're still friends, aren't we? Well, we'll talk later off camera about that. Indeed. Yeah, so yeah, go ahead.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (34:49)
So I guess I was going to ask, given that you guys, everybody who's in this extended connectivity platform, right? All of the co -interactors all around the world, you're together so rarely. First of all, it's kind of amazing that you're able to get this rapport so quickly, but that sort of speaks to how you're able to help the students too, I would think. And I wanted to sort of go back to...
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (35:13)
Mm. Mm.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (35:18)
the piece where you picked up the class in Belarus, partway, or the class in Lithuania with the students from Belarus, where you picked up the class partway through. And I was hoping you could get into how you built a connection with those students coming in in somewhat a time of turmoil across cultural barriers and time zones when you didn't really know.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (35:21)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, with students from the groups. Yeah.
Yeah, it was hard and I was scared at first, you know, even as co -instructors, we are as scared as students sometimes like on the first class, right? They never see a sweat there, do they? Sometimes. So I was like, and I did not know because I got used to teaching Palestinian students, right? But even my Palestinian students work in teams with international students.
So I've been working with international students, but never taught a local class for an international cohort. And I said, you know, I convinced myself that I will do the best. You know, I will use this class the same way I teach my AQB class, and I will learn about their culture, you know, from their projects, from conversations.
And I had a big class. It was the biggest class I ever taught. It was like almost 30 students. Even those 30 students, they were coming from different backgrounds and different struggles. Right. And we started brainstorming problems. The exact same thing we do in the first class with AKB students. Except now you're not in a circle in a room. No, we're online. And they started interacting and...
talking about the problems they have and from those problems I could belt or draw a picture of the culture or the circumstances they live in. And surprisingly it was different but the same. What was different? What was the same? Like same struggle but different circumstances, right? Different problems but the same will to change those problems.
I have this idea I've probably never said out loud that the reason we always need new statements of old truths is that
Truth is something that's dynamic by its nature. So even if there's a wisdom that's been known for thousands of years, that if we're finding new ways to express it and apply it and articulate it, we're giving it its life. It can't be... like there's no museum truth. It doesn't exist. And I'm using this word truth in terms of like...
you're deriving a solution and what works and what's powerful, deriving truth. And that only by re -deriving it constantly for each of these hyper -local contexts you talk about, for each of these students whose unique thinking is unleashed, as you put it, Dalia, we may be discovering old things or things that have been done in powerful worlds elsewhere, but only by discovering them anew and specifically
Do we find their power and their pertinence? Yeah, yeah. And even in this class, we used to call them my students and EHU students. This is how everyone referred to my students are AQB students, and then EHU students are EHU students. And I was like, no, you know, EHU students are my students now. And I'm still in contact with them. And they still reach out to me, and they ask me questions. They ask me for recommendations.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (39:05)
That's.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (39:10)
Some of them are still working on side projects, you know, and they reach out to me to find them help, to help them find a mentor. Because I also had mentors from Palestine to those students to help them work on projects from Belarus, Lithuania, and you know, different parts. And folks were able to find time and energy to mentor. Talk to us about those interactions. We've talked a lot about...
facilitators or co -instructors, maybe you can explain for listeners what a co -instructor is, but just differentiate that if you will from a mentor, how are those things set up? How do they interact with these geographies and this rebel based platform and these projects? Yeah, so one of the unique features about this course, not only that the students work on their own problems,
but they get the help needed not only from the co -instructors, but also we assign mentors for those students who are experienced in the field that they're working on. And they don't have to be in the same geography as you were saying. No, of course not. Of course not. And some of them never met. They only worked online with the mentors. So let's say we have a student working on finding solution for solid waste in this specific area of the world.
or on food insecurities. We look around as co -instructors and from our own network, and friends and family, we find someone who is experienced in this specific field and we introduce that mentor to the group of students and mostly international, you know, team members. And this mentor works with the students throughout the whole semester as an expert to help them
build this project and provide them with the expertise that they don't have to make this project shine. And this is an opportunity for them also to build connections because some students, some of the mentors, so after the class, students reach out to those mentors and they wanted to intern in the companies they work at or in the NGOs or in the places that they work at.
So it's an opportunity for them to gain experience not only from us, but from people in the real world who are working on projects similar to what they do or what they are planning to solve.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (41:43)
That's amazing. And I wanted to follow up on one piece of that in particular. So the mentors are coming from your social networks or the social networks of your co -instructors. So given that you were picking up this class of Lithuania, in Lithuania of Belorussians, how did you find the mentors for them? Was it, was it from Natalia's group that you were taking over? Wow. Okay.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (41:52)
Okay.
Okay.
No, no, it was from my own network as well. And I put them in contact, like I would send an introduction email between the mentor and the group who's working on a specific project, and then they carry it on from there. And they work with the mentor and especially like the financial. Most of the students, they struggle with the financial part of their ventures. So they need help with from someone who is experienced in that part.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (42:13)
Okay.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (42:37)
And they work, yeah, exactly. And they meet, they usually have like weekly or bi -weekly meetings with their mentor on Zoom and they go through what they have done so far. The mentor can access their projects on Rebel Base, leave feedback for them and then discuss their work together. So it's purely from my network, my own network and the mentors do it for free as well. And sometimes that expertise, I actually want to ask in a moment.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (43:04)
Wow.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (43:07)
why they do it for free, what they get out of it. But before we go there, that expertise, it sounds like, can be functional, such as knowledge of early stage financials. It can be topical, such as, I understand, micro energy or something like that, peer -to -peer solar systems that we just talked about in a recent episode. Or it can be expertise that's about an industry, right? So a function, a topic, or an industry, correct? Yeah.
Exactly. And sometimes the co -instructors themselves, like if we have a co -instructor who is very experienced in solar energy, right? Then we can direct this group to work with this co -instructor. And you've printed this thing that is quite something where the experiment is hyperlocal and point to point, but the expertise is coming from beyond my ecosystem often, beyond that immediate group of people I might rub shoulders with.
and then I'm gaining experience in the real world beyond the experience I'd otherwise have. So it's a local experiment with expertise and peer comparisons that's global point -to -point and experience in a world beyond my own. Is that the correct picture that I'm painting? Yeah, absolutely.
I'm very interested to go back then to this question from a moment ago where you talked about the mentors doing this and you almost made it sound like they were going to thank you for it. I don't know if that's exactly true. That's true. Sometimes I had to take them out for dinner. These are good dinners. This is what we're really talking about. It doesn't take long for them.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (44:52)
hahahahah
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (45:04)
to discover why they are doing this for free, just like me when I started teaching, really. And just when they start working with the students, sometimes it could be overwhelming. But then when they see how excited the students about their own project, how excited they are to implement those projects and to make a change, then they do like the mentors and.
the same mentors I have every year reaching out to me, do you have a group of students for me this year? So they want to do it just for the same reason that we all do what we do. Wow. Which is because we're extremely well paid, right? Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Stock options, yeah. And we meet every year in person. Yes, Mim, go ahead.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (45:39)
So I would ask you to follow up on that. What.
So I had a question about this. So there's something about the work that is making people kind of lose themselves in the work. For you, for the mentors, for the co -instructors, what is that? Or what are those things that are making you lose yourselves? Making the folks being like, you had to take me out to dinner last year, now I'm ready to do it for free. Again, no dinner required.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (46:10)
Yeah, I think it's different for each of us. So for the students themselves, it's because they are producing something of their own, something that they have worked on for a whole semester and has a great and huge impact on their society or the world as well. So for the students, the pleasure comes from creating something that they own with a great impact. For us co -instructors,
When we see the students enjoying their work and putting so much effort to change this world, it gives us more and more fuel to keep going, you know, and empower more and more students. Yeah, I don't want to see them only enjoying it. I want to see them really struggling, really gasping for breath a little bit. Of course they do struggle, but also pleasure comes with struggle, right?
Because we don't want all this to take the easy way. We want to struggle. We want to have a tough journey so we can enjoy the results. Yeah, I feel great sitting here after fishing in the rain. This is all comes all roads come back. But seriously, you talked a few minutes ago about that light in the eyes and or the eyes of the student. You've also spoken in this conversation, Dahlia, about
Some of the hardest challenges human beings face, domestic abuse, war, environmental catastrophe, and these are not abstract challenges. I wonder if you could speak to many of us who, you know, maybe we hear about these things and they seem just too much. How is it that we can think of all this empowerment when the challenges are so severe? Yeah. And...
It's hard. It's very hard. And I remember one of the students who told us that we need some therapy while working on our project. Yeah. She was like, I'm struggling, not because the work is hard, but because like the consequences and the mentality. You know, you buy dinner for a lot of psychotherapists now, right? Because it's really challenging, right? Like mentality wise, when you work, especially when it comes to people that you know and people that you are connected with.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (48:09)
You
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (48:32)
and they are going through those hardships and even you yourself can go through this thing when working on a project. And as hard as it is for us, it's also hard for the students themselves. Trying to solve something that they are going through or trying to solve something for very close people they have or something they are witnessing going wrong in their communities and they put everything they can to make a change.
And it needs a lot of work. It needs a lot of braveness. You need to be really brave to go through this journey and tackle it and meet with those people who are suffering and look at their needs and make sure that you are actually filling the needs of those people that you are serving. It's a lot of work, but at the end, the end result is to end this struggle, right? Even if you don't end it.
to make it better for them. So I think this is what keeps everyone going, whether students or us, when we work on those big and challenging problems and issues around us.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (49:46)
So to take the discussion of hyperlocality extra hyperlocal, what's something you Dahlia have changed? I'm coining it. I'm going to trademark it. You owe me money. No.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (49:54)
Is that a technical term, Mim? Extra hypological.
Okay, deal. Deal. Season to sit. Yes. I'll never use it again. He has a rastafari. You gotta watch out with MIM. They show up at your door and they're gonna be processed. What's up with you Americans? I have lots of fliers. Good question. The only people making money in the States these days. Excuse us MIM.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (50:05)
Okay, no, no, this one's for free. This is free. Yeah.
No, no, I was just kidding. Yeah. Okay. No, but this is sort of a Dahlia level question. What's something you Dahlia have changed for the better or something you're working on changing for the better? It could be personal, it could be larger. So if you decide what your unit is, a measurement.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (50:38)
hard question. I have to think about it.
I think at first I was very emotional working on the projects themselves and there is nothing wrong with being emotional but I was struggling you know even to help the students work on their projects if I'm like I have the problem that they working on or like I'm facing it or someone close to me going through this problem.
Or just the fact to make Palestine a better place to live in is very sensitive for me because we do have lots of struggle growing up in Palestine and living in Palestine and Just to come to class itself is a struggle to go through the checkpoints You know last semester was very tough because we were going through the war and we're still going through the war and still having to go into the global sessions, you know working with international students
And you feel sometimes like everyone lives in good conditions, but you live under occupation, you live in a struggle, you have to struggle to be in this class, right? Some students did not have access to the internet because of what was going on last semester. We could not go to classes, in -person classes. We had to work online because of the war. And it was really hard because we were working, some students had different projects, some students were working on climate projects, and the war hit.
So they had to switch their projects because they can't disconnect from what's happening on the ground and work to solve the emissions at this point, right? So they changed their projects to help in the needs that are current right now in Palestine. And that was really tough. But I think, and I think I told you that I was teaching the EHU class during that time as well, and the AQB class.
And this is what got me through and distracted me from what was happening around me. And I think it's the same with the students because I was scared that they will get detached from their projects and not do the work needed. But apparently all of us just invested all the energy we have into those projects and into working during that time. And we had some great projects. We had this project, Melodies for Palestine, who started out by using
music as therapy to children, but switched to have this project specifically for children of Gaza to use music as therapy for children in Gaza. And they competed in the, what was the name of the competition? We had launch a different world competition and they won as runner up. Although they were going through huge struggle and we were all going through the war during that time and they still were able to compete.
and finish their project and finish their work and win as runner up for this competition. So I think this is one of the main things that, or the main challenges we have when teaching this class is that the political situation around us living in Palestine and choosing the projects, most of the projects in Palestine are connected to this struggle we live in. When you speak about music,
my parents, my brother, they're all musicians. And my first moment is to think, well, is music even meaningful when everything is fraught, when there are the hardest things human beings deal with? But then I think the music that's known as music from my country is music that mostly came out of...
enslavement of a huge part of our population. And that's a very troubling idea, meaning obviously there is nothing good about
war or slavery. And yet you make me think as I pause and listen and hear, I've heard Christina talk about this project that, that maybe it's not this Maslow's hierarchy where we think about music only after we think about innovation, only after we're comfortable and, you know, I don't know, on the beach in Malibu or something like that. But it's the very opposite that everything,
that we make that's meaningful as human beings, proceeds in our spirit's need to find dignity, to help people who are suffering, even in the most unjustifiable conditions. And during those times, really you can find, because you're looking for survival, right? And you want to survive, you want to feel better.
You're looking for therapy in anything. So not only music, like maybe for us working on the project, on different projects was therapy. You had a team helping people who'd been hurt and first aid skills and this sort of thing. Exactly. So we feel that we are productive. We're doing something. We're not helpless. Because I remember at, sometimes you remember I called you and I was like, and a student actually, a student in the global session.
raised his hand, a Palestinian student, and he was like, I don't see the point of doing all of this when we can't be dead tomorrow or when we can't be killed tomorrow. And all of us paused. Because you have to think, really, what's the point of doing this if you can't protect your own people, right? What's the point of working on waste management when people in your own country are being killed and your students are in huge danger?
and we did not have an answer for this student, none of us remember, and we were just silent. And it's okay not to have answers sometimes.
But all like, I think he got support from all the international students and they were emailing him and like sending him texts and we're there for you if you need to talk. So it's just to have this community and people, the students never met, international students they never met but they work on same projects and they have this connection between them and it's to have like this one body of international community makes everyone I think feel relieved and it's there before.
many of us. Yeah, we're not really separate. And even though one of us might be sitting in the woods in New York state and another might be in a township in South Africa and another might be in Dhaka or studying in Lithuania from Belarus or any of the other regions.
that we're not, I can't know what that student's experiencing, but somehow there is a fraternity, it would appear, that develops where it's no longer just a news story for any of us because we're collaborating together.
to imagine and launch something better for our communities, for our suffering planet and world, and for each other. Yeah, and I remember Nico from the BNLson movement. He kept sending me like pictures of demonstrations that they make asking for ceasefire from the campus that he's teaching at.
and how his students went on demonstrations, carrying signs to ask for ceasefire and put some pressure, international pressure to stop it. So this made the students feel really connected. And as well, I never met Nico in person, but I feel that I know Nico in person, this feeling. And until today, he keeps texting me, how is it going? And he sends me articles that they published, or a friend of him had a talk on Palestine. And it's very...
It's just like this solidarity, like international solidarity makes us like feel better as students and as Palestinians as well. Just that we have this community that supports us. And at risk of being too mechanical when I say this, too instrumental, what builds that solidarity in a time when we're all, many people are on Zoom with people from around the world.
What's happening there? I don't know that you would have an answer. I'm not sure I do. But you've gone through this process of describing people collaborating to address pressing problems, understanding what each other are up against, being creative and helping each other. What is it in that mix that can create a solidarity that's not just the usual surface platitudes?
Oh, I'm so sorry to hear about your earthquake, right? But something more meaningful. I don't know if I have the answer for this question because I also wonder, right? How like how we sometimes we're like more than 120 people at the Zoom, right? Call on the in the global session. And how can we all be like connected and care about each other? We never met. Everyone's different and different. Like.
Everyone is living in different parts of the world, but you see that there's something that attached us all together. And maybe just the cause that we're working for, right? Us as co -instructors that we are working to make change. And the students feel part of this body as well, that they are working to make change, no matter where this change is. It's in Palestine, it's in Belarus, it's in Kyrgyzstan, it's in South Africa.
we are making change, right? And that's by itself is like a huge, it's huge to feel that you're doing that, right? And that's again from empowering each other. So I think this is the thing that connects us.
I wish we could look now forward for a moment.
As we bring this to a close, I want to ask about Dahlia's ideas, your ideas, about are there ways that we can do what you just described so beautifully more broadly for people who could be empowered, who could build solidarity and who could create solutions together. But before I do, Mim,
I wanted to make sure, is there a thread that you wanted to bring full circle before we look ahead.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (1:02:17)
That was actually my question, my thread of connecting all this. So yeah, we have the same question.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (1:02:24)
Yeah, Mim and I are in a Vulcan wine meld, so... That's right, that's right. We all have, three of us in this group that came together from around the world this week in the woods are wearing bright mustard yellow pants, right? I was next to one of them. Dahlia has taste, but some of us...
Mim Plavin-Masterman (1:02:25)
Yes, we even dressed alike today, which was not planned. So...
I appreciate that. I appreciate that very much.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (1:02:53)
We look like, I don't know which generation of Star Trek, but I've never had a pair of pants that wasn't blue or brown or black, probably in my life. My first pair of mustard yellow plants and now the whole world. I'm a trendsetter, clearly. But one of the things that brought us here together with our yellow pants this week and our people who have taste is that we're thinking about, so this thing that has been meaningful that you've talked about, right?
Mim Plavin-Masterman (1:02:56)
They look like the monkeys.
Okay.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (1:03:22)
this empowering, this unleashing unique thinking, this connecting of people, this way of bringing together expertise and mentorship and everything solidarity that you've described. It's so different from I think the disempowering experiences that so many of us have. And
What you said, Dahlia, about it gets me through, it gets students through, is something that...
is true for many of us in all our different circumstances. That feeling that you're, it's more than a feeling, right? The experience of actually rolling up your sleeves and trying to create something better. Now, with that said, with all our challenges locally and globally, are there ideas you have? How much of this could be this work you're doing, you specifically?
could be expanded as you've learned from that first time when you were in the long commute and as you put it you never taught before and you it was the funny thing you said it took four months before you realized that yeah it's worth it it's worth it right is that something that could apply in more places and what would that what would it take to give that to others since you've now been doing it in multiple geographies?
I think if I had this magic stick, I would just like tap, tap, tap everywhere on the map. I have a present for you, right? And then just make this available everywhere around the world. Because everyone deserves the opportunity. Or everyone deserves an opportunity. And for people who may be in a place where they're feeling right now, disempowered, alien, forgotten.
they feel as if no one understands what they're going through. All of the opposite of that. They don't feel like they can do anything. They read the news and it just seems like a horror show that they're increasingly unable to even do anything about except, you know, scream like the munch figure, right? What would you say? What are things that that...
that if I'm sitting somewhere in any place on earth and I've listened to what you said, as a closing thought, what would be a direction that I could go in based on this experience you've had these four years? I think I'll just tell them the story of Ahmad, Ahmad Hijawi. The story itself is very inspiring to anyone. Ahmad, on the first...
day of class he told me that I don't know what social entrepreneurship is. I never worked on any project. I was like I don't know if I am in the right class either. I just signed up for this class. He was very honest with me and I don't know if I'm capable. And I was like okay we don't require any experience here but are you willing to learn? Are you willing to change? And I was like yeah I am. I think he said I think so.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (1:06:25)
You
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (1:06:47)
And Ahmad started working on this project during the course. That was in 2021. And now Ahmad has a company called Clean Palco. They won a regional competition throughout the Arab world. In Jals, right? Yeah, in Jals. And they got funding for their company. And the company is called Clean Palco. And they treat waste that comes from tires.
and turn it into tiles and floor, and they have applied that into municipalities in Palestine. And not only that, Ahmad now is in the US doing his masters in global studies. And Ahmad is one of many people who thought that he could not do it. But he did it, and he shined, and he is still shining.
And he's one of those success stories, one of many success stories, where people did not think that they have the capabilities. And we did not do anything. We just helped them discover the hidden capabilities that they have. So I think anyone who thinks that they can do it or that they are desperate or they don't like something,
then just work on changing it and you have the capabilities and you will be able to make a change because just like Ahmed, many and many people have changed the world really and are still working on changing the world. So everyone can.
For the first time in my life, I have nothing to add. Dahlia, thank you so much. It is such a privilege to be here speaking with you on What If Instead, and I learned so much every time I get the chance to converse with you. It is my pleasure. Thank you.
Mim Plavin-Masterman (1:08:49)
Yes, thank you. Thank you.
Alejandro Juárez Crawford (1:08:51)
Thank you.