The Good You Are | Global Connections Call 6.7.23

James is a social entrepreneur. He founded Street Priests Incorporated,  a youth-led movement that aims to transform the lives of street children. After experiencing life on the streets as a child himself  a complete turnaround inspired James to dedicate himself to helping young people in similar situations. Street Priest Inc operates one of a few community centers in Nigeria and has impacted over 16,000 young people through social and emotional learning programs. The inspiring story of Street Priest has been covered by numerous media outlets. James has been recognized for his work as a global team leader because, by the way, he started all this as a very young person,He's been recognized for his work as a global team leader by the We Are Family Foundation and as a Future African Leader among other accolades. He holds a bachelor's degree in social entrepreneurship from Lynn University.  He currently is the Programs Director for Watson Institute at Lynn University where he implements training, mentorship and community building to equip the next generation of social entrepreneurs.

James joined us in June to share his story and heartfelt insights. We invite you to enjoy the call recording. The following is a summary of our call.

James Okina [00:06:21] Thank you so much Hollister for that wonderful introduction. Truly humbled, truly grateful to be here. And I'm honestly very, very honored by this invitation. So I just wanna say thank you once again. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Sylvia. Thank you for this invitation. I'm truly grateful. I want to start by actually, I'm gonna share my screen first and then I'm going to ask this question. So my question is, “do you remember what you were doing or where you were on the 16th of June 2016?” It’s very specific, right? But do you remember where you were or what you're doing on the 16th of June 2016?

So this date is very important and dear to me because the event that happened on this day definitely changed my life  and led me down the path that I'm on today. I remember this day vividly because on the 16th of June, 2016, I'm trying to remember exactly what it was. Maybe it was maybe two or three tablets of tramadol or more than required that I had overdosed on and I could remember how many times my heart would stop and start.  Filled with so much anger and thoughts of just being betrayed. It was very clear that death was very close and, and knocking persistently, at that time.  I remember the people around. I could see them, but couldn't talk, couldn't say anything. They were trying to get my attention, but I couldn't respond. It was almost like being in the twilight zone. You're already one step  in with the dead. Each breath was a struggle and each breath felt like forever. 

Evidently I didn't die because I'm here today. but more importantly, this is actually not my story. This is the story of a nine year old boy who died in my arms on that day because he overdosed on tramadol. The reason why I told this story is because that day something in me died as well. I'd never seen someone take their last breath. He was a wonderful kid, one of many children who lived on the streets and still live on the streets of many cities around the world. I kept asking myself,, “what could we have done better?” Because when I found him, he had been lying in the same spot for two days and nobody had responded or done anything to help him. Of course I was upset, but it made me ask questions around the work and even the subject we're gonna talk about today. “The good you are”. We're talking about global practices in terms of peacebuilding and, and how to make the world a better place. “But I'm convinced that the good you do is not as important as the good that you are.” And it was this realization that led me down this path. At the time I had already started my work with street priests. But that conviction really gave birth to a movement.

Today in Nigeria, it's a youth led movement made up of over almost 1000 young people who volunteer and led by just about 10 people who work full time. The organization focuses on advocacy, making sure that the voices of children on the streets are heard and taken into account while we put together policies all engineered and run by young people. We also run a community center which runs five days of the week. And it's basically a program that combines social and emotional learning to help children on the streets reintegrate back into society. They get food, shelter, etc.  The aim of the program is to help them reintegrate back into society, whether by way of reuniting them back with their families. We also work with another organization who provides housing for some of them who have no family. And then we support them with  their welfare as well as education. We've seen some of our kids graduate from high school, go up to university. So far we've been able to impact about 17,000 Children. We've enrolled almost 300 back in schools.

[00:14:16] Over $70,000 have been raised in cash and a lot of it's a very community-led effort. There's a lot of in kind donations that pour into us,  a lot of people that give their time . We have over 18,000 volunteer hours. You might look at that and think, well, that's amazing.  I'm convinced that if we're going to change the world, it's not gonna start with reaching out to a kid who is on the streets, right? It really isn't. And it's going to start with us, as an individual, right? 

That's how I came about with the name, Street Priests, right? The name came out of frustration. When I started this, when I was 13, I started talking to adults who I thought were in the best position to do something about the problem. And I would speak with so much passion and everyone would tell me, well, “what you're saying is nice and what you're, you know, pointing to is clearly a problem. So what's the government doing? What's the church doing?” And the more I heard that the more, I was disappointed because I think grown ups can do something about this problem and that's why I'm talking to them and are telling me what's the government doing? What's the church doing? At first there was disappointment and then that disappointment slowly grew into frustration. And then one day I think when I had it up to my neck, someone said to me, “why can't you be the priest on the streets?” And that was how Street Priests was born. It came really out of the idea that, as individuals, we can become agents of change in the world.

As I went through my work, right, I began to find out that not everybody thought… there was a problem to be solved. So I began to have some kind of resentment towards people, right. And this is, you know why I'm speaking to you today because when you're working in peacebuilding or conflict resolution, you have to be very careful not to become the monster that you're fighting. And that's why the good you are is too important, the greatest battles that you will fight. I'm still very young, so I'm still learning a lot.  I'm still growing. But these are some of the things that I've picked up along my journey. You have to be very careful. The greatest battles you will fight are not going to be with the people who stand in your way, it will have to be with you, right? Because a lot of times again, through my work, I found out that and a lot of people who I respect who are doing a ton of good, but they use that as an excuse to be a terrible father or a terrible friend, a terrible spouse, terrible sibling. But, you know, we all want to change the world as cliche as it might sound, it starts with who you are. 

[00:17:32] I'm gonna be sharing a few points and best practices. that have helped me in my journey to protect my own heart. When you're doing this type of work, it pulls a lot at your heart, who you are at your very core. The path to protecting your heart is so narrow that you're not going to just stumble upon it. It has to be very intentional steps, very intentional practices that will get you there. It's not even a destination, it's more of a journey than a destination. As long as you're on this earth, you would have to keep walking that road, right?

I think the first thing that has really helped me is self reflection. You have to spend time reflecting on what's happening with you, what's happening with your world, right?. If you're trying to build peace, it's easier than you think to excuse hurting people because you're a good person. You're doing something good. So you must be a good person. You have to be able to self reflect, and come out of yourself and almost observe yourself and your actions. “Are they consistent with the world you're trying to build, are they consistent with the problems you're trying to solve? What side of the aisle do you stand on? Do you stand on the problem side? Or do you stand on the side of the solution?” A lot of the problems we are trying to solve in the world are really a product of habits, group habits, I should say. For example, children on the streets. With the work that I have spent more than a third of my life on is something I could never wrap my head around as a 13 year old - and I still can't wrap my head around - is how did we get here where it is ok for an eight year old to have to live by themselves on the streets, survive by themselves? 

Like you would  be livid if that was your daughter or your son or your niece or your nephew. Like, it's unthinkable. But how did we get there? It was a group habit, like it's ok, it's out of sight, it's out of mind. It's not my child, it's not my relative, right? So it's ok. These are the group habits that I have brought us here. So with every problem you're trying to solve, the first thing you have to try to unpack is what are the group habits that exist within that sphere that you might also be unconsciously contributing to it through your own personal habits, that have been encouraged by whatever groups you belong to.

[00:21:06] If it was easy, everyone would do it. But this is also the thing that differentiates us as a species from other animals. You know, dogs can't reflect, we can. And so you have to be able to do that for yourself on a daily, weekly basis, whatever the case may be. Who you are is more important than the work that you do. 

The next thing is the hardest thing in the world. It's so difficult and I'm saying this upfront. because I don't want you to be disillusioned about this one bit. It's something you've heard over and over again. Listen, can you listen? Not listening to respond, not listening to retort, not listening to be defensive. Can you just listen? This starts with some of the basic stuff, right? Can you even listen to your own body?  A lot of the symptoms that we might, you know, experience from day to day is our body trying to get your attention.  It's like if you're treating symptoms, you're not listening because the symptom is your body trying to get your attention that something is wrong somewhere. Something is wrong with a habit. Something is wrong with something that you do every day. You know, it could be something as simple as drinking more water. Right. and if you keep treating the symptoms, you keep, you're gonna keep running into the same problems.

[00:23:11] So, even in your own relationships, it starts with the relationship you have with yourself and then your relationship with others, right? If you're always, you know, bickering with somebody that's a symptom of something else. Can you listen for what's not being said, that's included in what's being said and again. These are the four main things that usually prevent us from listening. [1} You wanna be defensive. You feel like there's an attack on your person. You're working on peace building. You must be a good person, right? So anything that deviates from that narrative in your mind is an attack on your person. It means I'm not a good person. When you hear some kind of feedback that might not be the kind of feedback that you're looking for., it doesn't mean that you're not a good person. Think about it as an opportunity to do better because remember the good you are is more important than the good that you do.

Some of the things that I've learned throughout my work and even with working with children who live on the streets is [2] when it's uncomfortable to listen, perhaps the only right thing to do is to sit on it, don't respond. When it's uncomfortable to listen, that means it's touching on something, right? That means pay attention, right? If you can get to the bottom of it, it will solve a lot of symptoms that you might be seeing and experiencing, not just with you, but with the world around you.

[00:25:36] Which brings me to my third point, be willing to be uncomfortable. [3} You have to be willing to be uncomfortable. I like to think that everyone in this call is some kind of stakeholder in someone else's life, whether in the capacity of a parent, a spouse, a friend, a brother, a sister, a sibling, maybe even a grandparent. Can you listen to these people without letting yourself get in the way, without letting your discomfort get in the way?  It's not about being comfortable

[4}Resist the urge to feel like you have to defend yourself. You wanna do good in the world, you're doing good in the world, but you have to first be a good person. And to be a good person, there's a lot that you have to work through. So the question I always ask myself is what are you trying to defend? If it's a great thing about who I am, then I don't need to defend it, I'll be fine.

And finally, I wanna say this peacebuilding and changing the world does not exonerate you from being accountable. A lot of times when we approach these things, we approach them with the mindset of a catalyst and you have to be, it's almost like you, you're not a part of the problem and you're trying to solve the problem. You almost have to think like that to be able to be a changemaker. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that, but just because you're a part of the process, it doesn't mean that you're exonerated from being held accountable. I think one of the things that qualifies a person to solve a problem or to get into the arena to engage with some kind of evil opposing force is their willingness to be held accountable.

[00:28:55] I want to finally say, and this might be very cliche, but I couldn't think of anything more profound or salient. If you want to change the world, if you want to build peace, even to build sustainable peace practices in your community, it starts with you. What are the peace practices that you have with yourself? 

Q&A

Ugo [00:30:02] thank you James for the wonderful work you are doing. I have a question and I want to ask. How you are able to break some cultural and religious practices that actually put these children on the streets to fend for themselves. A typical example here in Nigeria is the Almajiri practice is very common in the northern part of Nigeria. And those of us from Nigeria, we understand this very well. We understand the excruciating pain that these children have to go through just to fend for themselves because they believe [it] is part of their religious practices. So it is very difficult to take such kids out of the streets because in the first place, their parents, their community, their religion, their culture has pushed them to the streets. So how are you able to overcome this challenge?

James [00:31:00] Thank you so much Ugo. That's a great question. It definitely comes back to  trying? Our first instinct when we hear about parents who will intentionally put their kids on the streets, is they're terrible, right? I think the first thing that I've had to do (and I learned this the hard way) was change my first instinct or response to “ they're human, they're human.” I think fundamentally once I can say and see that they're human, I want to understand what are the things that we have in common, right? They want to survive, they want to eat in their own way, they love their kids, right? And if I can understand that, then I can talk to them. 

There are other things like labeling kids as witchcraft. How do you convince a caregiver or a parent who is convinced that their child is a witch or wizard not to ostracize them? The first thing has to do with me. I really fight the urge to see them as these evil, incomprehensibly wicked people. I see them as human and I go into the conversation with them with that mindset.  I'm trying to hear what they're not saying that's included in what they're saying. For example, in the North, with the Almajiri kids, a lot of them want to have a great standing with Allah, which is why they  subscribe to those practices. So it takes some knowledge of the Koran to understand that some of that the amateur practice is more cultural than it is religious. Once I'm able to make that distinction with them, the next step is to appeal to their higher sense of self. You have to speak to people in their language or in the language that they understand.

[00:32:12] There's the practice called social Aikido. It's  something that was gleaned from the martial arts Aikido, which has its roots in Japan. Its philosophy is based on the fact that when you're going into a fight, you have to use the person's strength. You don't use force, you use the person's strength to almost subdue them. I've been in a meeting with a judge trying to get a conviction for a rape case. And the judge himself said to me the girl is 15,  that was her lover. It's difficult not to get infuriated when you hear things like that. But when I go into that conversation, I want to find a way to tell them. It's not me against you, it's us against the problem. So I find the things that we agree on and leverage that. There's no easy answer. It's a different thing for a different person. and different people, but that's kind of the mindset that helps with that, Ugo.

Barbara [00:35:09] James, what an inspiring presentation and so much insight. In Ukraine I work, with a program called the Understanding Peace Project. Well we started 2.5 years ago before the invasion. And it was a lot easier to talk about it when there wasn't a war.  I have worked sort of in the trenches my whole life, but never in the trenches that I'm in now. And, even though I was in the military in Vietnam, I wasn't there. I was in my ivory office  or whatever. And now it's very different. The greatest joy and the greatest challenge is talking to these kids about how to be a place of peace themselves first so that they can experience whatever is going on with more self awareness, more, you know, resilience, more peace so that they're wiser. But how do we? They're killing us and they have these questions. How do you do both? “How do you remain peaceful in the middle of a war and not fall into hatred?” The kids do better than the adults because they're more naturally able to hold both of those things. But the adults think, are you nuts?  So what would you say? Because I do my best to answer this question every day, but I'd be thrilled to hear your answer. What would you say to the teacher or the student when they say you can't ask me to forgive them? You can't ask me to be peaceful towards them. That is insane.

James [00:38:16] That's an amazing question. And there's so many ways I could go about this. I particularly enjoy working in that space. With children on the streets, some of them have their own mother or father kicked them out, and every day on the streets is like insult upon insult and they come to this point where they hate people. They become the perfect weapon for people who want to carry out mayhem, you know, in a lot of communities. When I just started my work, it was very common to hear stories about a teenager who had just stabbed someone or killed someone and did this or that. 

It reminds me of my own experience when my parents separated, and I turned to vices. When I look back now with the gift of hindsight, I didn't care about shoplifting. I didn't care about doing all those things. It was a cry for help. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to also have a sense of belonging. And the people who accepted me were unfortunately people who were doing all the wrong stuff. 

[00:40:11] The first thing I would say Barbara is, you cannot start the conversation with forgiveness. That's not where the discussion starts. The discussion has to begin with why they even have to forgive in the first place. As long as forgiveness is communicated as something that is given to another when they don't deserve it, it's going to be a difficult endeavor. But that's also not correct. It's not a correct depiction of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not something you give to someone else. It's something you give to yourself. It's something you give yourself because you deserve to live and you deserve to live fully. 

I'll tell you a story and I hope some of the points in here will provide some insight as well. A few years ago, I received a call and at the time I was 17. I will never forget the 30th of March. They said your dad has just been killed. I said, what do you mean my dad has just been killed. Like, what does that even mean? And the person just ended the call. I called my mom and my mom said to come home. Apparently that evening he had been ambushed and macheted, and left to bleed to death not by a stranger but by someone who grew up in the same house as me, ate from the same food that my mom cooked, someone who actually shares the same first name as me. The very next day I had to travel with my mom to identify his body, go to the crime scene. And it was, and it was terrible. It was extremely terrible. The memories, the pictures are still very fresh in my mind, the trail of his blood. the last signs of his struggle, his flip flops right where it happened. 

I knew it was going to be difficult for me to even begin to tread that line around forgiveness for the person who had done that. He was on the run for a while. The police caught up with him eventually. His accomplice had been caught. So they arraigned them before court and I was filled with so much anger and vitriol that I decided not to go back to court again because really again, in all transparency, what I felt like doing was rushing through the seats and wrestling his accomplice to the ground. Now, I'll tell you this for sure, Barbara, if at that point, you met me and began to talk to me about forgiveness, I might as well have wrestled you too. That's how that felt in the moment. 

[00:44:24] After the incident, I honestly locked that part of my life and threw away the key and buried the box somewhere deep behind my heart. And a year and a half later, I watched a documentary called Haiti The Prison from Hell. Six minutes into the documentary, I already began to feel this is just terrible. How can you have a cell that has a normal capacity of six people, how can you have 30 people staying in that cell. How can people stand to sleep? So I began to be curious about things like, what's the situation in my own city? I decided I was gonna visit the prisons for the first time. I really just wanted to see the conditions of, the prisoners in the prisons in my city. So I put some care packages together. I said  I wanted to talk to the inmates and they granted me an audience with them so graciously. And as soon as I got there, everything that I feared from that documentary about Haiti, The Prison from Hell, was also true. 

[00:45:50] The capacity of the prison may have been something like 450 people, but the actual prisoners in that particular prison was maybe like seven hundred something, so vastly overpopulated. And the actual number of people who had been convicted and sentenced was like 91. So  80-90% of people there had not been arraigned before the court. International criminal law states that you have to bring someone before a judge at least 48 hours after they are arrested as part of their fundamental human rights. So the people who had been there for two years never saw a judge and they're just passing time in jail. 

Tell me why I walk in there, and the first person I see is the person who killed my dad. All of these things that I had buried, I now had to confront, I had a choice to make. It wasn't a complicated choice at all. That choice was either to forgive him there and then, or get into a burst of rage. It was very simple, it was very clear, right? And all of a sudden it felt so hot, I couldn't even breathe. I decided to drop it all right there.

[00:47:42] I spoke to the inmates that day and after I was done I was walking free for the first time since my dad died. This might be a fluffy subject to some, but I felt physically lighter when I walked out of the prison that day. And that's what I learned. Even though I learned it in retrospect, forgiveness is not something you give to other people, it is something you give to yourself. It's the freedom that you deserve if you're going to live fully. That guy was in prison, but I was in prison too. I was a prisoner of my own heart and the moment I decided to let him go. I walked free myself. 

So this conversation around forgiveness, it's a very tricky one. It differs from person to person. One of the reasons why it was easy for me to make that decision is because one of the biggest, most important values in my life is autonomy and freedom. And it was easier for me to make that choice because the promise of freedom was on the other side. So you have to speak to whatever it is that is most important to them, you have to speak to that. It's definitely a very huge conversation especially with young people. And to your point, Barbara with young people, it's easier for young people to forgive than older people. And the young people that you're working with in Ukraine, if that region is going to move forward from this, it's going to be because of them. 

I would also recommend case studies documentaries about what happened in Rwanda, not just with the genocide 26 years ago, but with the aftermath of the genocide and how Rwanda was able to come out of that, to becoming one of the most advanced countries on the African continent and one of the most advanced Rwanda has a better education system than the United States today. And this was a country that just 26 years ago, was literally at the gates of hell. How was that possible amongst many things that happened? It's the overwhelming strength of the people and the willingness to forgive and move forward as a nation. So I'd recommend that as a case study.

Wazieh [00:51:11] It's a pleasure meeting you. And while you were sharing, I was like, if only we had Street Priest in the street back in  1999-2000 and then, I believe that it would have been a great impact. I'm so glad for what you're doing for these kids on the street. The work we do is like personality at times, it has become, at times it's difficult to kind of separate yourself like your own personality and the work you do. In the context of  who you are is more important than your work, the good you are is more important than the good work you do. At times, we assume the work we do is who we are. But you brought my awareness and it creates a prompt that I want to understand. How do you actually separate it or define it? Now, in the work you do now, how are you able to separate it that I am more important? Or the good I am is more important than the work I do. These are two different things, but at times, we assume they are one thing. That's the first question. 

Then the second one is some, can you listen without letting your discomfort get in the way? I work with community people and at times it is about sharing,  and then at times when you are in conversation with others, I think I kind of feel like sometimes my emotions or I'm feeling like they are too demanding or the pressure is too much. So how do you actually ensure that your discomfort doesn't get in the way or in between?

James [00:54:49] Great question. First of all, thank you. And even just from listening, irrespective of what happened between the years of 1999 and 2004, I'm grateful for you. Because the fact that you're here today and doing the work that you're doing, it means that you're making the world a better place for someone else. So I just wanted to say  thank you and appreciate you. 

In terms of the second question, I think it's definitely a tricky surgical procedure to separate who you are from the work that you're doing. But it can be done and has to be done. A lot of times you can clearly articulate the values or the modus operandi of the work that you're doing. But what about your own values? What are the values that you have as a person? What about your own modus operandi as a person? You have to have that independence. You can't get swallowed into your work. If you're working in peacebuilding, you have to have one of your values independent of your work.

[00:56:22] And what are your own motives? You as a person? I think the other thing [to remember] is it's not a destination, it's a journey. You have to try to have a symmetry in, in word, thought, and deed. It can be a struggle, but there has to be a symmetry between your word, your thoughts and your deed. You can't go to work and espouse values of peace and go home and do something else. You can't do that, right? 

The second question I would say is the discomfort will always be there. It has to be there, right? But embrace it, that's what I would say. Don't shy away from it, acknowledge it, don't deny it if you are in a conversation and it gets heated. Some more specific practices can be excusing yourself and telling people, “OK, I need a moment. to, you know, put myself together. I need a moment to catch air to breathe.”  And then revisit that conversation, but don't deny it, don't act like it's not there. You have to embrace that discomfort and acknowledge it.  I've been in meetings where community leaders are literally screaming at me. You know what I don't do, I don't scream back. In that moment, I want to hear them out.

 [00:58:38] I was doing a project with the internally displaced persons camp and  I remember this one guy who was convinced that we were enemies because we wanted different things. He was literally screaming at me and said something that was mixed with abuse and insult. And usually the normal human response is to respond to the insult. But I responded to what he said and I asked for clarity and he was taken aback. I just asked, can you provide more context so that we can do better? We became best friends after that. Also know what your own triggers are and, and plan for it as much as you can. 

Hollister[01:00:32] I'll read Obi's question in the chat. It's about the challenges. What  are the greatest challenges you have working with these children? What are your long term goals for the children? And what kind of support do you get from the government?

James [01:01:19] For question one, I could write a book about the challenges that have to with this kind of work. If I was gonna say what the greatest challenge is, I'll say it's having to deal with the politics of getting things done. That's the biggest challenge, right? If I'm trying to work with the rule of law and a judge is telling me off the record why the case is gonna be difficult to get a conviction on a rape case. And that's the kind of problem I face with every other part of my work.

Something we say a lot at Street Priests is that our work is not defined by what we do, but by what is left to be done. The last report that came out about children that live on the streets I think there are about 100 million children on the streets around the world. In terms of the real long term goal I have for the world, I think it is to have a world where children are not an afterthought. Our societies have developed to include certain fundamental infrastructures. There are certain things you must have - hospital, schools, places of commerce. I think community centers should be a part of that infrastructure. Where do children go when the family structure fails them? I would also like to see a world that really works for children. I would like to see  our schools and law enforcement really work for children. Nelson Mandela has this brilliant quote. He says you can tell a lot about his society by how it treats its children.  If you fix a lot of problems that have to do with children, you fix a lot of other problems later on in life, right?

[01:03:51] As for your question - What kind of support do you get from the government in your state? None for now, but I would say we're trying to work to build up whatever kind of relationships and partnerships that we need with our government. In an ideal situation, the work we do is not work for a nonprofit, it's work for a government parastatal. I would say this in my state in Nigeria, where we work, it has some of the most child friendly laws in the country. So that helps because then there is a basis to pursue certain convictions or do certain things. 

Marilyn [01:05:19] It's more of a comment about who you are versus what you do. It was so clear to me when I lived in a South African township for years. The organization that I worked with was on the receiving end of “charitable, behaviors, donations, acts, etc.” You could clearly tell who was doing what they were doing to make themselves feel good versus who was doing what they were doing to actually serve. It's a hard thing to define until you really see it. So that to me is a very simple answer to that question. What is the motivation behind you doing it? What you're doing as a server to make yourself feel good.

James [01:06:30] Thank you, Marilyn. That's a brilliant dichotomy of that statement.  You point to something else that I think all of us can walk away with, which is you can make that distinction with your motivation. I saw this quote when I was 14 and it stayed with me ever since. “You know you're righting wrong when your motivation is colored by things of lesser value.” And I think that's a great answer to the difference between the good you do and the good that you are. Thank you so much.

Hollister[01:07:11] James, thank you so much. You shared so deeply and personally and I'm always convinced that storytelling is one of the just premium practices for peace and that it's a gift to the people who are listening and it's hopefully a gift to those who are sharing. And so I just thank you for sharing so deeply and honestly, and you have an incredible story and a beautiful heart.

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