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Joanne Lockwood: ignite the spark of inclusion with Inclusion Bites.
Joanne Lockwood: And today is episode 131 with the
Joanne Lockwood: title Fluency Forward, and I have the
Joanne Lockwood: absolute honor and privilege to welcome Caroline Praveen.
Joanne Lockwood: Caroline is the founder
Joanne Lockwood: Fluency Forward Foundation, lots of f's in that, that promotes education
Joanne Lockwood: in underprivileged areas of the world. And when I asked
Joanne Lockwood: Caroline to describe her superbowl, she said it is her relentless
Joanne Lockwood: advocacy in her dedication to improving lives
Joanne Lockwood: and her unwavering commitment to positive change.
Joanne Lockwood: Hello, Caroline. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Jo. It's glad to be
Caroline Praveen: here. Excellent. And you've got a lot of f's in Fluency
Joanne Lockwood: Forward Foundation, don't you? I do. It's not so fluent.
Joanne Lockwood: Excellent. So, Caroline, tell me more about fluency
Joanne Lockwood: forward and what that means to you. Yeah. So that's an
Caroline Praveen: organization that I started about a year ago just based
Caroline Praveen: off of my own experiences and kind of my
Caroline Praveen: desire to make a change for the people that I know are
Caroline Praveen: experiencing the same thing that I've gone through.
Caroline Praveen: And right now, my efforts are kind of twofold. For 1, it
Caroline Praveen: focuses on working with local
Caroline Praveen: immigrant and refugee refugee children in Pittsburgh.
Caroline Praveen: These children are from, like, Afghanistan, Syria,
Caroline Praveen: the the Congo, Venezuela. There's so many countries,
Caroline Praveen: and they've all come here just looking for a better life,
Caroline Praveen: but are currently confined to a more disadvantaged
Caroline Praveen: community. And right now, I'm kind of just helping them
Caroline Praveen: with their English language skills and also helping
Caroline Praveen: them to appreciate their culture while also
Caroline Praveen: learning about those of their neighbors. And the other thing that I'm
Caroline Praveen: doing is I am raising money to promote education. So
Caroline Praveen: one of the more notable things I've done recently is I've
Caroline Praveen: hosted this fundraiser where I kind of
Caroline Praveen: promoted it as a cultural kind of event, and I
Caroline Praveen: had more than 200 attendees. We raised about $4,000.
Caroline Praveen: We had 3 sponsoring organizations. We showed up in the news. It was a
Caroline Praveen: really great time, and we donated all the profits to
Caroline Praveen: another NGO that donates the money to
Caroline Praveen: children in rural India. That's fascinating. You said
Joanne Lockwood: at the beginning there that, you wanted to help people to overcome
Joanne Lockwood: some of the challenges you'd faced yourself. Do you wanna talk a bit more more
Joanne Lockwood: about to the listeners around the challenges, who you are,
Joanne Lockwood: your background, and some of the the you know, you obviously had to overcome some
Joanne Lockwood: challenges. So what what those in particular? Yeah. Of course.
Caroline Praveen: So I am from India. I was born there, and
Caroline Praveen: my parents moved here to the United States with
Caroline Praveen: the kind of goal of creating a better life for myself and my
Caroline Praveen: brothers in terms of education and just opportunities in general.
Caroline Praveen: So we came here when I was pretty young, but
Caroline Praveen: I didn't have an amazing grasp of English at all.
Caroline Praveen: And once I started going into school, I kinda just shut
Caroline Praveen: down. I was pretty much I was a very confident kid
Caroline Praveen: in my native language, which is Malayalam, a South Indian language.
Caroline Praveen: But once I kind of transitioned to English, I just kind of
Caroline Praveen: lost all aspects of my personality and wouldn't ask
Caroline Praveen: anyone for help, wouldn't reach out to anyone. And that really affected me
Caroline Praveen: not just academically, but socially and internally. So
Caroline Praveen: as a kid that can't connect with the classmates sitting right next to
Caroline Praveen: her, I really just struggled to kind of like
Caroline Praveen: myself and be happy with myself. And I think
Caroline Praveen: the biggest issue there is that there was no kind of,
Caroline Praveen: like, miracle for that. There was nothing that saved the day and made
Caroline Praveen: everyone accept me or made me extremely
Caroline Praveen: fluent very fast. It was kind of just I had to deal with it. I
Caroline Praveen: had to spend a long time kind of perfecting my English, and from
Caroline Praveen: there, it just improved. May I ask what age you moved to the US?
Caroline Praveen: I came here so, essentially, I started schooling
Caroline Praveen: and started to truly learn English around 5. Around 5.
Joanne Lockwood: Okay. Because your accent sounds typically
Joanne Lockwood: American to me. It it you you obviously acquired English at a
Joanne Lockwood: very young age. Mhmm. So you're very you're extremely fluent.
Joanne Lockwood: I guess that comes from living living in the country for a long time
Joanne Lockwood: now. So you yeah. You you've grown up with it. What what were the biggest
Joanne Lockwood: challenges you found? I mean, you talked about your your lack of self
Joanne Lockwood: confidence because you're obviously nervous about pronunciation. You
Joanne Lockwood: have to double translate in your head. Your whole mind is
Joanne Lockwood: yep. You can't dedicate your mind to your personality. You
Joanne Lockwood: have to dedicate your mind to the translation. So how how did that
Joanne Lockwood: manifest itself? You know, you said you you were you lost confidence.
Joanne Lockwood: How did you find a way to regain that over that?
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. So I mainly lost confidence in
Caroline Praveen: a lot of school and just extracurricular settings. I
Caroline Praveen: wasn't able to connect with anyone around me, and the way
Caroline Praveen: I kind of regained that is really just with time, which
Caroline Praveen: is the really unfortunate thing, and that's kind of the reason that I'm
Caroline Praveen: doing everything that I can today. Because I, myself, I did have to
Caroline Praveen: endure it for several years and until I got
Caroline Praveen: this accent that we're talking about right now. And from there, it was kind of
Caroline Praveen: a switch, really. It just switched, and I
Caroline Praveen: no one was weird to me. No one was kind of
Caroline Praveen: disaccepting of me, and it would it just became a lot better. You kinda went
Joanne Lockwood: from an outsider with a broken English,
Joanne Lockwood: non native, if you like, accent, to being an insider
Joanne Lockwood: where you're fluent and your your American
Joanne Lockwood: twang, if you like, is the same as everybody else's. Exactly. And that's why
Caroline Praveen: kind of on this inside now, I'm really hoping to kind of break
Caroline Praveen: that barrier and bring more of those outsiders in without all of those
Caroline Praveen: struggles. You you mentioned you're working with people
Joanne Lockwood: from across the globe who are are migrating to the US
Joanne Lockwood: from Afghan to places in Africa. What are the biggest
Joanne Lockwood: challenges they face? Are they fleeing are they fleeing war zones
Joanne Lockwood: and discrimination if it could be,
Joanne Lockwood: or are they voluntarily migrating for better lives?
Caroline Praveen: So the majority of the children that I work with are
Caroline Praveen: fleeing some kind of war. So a lot of them are from Afghanistan,
Caroline Praveen: Syria, and Congo, which are kind of war driven
Caroline Praveen: countries right now. So first of all,
Caroline Praveen: you have to deal with kind of their traumatic experiences. A lot of them
Caroline Praveen: are very young, so it's not debilitating yet. But
Caroline Praveen: you have to first address that, and then you also have to address
Caroline Praveen: their developing English as well as kind of teaching
Caroline Praveen: them to be able to accept other people from other countries. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Because we we assume that all people who migrate or who
Joanne Lockwood: are minorities are gonna necessarily be friends with all the other people
Joanne Lockwood: who migrate. Exactly. But they're they're just a stranger to
Joanne Lockwood: each other as anybody else. So they would have their own biases and
Joanne Lockwood: and hang ups. Do they do they come with their families, or
Joanne Lockwood: or many of these come alone? They the
Caroline Praveen: most of them that I know do get to come with their families, but
Caroline Praveen: they're coming from a very underprivileged background despite
Caroline Praveen: having maybe some sort of wealth in their native country, they come
Caroline Praveen: here with little to no success, and they're living
Caroline Praveen: in more of these desolate places around Pennsylvania.
Joanne Lockwood: And I I would assume, therefore, that the family itself
Joanne Lockwood: are probably not great English speakers. The parents may not have a
Joanne Lockwood: high high competency in English. So this the people you're working with
Joanne Lockwood: effectively become the family translators, I guess, and the the family breadwinners in
Joanne Lockwood: some cases. Yeah. Actually, I remember one of the girls
Caroline Praveen: that we kind of talked to every once in a while. She
Caroline Praveen: was telling us about how she can't come to our session
Caroline Praveen: today because she needs to go to her little sister's doctor
Caroline Praveen: appointment. So I was asking her why she would need to go to her
Caroline Praveen: sister's doctor appointment and because I wanted her to stay, of course. But
Caroline Praveen: she kind of explained that if she wasn't there, even though
Caroline Praveen: her English is broken, it is the least broken in her family.
Caroline Praveen: And in order for them to have any kind of successful appointment
Caroline Praveen: or schedule anything, she needed to be there. Yeah. So that's that's another
Joanne Lockwood: burden on a young person when they're trying to
Joanne Lockwood: develop themselves through their childhood, enjoy, have fun, grow
Joanne Lockwood: and learn. They have this pressure and burden of supporting the
Joanne Lockwood: family from a translation point of view. And and
Joanne Lockwood: if you're in a big family, that could be a lot of people you're responsible
Joanne Lockwood: for. Yeah. Exactly. So yeah. Yeah. I suppose the other
Joanne Lockwood: side to culture is the modern world is not just
Joanne Lockwood: spoken language. There's also we're we're very much
Joanne Lockwood: email, text, WhatsApp, Snapchat, social media,
Joanne Lockwood: online, IT. You you've gotta be quite tech savvy. I
Joanne Lockwood: assume that many of the people that come these days maybe don't
Joanne Lockwood: have advanced technology in the same way that, you know, you have
Joanne Lockwood: every day in your life now. So you've gotta overcome the the
Joanne Lockwood: spoken language, but also understand the
Joanne Lockwood: the nuances of of online communication as well, Emily.
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. I think digital literacy is a really big problem that they have to
Caroline Praveen: face on top of everything that they're already enduring
Caroline Praveen: as, like, as we as a really,
Caroline Praveen: like, nation and country and around the world. As
Caroline Praveen: we all kind of become more into digital literacy
Caroline Praveen: and especially, I think, with the influx of COVID,
Caroline Praveen: I think we've all really kind of turned to our devices and
Caroline Praveen: really focused on Internet communication. But if you're
Caroline Praveen: talking to these refugees who have just left a
Caroline Praveen: traumatic environment and are trying to even stay on their feet,
Caroline Praveen: digital literacy is not their biggest concern, which
Caroline Praveen: makes sense, of course, but it's definitely a disadvantage to
Caroline Praveen: them because there are so many opportunities online that they'll just never
Caroline Praveen: know about. Yeah. Yes. Interesting. I I suppose
Joanne Lockwood: also combined with that, you've got, I'm gonna say I use the word poverty. I
Joanne Lockwood: don't mean to say people have no money. I'm just trying to say that they
Joanne Lockwood: may not have money to invest Mhmm. In Internet connectivity
Joanne Lockwood: and tech. And it's it's they become in a modern world, it can become very
Joanne Lockwood: isolated if you're not in an online you know, you you
Joanne Lockwood: can't order food. You can't go to the cinema. All these things are booking online.
Joanne Lockwood: You need money. Most of it is online cash now or electronic
Joanne Lockwood: cash. So there's a whole load of literacy you need to
Joanne Lockwood: develop beyond just the spoken language. And tech can help you,
Joanne Lockwood: kinda. You've got, yeah, with AI. We talked about Chat GPT before we
Joanne Lockwood: went live. You can take photographs now and translate
Joanne Lockwood: menus on you know, Google Translate will take a photograph and live translate. You can
Joanne Lockwood: live transcribe television or or someone
Joanne Lockwood: speaking to you. So there's a lot more technology now to help people overcome the
Joanne Lockwood: short term barrier, but they they probably don't really help if
Joanne Lockwood: you're trying to learn the language because they almost give you a shortcut rather
Joanne Lockwood: force you to have to learn the language. Yeah. Absolutely. I
Caroline Praveen: think in a way, it can be good that we have these
Caroline Praveen: people kind of, like, originally or, like,
Caroline Praveen: inherently learning the language. But I also think, like like you said,
Caroline Praveen: it's a very isolating feeling to not be able to connect with,
Caroline Praveen: for example, a Facebook community of people from your same
Caroline Praveen: region natively. And I just think
Caroline Praveen: the, like, the isolation both geographically
Caroline Praveen: from everyone they've ever known and their isolation digitally, it
Caroline Praveen: just piles on. How hard is it to
Joanne Lockwood: stay culturally attached? You know, you talked there about the distance between your
Joanne Lockwood: your family, probably extended family still in India. You wanna
Joanne Lockwood: keep in touch with grandparents or cousins and other people
Joanne Lockwood: who are maybe not digitally connected. And this must be really, really hard to keep
Joanne Lockwood: in touch and share your stories both
Joanne Lockwood: ways. Yeah. It is. And I think it really does affect the
Caroline Praveen: kind of relationships, which is horrible when you think about it.
Caroline Praveen: These are, like, my grandparents that I don't get to talk to as often.
Caroline Praveen: So when we try to talk to them, first of all, we have to use
Caroline Praveen: a different kind of phone service that will go overseas.
Caroline Praveen: 2nd of all, the connection is horrible. We're yelling into the
Caroline Praveen: phone, getting frustrated, just trying to explain little things that are going
Caroline Praveen: on in our lives, and the infrequency of it kind of
Caroline Praveen: makes it hard to speak freely. Because if I'm talking about
Caroline Praveen: what happened in my day, I have to preface it with, oh, this is this.
Caroline Praveen: This is this activity that I'm doing. And I think just the fact that
Caroline Praveen: I don't get to see them and all these children don't get to see
Caroline Praveen: them is just horrible for the relationships in general. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. And, yeah, that must be really tough because where where you're where you're
Joanne Lockwood: living now, you just FaceTime, you wherever you Google, meet each
Joanne Lockwood: other, wherever you whatever you do. And you can see each other whenever you need
Joanne Lockwood: to. And but when you've got a cultural difference in that way, it must be
Joanne Lockwood: hard. But yeah. So the the people that, you you
Joanne Lockwood: help, and and that's right from a young age, right from the
Joanne Lockwood: you know, your sort of age was 4 5, 6 years old all the way
Joanne Lockwood: through to teenage and young adults, I guess. Yeah.
Caroline Praveen: They are of every age I can imagine, really. I think
Caroline Praveen: the youngest is probably 2, and I think
Caroline Praveen: the oldest is maybe 15. And we're all just kind of
Caroline Praveen: congregated in one area. We don't really have the ability
Caroline Praveen: to kind of separate based on age or anything. We just try to cater
Caroline Praveen: to everyone's needs based off of where they are kind of within
Caroline Praveen: their education. People have said to me that English isn't a terribly easy
Joanne Lockwood: language to learn for someone who's not a native speaker
Joanne Lockwood: because you tend to pick up a lot of the complexity of
Joanne Lockwood: English just by absorbing it and being around people and getting to feel
Joanne Lockwood: to actually learn it is a is as a as a second, 3rd, or
Joanne Lockwood: 4th fifth language is extremely difficult. And I've heard people a lot of people
Joanne Lockwood: say that speaking English is a privilege that shouldn't be underestimated.
Joanne Lockwood: How did you find it? Yeah. I agree honestly. Like,
Caroline Praveen: even in retrospect right now, the way that I'm able to just
Caroline Praveen: form sentences and we're having a conversation, certain complexities in
Caroline Praveen: it aren't they just aren't there in other languages. A lot more things are
Caroline Praveen: straightforward in the different languages that I've learned or
Caroline Praveen: maybe these refugees have learned. And just
Caroline Praveen: coupling that with an inability to actually learn English with learning a
Caroline Praveen: very hard language in itself has to be horrible. I I know
Caroline Praveen: myself, and it does help that they're children, so you
Caroline Praveen: have that kind of cognitive ability to learn more easily.
Caroline Praveen: But then you have to think about the parents, you know, because they're in the
Caroline Praveen: same boat, but their brain is 25 years older.
Joanne Lockwood: So how do you find yourself now? Are you still
Joanne Lockwood: translating in your head, or or have you managed to flip the switch where you
Joanne Lockwood: think in English now? I've managed to flip the
Caroline Praveen: switch, fortunately, but it kind of affects
Caroline Praveen: me the other way around now. So now when I'm trying to speak in my
Caroline Praveen: native language, I have to think in English first, and it's
Caroline Praveen: a lot more broken, which is I don't know. It
Caroline Praveen: it really affects your kind of security and your own identity because I
Caroline Praveen: started off with one language and was really glued
Caroline Praveen: to that one, and I use it to communicate with all of my family.
Caroline Praveen: But now it's kind of lost. Yeah. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: So I was talking to someone many years ago who was not a
Joanne Lockwood: native English speaker, and I was asking them they were very, very
Joanne Lockwood: fluent. I became we we agreed that the best way of telling is if you
Joanne Lockwood: have to do a a mental arithmetic in your head, do you which which
Joanne Lockwood: number set do you count in in English or your or your native language?
Joanne Lockwood: And you have to you have to get to that point where you're so competent
Joanne Lockwood: and you think your language, you're not translating it. That's a real it's a real
Joanne Lockwood: must be really tough because I I've never had the need to learn another language
Joanne Lockwood: in that detail. Yeah. That's honestly true. I remember talking about
Caroline Praveen: something like that with my parents who obviously came here around the same time as
Caroline Praveen: me. They still do think in our native
Caroline Praveen: language, and every time they speak, they do have to translate
Caroline Praveen: it. So I'm lucky because I learned English at a young age, so it's
Caroline Praveen: kind of hardwired into my brain. But for them, it's just
Caroline Praveen: a constant battle trying to communicate with anyone in the
Caroline Praveen: workplace, in the grocery store, at the movie, just
Caroline Praveen: constantly having to having to translate in their head exactly what they wanna
Caroline Praveen: say. Yeah. You probably see them fighting for the words and
Joanne Lockwood: Mhmm. Trying to, yeah, get the sentence
Joanne Lockwood: structure. Yeah. Yeah. So do you do you have much support in the
Joanne Lockwood: communities? You say you live in Pittsburgh and you deal with people all over
Joanne Lockwood: sort of outskirts of Pittsburgh where the properties, I guess, and the environment is
Joanne Lockwood: cheaper to live, I guess, out of the city. Are there government
Joanne Lockwood: resources helping people? I mean, I mean, I I guess the immigrants were
Joanne Lockwood: to come over, and you must come over by some sort of government program.
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of these
Caroline Praveen: refugees, at least, because they are seeking asylum,
Caroline Praveen: they do come through certain governmental organizations,
Caroline Praveen: and there are some more in Pittsburgh. There's, for
Caroline Praveen: example, there's the Jewish Council, which doesn't necessarily focus
Caroline Praveen: on Jewish people, but they focus on immigrants and refugees in general.
Caroline Praveen: And I've been able to work with them. They do a a lot, really.
Caroline Praveen: They will do everything from enroll your child in
Caroline Praveen: kindergarten from help you to kind of file
Caroline Praveen: to get your citizenship. And I think without those kind of
Caroline Praveen: organizations, which I really hope to get there one day, but they're
Caroline Praveen: very funded, very, like, well secure organizations. I think
Caroline Praveen: without them, these refugees, these immigrants would actually be lost.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I mean, being a based in the UK, looking at what's
Joanne Lockwood: going on in the news, the political climate in the US in some
Joanne Lockwood: areas doesn't appear very welcoming
Joanne Lockwood: to non native Americans, for want of a better way of describing it, or
Joanne Lockwood: in in its own right, what is an what is a native American? And we
Joanne Lockwood: go back 200 years. It's not what we imagine today, is it? It's,
Joanne Lockwood: the indigenous population of America is completely different to the current population of America.
Joanne Lockwood: So is it is it tricky to navigate that sort of
Joanne Lockwood: political societal undercurrent of of
Joanne Lockwood: of, if you like, of Native American
Joanne Lockwood: feelings? Yeah. Honestly, it is. I think
Caroline Praveen: you make a really good point. We think of what the average American is,
Caroline Praveen: and it's not even the original American people. It's
Caroline Praveen: not the people from this continent, which says a
Caroline Praveen: lot, but I think right now,
Caroline Praveen: I at least haven't experienced too many kind of microaggressions
Caroline Praveen: or racism in general because, 1, I
Caroline Praveen: don't have any kind of prevailing accent, and, 2,
Caroline Praveen: I think the the way Asians
Caroline Praveen: are treated is a little bit more durable
Caroline Praveen: in some ways. I think it's definitely damaging, but I also
Caroline Praveen: think that if I were of a different ethnicity, I
Caroline Praveen: think my experience would be a lot more difficult. The I'm
Joanne Lockwood: gonna phrase it. This is not very polite way of saying it, but you're a
Joanne Lockwood: good immigrant. People you're you're kind of you're an acceptable view
Joanne Lockwood: of of an immigrant because your skin is you're you're not you're not
Joanne Lockwood: black American. You're Asian American, which is a a completely different sort
Joanne Lockwood: of privilege, if you like. Yeah. It's kind of the
Caroline Praveen: different facets of racism in general. You have this, like, good
Caroline Praveen: for a lack of a better way to say it, like a good immigrant or
Caroline Praveen: someone that is kind of stereotyped for
Caroline Praveen: working hard or being in computer science or
Caroline Praveen: smelling. Like, those are all very damaging
Caroline Praveen: to my identity, but they are not life threatening.
Caroline Praveen: So I think I am kind of lucky in that way
Caroline Praveen: where you have other people that are accused of so many worse
Caroline Praveen: things. Yeah. Because you you said in in the show notes your aspiration is to
Joanne Lockwood: be a doctor or or follow a medical career. And
Joanne Lockwood: your ethnicity gives you a positive bias,
Joanne Lockwood: because people would expect someone of Indian
Joanne Lockwood: descent to be a doctor or be in that kind of you you always have
Joanne Lockwood: that that positive, yeah, so the positive bias,
Joanne Lockwood: you know, help you help you in that that respect, I guess, and and
Joanne Lockwood: your, I would say, perfect English with a with an American accent
Joanne Lockwood: is is also gonna help you. I suppose then you
Joanne Lockwood: then you end up in this as you I think you you hinted to this
Joanne Lockwood: this dilemma in your head around your culture versus your
Joanne Lockwood: your current status and almost having to, I'm not
Joanne Lockwood: saying, deny who you your your upbringing. But you have to you
Joanne Lockwood: have to ride the fast train, don't you, if you'd like to take advantage of
Joanne Lockwood: society? Yeah. I do. I kinda have to override
Caroline Praveen: who I was in the beginning in order to be successful here,
Caroline Praveen: which it's amazing that I have the opportunity to be here
Caroline Praveen: and accomplish so much. I think that I would be nowhere where I am
Caroline Praveen: if it were not for the country that I live in. But it's also
Caroline Praveen: sad to think that in the process, I've had to kind of give up a
Caroline Praveen: part of myself. Yeah. It yeah. It
Joanne Lockwood: is. It it's it must be really frustrating. How do because,
Joanne Lockwood: obviously, we're here, we're talking about you. What's your experience of working with
Joanne Lockwood: the people you're helping? Do they have similar dilemmas? Are they are they
Joanne Lockwood: are they are they learning English in the same way you have and developing?
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. They I think they're honestly in a worse situation than I
Caroline Praveen: am. I was able to learn English
Caroline Praveen: through kindergarten and so on, but I had at
Caroline Praveen: least some kind of prior knowledge while I was in India
Caroline Praveen: because they did teach you a little bit. So although I was really
Caroline Praveen: struggling, I wasn't clueless. A lot of these students are
Caroline Praveen: completely clueless, but more than that, they come
Caroline Praveen: from a more disadvantaged background than I do. So
Caroline Praveen: coupled with a worse understanding of English
Caroline Praveen: and very limited resources to actually kind of combat that, I
Caroline Praveen: just think their experience is even worse, and I I feel absolutely horrible.
Caroline Praveen: I'll talk with these children, and they'll just tell me about
Caroline Praveen: different things that have been going on in their lives. Like, for
Caroline Praveen: example, there's this one boy that always comes as always comes up
Caroline Praveen: maybe 15 minutes earlier to help us set up. So he'll
Caroline Praveen: carry he's 6 years old. He'll carry around the tables. He'll set up the
Caroline Praveen: chairs. He'll put down the snacks. He'll do everything just to
Caroline Praveen: help out, but mainly with the intention of being
Caroline Praveen: able to talk to me. And I really appreciate that a
Caroline Praveen: lot, and I think it's really important to build that kind of rapport with
Caroline Praveen: these different students because they have so many things to talk about. And
Caroline Praveen: some of them are not so good, and it's good that they kind of have
Caroline Praveen: an outlet to talk to. Yeah. Because you you see a lot of this on
Joanne Lockwood: the news, and it I I don't pretend to have an understanding of
Joanne Lockwood: how the everyday true lives of what's going on, just the news versions.
Joanne Lockwood: But someone like Afghanistan, Taliban,
Joanne Lockwood: how it's unsafe to be a a a young woman or
Joanne Lockwood: or even a woman of any age and also a young
Joanne Lockwood: child, you know, young adult in a in a country that is
Joanne Lockwood: so dominated by a religion that
Joanne Lockwood: prevents anybody but men really having any
Joanne Lockwood: success or privilege in life. It must be really tough to live in that environment.
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. And it has to be worse, really, kind of moving
Caroline Praveen: here and seeing that switch. I mean, it's
Caroline Praveen: freeing in a way, but, like, for example, the Afghanistan to
Caroline Praveen: Afghan children that I'm dealing with, the woman, for example,
Caroline Praveen: they don't even believe themselves that they have the right
Caroline Praveen: to the education that I provide or
Caroline Praveen: the conversations that we have as a group. Yeah. It it it reminds
Joanne Lockwood: me in some respect around the book, Handmaid's Tale or the film, The
Joanne Lockwood: Handmaid's Tale. You get so indoctrinated around
Joanne Lockwood: the parameters of your life. You could become socialized into this very narrow
Joanne Lockwood: view of who you can be. And then coming to America where,
Joanne Lockwood: basically, yeah, the American dream is you can be who you wanna be provided
Joanne Lockwood: you fit in my box. Yeah. It's it's far more
Joanne Lockwood: empowering than it is maybe coming from somebody's country. Yeah. And I think it's kind
Caroline Praveen: of debilitating in a way to start from
Caroline Praveen: this horrible place of origin and come
Caroline Praveen: here. You have all these opportunities, but you don't even believe in
Caroline Praveen: yourself, really, that you deserve them or that you have the
Caroline Praveen: capacity to achieve anything. Within the communities you're you're
Joanne Lockwood: helping, is there visible role models? Are are you are you
Joanne Lockwood: able to show people succeeding in the environment in a
Joanne Lockwood: bit? Yeah. I I I don't know Pittsburgh
Joanne Lockwood: specifically or the environment. I I guess it's majority. Is it a white
Joanne Lockwood: or a black kind of area? Is it? It is. I would say
Caroline Praveen: it's a majority white area, but I would say that
Caroline Praveen: the kind of, like, dispersion of minorities is not
Caroline Praveen: lacking in any way. So it is nice to
Caroline Praveen: see certain kind of role models within just the sessions that
Caroline Praveen: we hold. So, for example, there's this one girl who was a little bit older
Caroline Praveen: than most of them from I think she's from the Congo or
Caroline Praveen: she's from Ghana. I couldn't tell you. But she has
Caroline Praveen: learned a lot. She's very she's very smart, naturally. So she's
Caroline Praveen: learned a lot from what we've talked about. And because
Caroline Praveen: she's gone through so much herself and she has that kind of sympathy,
Caroline Praveen: she does go out of her way to help everyone else that's kind
Caroline Praveen: of struggling. So in a way, I see myself in
Caroline Praveen: her. Yeah. Could we talk you know, I I talk
Joanne Lockwood: to a lot of people around, yeah, limiting beliefs in imposter syndrome,
Joanne Lockwood: And and this must have nothing compared with the limiting
Joanne Lockwood: beliefs in imposter syndrome you and other people you're working
Joanne Lockwood: with have faced. It's hard to I mean, I know how how hard it is
Joanne Lockwood: to overcome my imposter syndrome about a number of things. It must be really
Joanne Lockwood: hard to find that belief because you have to you have to kind of trust
Joanne Lockwood: yourself, believe in yourself before anyone else will believe in you. Because it's
Joanne Lockwood: it's it's really tough. And if you've if you've got no anchor point
Joanne Lockwood: of success or you're you you can't even
Joanne Lockwood: can't even leverage success of your family because your
Joanne Lockwood: family are potentially worse off than you. So you've got no
Joanne Lockwood: history. You've got no second generation or third generation
Joanne Lockwood: or grandparents or people in this country that you can kinda call on. You you
Joanne Lockwood: almost you really are starting from scratch, aren't you?
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. And another way that kind of affects everything
Caroline Praveen: comes to schooling and kind of
Caroline Praveen: the college application system and high school application
Caroline Praveen: system. Because, for example, I'm first generation in the United
Caroline Praveen: States. I know hardly nothing about the
Caroline Praveen: process of applying to college because I'm doing that right now. So
Caroline Praveen: we find ourselves asking We're lucky to have a community. We're we
Caroline Praveen: find ourselves asking older people, how does financial
Caroline Praveen: aid work? How many colleges can I apply to through the common
Caroline Praveen: application?
Caroline Praveen: Concept of having this community. I have a community to talk
Caroline Praveen: to about these kind of concerns, but these children
Caroline Praveen: don't necessarily have anyone that they can identify with. Yeah. The
Joanne Lockwood: only relatable experience I could use for my own life
Joanne Lockwood: is I'm of a generation where my parents and my wife's parents
Joanne Lockwood: are are elderly now. We're going through the process of sorting
Joanne Lockwood: out care, nursing homes, end of life, and it's
Joanne Lockwood: completely a territory that I've I've got no experience
Joanne Lockwood: in. And the people I'm of the similar sort of age
Joanne Lockwood: haven't been through it either because their parents are probably maybe a little bit younger
Joanne Lockwood: or haven't got to that point yet. So it is really hard
Joanne Lockwood: navigating something where you have you've got no nothing to hang
Joanne Lockwood: your hat on if you like, nothing to anchor on, and you have to pick
Joanne Lockwood: up as you go along. So it must be hugely challenging, let's say, for you
Joanne Lockwood: and the others. You're helping to get that
Joanne Lockwood: cultural awareness. That's kind of what it is really, isn't it? It's the cultural awareness.
Joanne Lockwood: The the stuff that people just know. Yeah. I feel like there's some things that
Caroline Praveen: no matter what, you just you can't teach in a way, which is horrible
Caroline Praveen: when you think about it, but it stems under the same problem that I dealt
Caroline Praveen: with. Once you're here long enough and you're kind of immersed long
Caroline Praveen: enough, you do have to deal with the issues for several
Caroline Praveen: years before not only that you learn English, but
Caroline Praveen: you pick up on all little subtleties. You pick up on
Caroline Praveen: the sarcasm, the idioms, the even the way we
Caroline Praveen: form sentences in the slang. Yeah. A lot of it is
Joanne Lockwood: culture based around television, films,
Joanne Lockwood: media, as you say, casual social interaction at schools and
Joanne Lockwood: colleges, wherever. You just kind of pick it up, don't you? You kind of know.
Joanne Lockwood: I mean, if if I was 17 years old again
Joanne Lockwood: living in the US, I'd have no idea about sororities,
Joanne Lockwood: varsity, you know, college etiquette, you know, all this kind of
Joanne Lockwood: only what I see on the films, and I can't that's because that's completely detached
Joanne Lockwood: to my view of my upbringing in schooling. You know, I even I can't even
Joanne Lockwood: relate to the curriculum and the
Joanne Lockwood: school structures of people in the UK because I'm 40
Joanne Lockwood: plus years out of school. So, yeah, it's, I
Joanne Lockwood: guess I could see the challenge there of trying to create a relatable
Joanne Lockwood: identity with with the culture you're trying to live in. When you ask someone to
Joanne Lockwood: explain it, they go, but it just is because you kinda know it. You just
Joanne Lockwood: it just is. You you never thought about having to explain what
Joanne Lockwood: that meant to somebody because it you don't have an explanation. It's just something that
Joanne Lockwood: exists. Exactly. You don't know why is there? Yeah. And I
Caroline Praveen: I think I'm lucky in a way to kind of know all of
Caroline Praveen: this now, but like you said, there's some things that I just never even think
Caroline Praveen: about to talk about. And I think that
Caroline Praveen: just kind of stems from the kind of, like, national identity that
Caroline Praveen: I've had to kind of put myself into, like we said,
Caroline Praveen: become an I insider. As an outsider, it's hard
Caroline Praveen: to see anything about that national identity
Caroline Praveen: and pick up on the little cues like the etiquette, for example.
Joanne Lockwood: So we we live in a a global economy now. We
Joanne Lockwood: we travel, we communicate online. The world has kind
Joanne Lockwood: of shrunk a lot in the last 10, 15 years. COVID probably
Joanne Lockwood: helped to shrink even further. We can now communicate by default with
Joanne Lockwood: anybody anywhere in the world that has the right to end up. But there's a
Joanne Lockwood: feeling the world is effectively becoming more divided. We're becoming more
Joanne Lockwood: parochial, more kind of protectionist, more isolated
Joanne Lockwood: in our cultures, and more fearful of
Joanne Lockwood: of of outsiders. So how how can we
Joanne Lockwood: think about becoming more connected in this global work global
Joanne Lockwood: world and, relating to different people's experiences
Joanne Lockwood: better? Yeah. I think you're
Caroline Praveen: you're absolutely right. I think the more that we become
Caroline Praveen: connected as a world in general, it's
Caroline Praveen: just more and more opportunities for this kind of conflict. The closer you
Caroline Praveen: put people of different mindset and different background
Caroline Praveen: and of varying levels of stubbornness, the
Caroline Praveen: more you see this conflict and everything kind of blow up.
Caroline Praveen: I think the way to kind of combat that really
Caroline Praveen: has to be to target everyone's underlying mindset.
Caroline Praveen: The only reason that you see certain policies or
Caroline Praveen: certain acts of discrimination from organizations or even
Caroline Praveen: governments in general always stems down to
Caroline Praveen: someone's mindset or several people's mindset, which is a very
Caroline Praveen: hard thing to change. I think it's very difficult
Caroline Praveen: to tell someone, hey. What you're thinking is
Caroline Praveen: wrong. It's discriminatory, and it needs to change.
Caroline Praveen: It's kind of accusing in a way. And I think especially
Caroline Praveen: in America, to be told that what you are thinking is wrong
Caroline Praveen: is a very hard battle. And just
Caroline Praveen: once there's a way to kind of symbiotically
Caroline Praveen: repair that kind of mindset within a lot, a lot a lot of
Caroline Praveen: people, you can start to see some kind of change.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. I I I often say that you can't confront
Joanne Lockwood: privilege head on and because what happens,
Joanne Lockwood: people with privilege will just recoil. They'll get defensive.
Joanne Lockwood: They'll shut down, dismissive, or start using water
Joanne Lockwood: boundary and and, and just denying people's experience. So
Joanne Lockwood: it's it's it's exhausting sometimes to have to do the education, the
Joanne Lockwood: constant reminders, the subtle. Remembering to be quietish
Joanne Lockwood: and not not too loud, because if you if you're too loud,
Joanne Lockwood: people will react badly. And so it's a real struggle trying to
Joanne Lockwood: get your voice heard and and to get change out of it, isn't it?
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. Absolutely. But you want to be a I think you said in the show
Joanne Lockwood: notes you want to be you want to be a doctor. So what sort of
Joanne Lockwood: medicine do you wanna study? I honestly don't know what kind of
Caroline Praveen: medicine I wanna study. I think once I go
Caroline Praveen: to medical school, experience a pain in medical school medical school, first of
Caroline Praveen: all, but also go through the rotations and
Caroline Praveen: kinda just get a better understanding of what I'm dealing with, I would
Caroline Praveen: have a better understanding of what kind of field of
Caroline Praveen: medicine I'd wanna go into. I just know in general that I do
Caroline Praveen: want to go into medicine because I always have,
Caroline Praveen: but recently also as I've begun this work to
Caroline Praveen: combat the health disparities that I've been seeing. That's interesting. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Health disparities. Yeah. Because, again, privilege does lead to
Joanne Lockwood: disparities in in in medication, education,
Joanne Lockwood: and sanitization in the communities we live in. We saw it in COVID as well.
Joanne Lockwood: So what what sort of health inequities have you come across so far?
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that I've seen
Caroline Praveen: firsthand with the people that I'm working with has to be
Caroline Praveen: the lack of quality care for people from a
Caroline Praveen: socio socioeconomic background. For example, one of
Caroline Praveen: the boys that comes to our sessions, he is
Caroline Praveen: actually the same student that will help us come set up in the morning.
Caroline Praveen: He one day, he came up to me, and we were
Caroline Praveen: just talking as normal. I handed him a table, I think, to set
Caroline Praveen: up because he's kind of accustomed to that. But he kinda just
Caroline Praveen: looked up at me and kind of shook his head
Caroline Praveen: no in a way that kinda contradicted his general
Caroline Praveen: demeanor. He's a very lighthearted kind of character I've seen,
Caroline Praveen: and I knew something was wrong. I just didn't know that
Caroline Praveen: I'd see a ginormous abscess on
Caroline Praveen: his arm and another one on his teeth. And it just comes
Caroline Praveen: from the lack of access to health care
Caroline Praveen: in general, the lack of access to hygiene. Yes. That that's
Joanne Lockwood: another another factor as well, isn't it? And health care in
Joanne Lockwood: the US isn't cheap either, or so? No. Not at all. It it
Caroline Praveen: fully depends on what kind of the health care plan that you have
Caroline Praveen: and the insurance that you have, but it's very hard to get an insurance plan
Caroline Praveen: if you don't have an established credit score, you don't have an
Caroline Praveen: established source of income. No. As I mentioned, I'm a
Joanne Lockwood: a native English speaker. I've I've spoken English all my life.
Joanne Lockwood: The only language apart from a bit of French and a bit of German and
Joanne Lockwood: Spanish when on holiday. What how would you kind of advise
Joanne Lockwood: me to create environments where people have we call
Joanne Lockwood: use the expression broken English or English developing English where
Joanne Lockwood: they're they're they're not as competent and confident in it? How can
Joanne Lockwood: I best help somebody without without putting too much pressure on them? What what
Joanne Lockwood: sort of techniques would you use? Yeah. I think that's a really good question, and
Caroline Praveen: that's something I've thought about a long time, kind of bringing these
Caroline Praveen: native English speakers into the sphere of work I'm
Caroline Praveen: doing and just instilling a sense of empathy. I think, first
Caroline Praveen: of all, it does relate to empathy, which I can tell you have, which is
Caroline Praveen: great to start off with. But I think just, like, in
Caroline Praveen: an actual environment when you're dealing with someone who
Caroline Praveen: is kind of struggling to form their words, the biggest thing is not to
Caroline Praveen: be kind of demeaning in the way that you deal about it. A lot of
Caroline Praveen: people, they are trying their best, but if you're talking to
Caroline Praveen: a 30 year old male and speaking to them like
Caroline Praveen: a child, their ego will be hurt. You have to kind of consider
Caroline Praveen: the fact that even though they aren't able to express
Caroline Praveen: themselves like a fully developed adult, they are a fully developed
Caroline Praveen: adult with the same thoughts and same feelings that you might have just in a
Caroline Praveen: different language. So I think the biggest thing is not
Caroline Praveen: to kind of act like their children. Talk like talk in
Caroline Praveen: a very kind of demeaning way and just enunciate very slowly
Caroline Praveen: and put on this kind of baby voice. I think that's the most damaging thing
Caroline Praveen: someone can do. I think it's more important to just
Caroline Praveen: take your time. Let them have their time, not really
Caroline Praveen: show any kind of judgment, but also not try to be
Caroline Praveen: so overinclusive that it just becomes kind of
Caroline Praveen: humiliating. There's a huge difference between how
Joanne Lockwood: people can express and talk than how they
Joanne Lockwood: listen and understand, isn't it? There's a huge huge gap there. So what you're saying
Joanne Lockwood: there is if I try and overcompensate to help them, it's patronizing,
Joanne Lockwood: it's unhelpful because they're used to listening to
Joanne Lockwood: people speaking English on television, shops, and. The
Joanne Lockwood: fact they haven't mastered the skill themselves to speak it doesn't
Joanne Lockwood: mean that they can't understand. Is that is that what you're saying? Yeah. Exactly.
Caroline Praveen: And it also goes back to kind of their field of
Caroline Praveen: expertise if they do have a job. So I've talked to a couple people
Caroline Praveen: that are in the field of science as
Caroline Praveen: immigrants and refugees. They have such an amazing
Caroline Praveen: understanding of what they're doing, and they can communicate
Caroline Praveen: that really well in English better than you and I could
Caroline Praveen: probably. But once they start to talk about something that doesn't
Caroline Praveen: relate to work jargon or just, like, in general,
Caroline Praveen: you really see that switch in the capacity of their
Caroline Praveen: English. I think what what you're saying there is don't use childlike language.
Joanne Lockwood: Don't overpronunciate. Don't don't be deliberately kind
Joanne Lockwood: of assuming that they don't understand.
Joanne Lockwood: Speak calmly slowly, but not overly slowly.
Joanne Lockwood: Give the person time to respond. And if they are struggling with their words when
Joanne Lockwood: they're trying to speak back to you, do you allow them to to continue to
Joanne Lockwood: offer help or suggest a word or wait for them to give you a cue?
Caroline Praveen: Usually, I think they'll give you some kind of cue if
Caroline Praveen: they've thought about what word they're looking for for a long time and they just
Caroline Praveen: haven't gotten anything, they'll kind of look to you. And I think I
Caroline Praveen: think you'll be able to tell. At that point, yeah, it's fine
Caroline Praveen: to help them out and just kind of offer different things that you
Caroline Praveen: might think they're looking for. But, otherwise, I think the best thing is
Caroline Praveen: to let them take their time. They know what they want to say.
Caroline Praveen: They just don't have the words to form it, and that's a very difficult
Caroline Praveen: thing to deal with. So I think being patient and just taking the
Caroline Praveen: time to let them do their thing is it really
Caroline Praveen: does a lot for them. Yeah. Because many many people will start by
Joanne Lockwood: apologizing that their English isn't very good. And I'm thinking,
Joanne Lockwood: well, my my Spanish or my German, my French, or my
Joanne Lockwood: my whatever language you said at the beginning you speak,
Joanne Lockwood: my my mine is nonexistent. You know, yours is your English is far
Joanne Lockwood: better than my my my interpretation of your language. So, yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: it's but I I suppose that's the human nature. You
Joanne Lockwood: want you want to be better, and therefore
Joanne Lockwood: you you tend to apologize. But I I think we need to encourage people to
Joanne Lockwood: to not apologize, be proud that they're actually succeeding
Joanne Lockwood: in in communicating, and and I shouldn't judge them for that.
Caroline Praveen: Exactly. And I feel bad because some of these people will
Caroline Praveen: apologize for their kind of broken English, but then
Caroline Praveen: they'll talk to you with everything being understandable. It's
Caroline Praveen: just slight differences in the grammar or the pronunciation,
Caroline Praveen: but they're still speaking in a way where you understand everything they're talking
Caroline Praveen: about. Yeah. And I think we can be quite bad at active
Joanne Lockwood: listening, can't we, as as a as a human species? So I think
Joanne Lockwood: it's also incumbent upon me as the listener
Joanne Lockwood: to actually give that person attention, give them eye contact,
Joanne Lockwood: smile, encourage them, show understanding, and say,
Joanne Lockwood: actually, I missed that. Can you you did you mean this? So you can always
Joanne Lockwood: repeat. And they go, yeah. That's exactly what I said. And, yeah, I I think
Joanne Lockwood: it's just it's it's it's good communication as well, but we get quite lazy.
Caroline Praveen: Yeah. Assuming people understand each other, it's like, it's
Joanne Lockwood: too difficult for me. Again, perfect. We're just pushing it back, aren't we, and
Joanne Lockwood: putting the burden. It must be quite
Joanne Lockwood: inspiring for you to see people who are
Joanne Lockwood: coming together in the community you help from different backgrounds,
Joanne Lockwood: different native languages, all
Joanne Lockwood: speaking, communicating in English, and growing in the culture that
Joanne Lockwood: in Pittsburgh in America and starting to become
Joanne Lockwood: part of the new America, if you like, and growing into that
Joanne Lockwood: must be really, really inspiring for you. Yeah. It makes me feel like
Caroline Praveen: I've actually accomplished something, and I'm actually making a
Caroline Praveen: difference in, essentially, the lives of the children
Caroline Praveen: that I was just maybe 10 years
Caroline Praveen: ago. So I think that I'm really grateful when I see
Caroline Praveen: these kind of children developing that I've leveraged
Caroline Praveen: my own experiences and my own struggles to take the burden
Caroline Praveen: off of someone else. And it's as you're saying, it's not just the children.
Joanne Lockwood: It's their entire families. And Right. The next generation.
Joanne Lockwood: So you you're you you are you are building a new life for
Joanne Lockwood: these people through or enabling their new life through what
Joanne Lockwood: you're doing for them. Yeah. And a lot of these people
Caroline Praveen: have been almost eternally grateful to me
Caroline Praveen: and the people that I work with that have helped them. Like,
Caroline Praveen: the parents, for example, they I am a teenage girl,
Caroline Praveen: but they are so indebted to me
Caroline Praveen: and the work that I've done for them. They regard me as someone that
Caroline Praveen: they can go to for advice and for consolation, and
Caroline Praveen: I'm really happy to be that outlet or that
Caroline Praveen: source of comfort for someone that's not even my own
Caroline Praveen: age. Yeah. Where's the world going, do you think? Are we gonna become more
Joanne Lockwood: united, or are we gonna end up in more division for a while?
Caroline Praveen: Honestly, I want to say that we'll come will
Caroline Praveen: become more united, but I think the way things that are the way
Caroline Praveen: things are looking right now, at least, it's not
Caroline Praveen: looking very promising. I think the more that nations
Caroline Praveen: get into contact with each other or the more that
Caroline Praveen: globalization becomes more prevalent and you see this influx of immigration,
Caroline Praveen: it's always been a kind of negative reaction. But I think that
Caroline Praveen: with time and just getting used to it at least, I
Caroline Praveen: think that it can become a more inclusive environment. It's
Caroline Praveen: just right now with, for
Caroline Praveen: example, all of the different racial protests that have been going on in the
Caroline Praveen: United States for the past couple years during COVID and I think
Caroline Praveen: a little bit after that. I think the United States and a lot of
Caroline Praveen: other countries that accept a lot of refugees or people seeking
Caroline Praveen: asylum are in a really tense kind of state because
Caroline Praveen: they have to consider themselves as a nation, but also consider
Caroline Praveen: these people that are just looking to better themselves. So
Caroline Praveen: is it similar of an environment in the UK, would you think? I'm
Joanne Lockwood: probably not best placed to be an authority on that. But,
Joanne Lockwood: yeah, I I guess what happens is you end up with something
Joanne Lockwood: happens and then there's acceptance, acceptance, acceptance, And then you get to a
Joanne Lockwood: point where the incumbent people push back saying
Joanne Lockwood: the the minority is getting too much time now. They're getting too much attention,
Joanne Lockwood: getting too much investment. What about me? Then I think
Joanne Lockwood: it's pulled back a bit, and then you have to grow back again. So it's
Joanne Lockwood: almost like a step. You go forward a bit, back a little bit, forward a
Joanne Lockwood: bit, back a little bit. And I think and that's frustrating. You know, you don't
Joanne Lockwood: wanna wait 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. I mean,
Joanne Lockwood: women as a woman, I don't wanna wait 70 years for equity in
Joanne Lockwood: in a workplace or equity in the world. As a minority, you you want you
Joanne Lockwood: want you want a voice now, and it I think whatever we
Joanne Lockwood: do, we'll never be quick enough for for
Joanne Lockwood: people who are marginalized or voiceless or unheard, And it'll
Joanne Lockwood: always be too quick for people who have the privilege or or or
Joanne Lockwood: don't embrace change. And I think it's trying to find the right speed where
Joanne Lockwood: we alleviate frustration, and we also prevent people
Joanne Lockwood: becoming threatened and feeling challenged. But I I'd like to think,
Joanne Lockwood: I'm I'm assuming your your your generation, Gen z, you're
Joanne Lockwood: that young. We're seeing an emerging generation now
Joanne Lockwood: where inclusion is more default. I I don't wanna generalize. I appreciate it. Not
Joanne Lockwood: everybody has that view. But whether it's your
Joanne Lockwood: sexuality, your gender, your ethnicity, your beliefs, whatever they may
Joanne Lockwood: be, people, in my opinion, seem,
Joanne Lockwood: as a Gen Z, more open to that that kind of
Joanne Lockwood: natural state. So maybe we need your
Joanne Lockwood: children to be the 1st generation of people who grow up in a
Joanne Lockwood: world where change has already occurred. You're you're
Joanne Lockwood: you're still in a environment where you're wanting change to occur. Hopefully,
Joanne Lockwood: your generation can can create that change that the next
Joanne Lockwood: generation, the gen gen alphas and the gen betas will face when they come
Joanne Lockwood: through. Yeah. I agree. I think the environment that
Caroline Praveen: a lot of people in gen z have been raised in has been more
Caroline Praveen: inclusive inherently, and that's been amazing, really. I think I think
Caroline Praveen: that's absolutely true. The way that people in gen z kind of
Caroline Praveen: view for example, mental health, They actually view that as a
Caroline Praveen: valid concern. They prioritize that in a lot of instances,
Caroline Praveen: whereas someone that's older and maybe more close minded might
Caroline Praveen: not actually think of that because that wasn't really a prevailing
Caroline Praveen: issue or a topic of conversation when they were growing
Caroline Praveen: up. So I would fully agree. I think
Caroline Praveen: as we grow as a generation and then the generation after us
Caroline Praveen: also grows in this more inclusive environment, there will
Caroline Praveen: definitely more be more room for inclusive
Caroline Praveen: inclusivity. Yeah. Let's let's hope and,
Joanne Lockwood: and, well, pray that I I often say that is
Joanne Lockwood: a I don't know if you've ever seen the video. It's by Accenture, and it's
Joanne Lockwood: called inclusion starts with I. If not, check it on YouTube.
Joanne Lockwood: And, one of the messages that comes out of that for me
Joanne Lockwood: is that inclusion starts with me, with I.
Joanne Lockwood: And you may not be able to change the world on your own. You may
Joanne Lockwood: not be able to influence everybody. But as it says, you could be the one.
Joanne Lockwood: You can take responsibility for changing who you are, for how you show up, how
Joanne Lockwood: you communicate, how you're inclusive, the empathy you show for
Joanne Lockwood: others, and hopefully you could become an influence on those around
Joanne Lockwood: you. So I would think, you know, change yourself. Be the person
Joanne Lockwood: that can that brings that change. Be the person that,
Joanne Lockwood: can influence, and keep keep holding the rope. You haven't gotta you
Joanne Lockwood: haven't gotta pull the rope. Just hold it. Just just hold the rope as
Joanne Lockwood: an ally, as an advocate, whatever it may be, and and
Joanne Lockwood: just keep nudging the world and keep nudging
Joanne Lockwood: it. I think if we all did that slowly, then
Joanne Lockwood: that would would spread like COVID. It would affect everybody. That's what we want.
Joanne Lockwood: We're gonna want we want this modern thinking to be a better of a
Joanne Lockwood: world to be a better place, and it's not all capitalism
Joanne Lockwood: and and exclusion. So I find that happy harmony, isn't it?
Caroline Praveen: Exactly. Yeah. It always does just go back to our
Caroline Praveen: individual mindsets and just the belief that
Caroline Praveen: in order for change to be incited, that everyone has to
Caroline Praveen: do something simultaneously, which is just not at all true, but that's
Caroline Praveen: a belief that I know a lot of people hold. You're absolutely right. As long
Caroline Praveen: as you are doing something to impact
Caroline Praveen: the way that you're acting and just influence your mindset,
Caroline Praveen: your kind of discriminatory kind
Caroline Praveen: of, like, background or any kind of beliefs that you might
Caroline Praveen: have personally, you are making a
Caroline Praveen: substantial difference in the environment for these people that
Caroline Praveen: are looking for some kind of inclusion. The planet's a big deal at the moment,
Joanne Lockwood: isn't it, as well? It's not just the people. It's the planet. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: The world, the climate, the sustainability. And again, you look at what's going
Joanne Lockwood: on in some of the developed come well, as a whole or developed countries. What
Joanne Lockwood: does that mean? The polluting countries or the the the countries
Joanne Lockwood: the industrial nations that are polluting. And we're seeing
Joanne Lockwood: India, China, Russia, Soviet, even the US now
Joanne Lockwood: Mhmm. Ignoring climate change targets. We're seeing world temperatures
Joanne Lockwood: rise. We're seeing a pushback on belief that the climate's an issue.
Joanne Lockwood: And I'm I'm great I'm very mindful that I'm talking to you as a
Joanne Lockwood: as a young person. This is your planet, and it must be extremely frustrating to
Joanne Lockwood: see what what my generation before have done to it. And,
Joanne Lockwood: we're not leaving it at the best place, are we? Exactly. I think it kinda
Caroline Praveen: goes back to that kind of stubbornness that a lot of people
Caroline Praveen: have. Even as a nation, kind of denying the
Caroline Praveen: existence or the prevalence of this climate change and
Caroline Praveen: the effect that pollution is having on the environment just because
Caroline Praveen: it benefits them as a nation in
Caroline Praveen: terms of profit or appearance in general.
Joanne Lockwood: Yeah. As you was talking then, I was just thinking that, in the
Joanne Lockwood: same way you you and people in your community
Joanne Lockwood: have had to travel the world to come and find a new home in
Joanne Lockwood: America and the US and then learn about the cultural differences
Joanne Lockwood: and the language, all this. I'm in the same position as a a a
Joanne Lockwood: a Gen x person to
Joanne Lockwood: learning about the modern culture of climate and
Joanne Lockwood: land planet protection. I don't know the lingo. I don't know how it works. You
Joanne Lockwood: know? Yes. I'm thinking about electric cars. I'm thinking about renewables.
Joanne Lockwood: I I have to I have to think twice about, can I recycle this? You
Joanne Lockwood: probably just pick up and go stick it in the green one. It's fine. Stick
Joanne Lockwood: it in the brown one. And I'm trying to look at the packaging. I'm still
Joanne Lockwood: trying to interpret because I'm not a native climate person, so I have
Joanne Lockwood: to translate my interpretation of this as well. So
Joanne Lockwood: that that gives I suppose that gives me a perspective of what it's like having
Joanne Lockwood: to relearn the environment I live in, and that's maybe that's the barrier
Joanne Lockwood: that people are reluctant to to relearn,
Joanne Lockwood: to to pick up the new lingo, to pick up the new culture, to pick
Joanne Lockwood: up the new understanding. They're so fixed in their mindset. They're sticking with what they
Joanne Lockwood: know. And I think you and
Joanne Lockwood: your communities that you're working with have had change
Joanne Lockwood: as part of your lives inherently for as long as you can remember.
Joanne Lockwood: And maybe one day you'll become ingrained in 20 or 30 years' time,
Joanne Lockwood: And and then the next generation, the gen c's or
Joanne Lockwood: gen f's or whatever they will be, will come along and go,
Joanne Lockwood: god, you're you're stuck in old ways of thinking. Okay. Hang on
Joanne Lockwood: a minute. How did I get old? How did I forget? Yeah. It
Caroline Praveen: definitely is kind of cyclical in a way. But
Caroline Praveen: like you said, like, you're able to relate it to the concept of climate
Caroline Praveen: change and kind of imagining the kind of issue that other people
Caroline Praveen: deal with, I think it always just goes back to the concept of sympathy.
Caroline Praveen: A lot of people, regardless of what generation they're in or what age they are,
Caroline Praveen: some people do have sympathy, some people don't. And you still see this
Caroline Praveen: within my generation. So I think as long
Caroline Praveen: as the almost like the ratio of the amount of people that are
Caroline Praveen: willing to understand what's going on in the world, how the world is
Caroline Praveen: changing, and not just stick to their mindset and
Caroline Praveen: their point of view, I think that we're on a good
Caroline Praveen: track. I like that. It's it's the ratio. So Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: Taking my be the one saying, it's
Joanne Lockwood: about tipping the ratio, isn't it? It's about Yeah. Keep nudging it,
Joanne Lockwood: and eventually the scales will tip. That's what we're looking for here, isn't it? Exactly.
Caroline Praveen: 1 by 1. Focus on the ratio. 1 at a time. Yeah.
Joanne Lockwood: No. I like that. It's really good. Caroline, it's been a fascinating
Joanne Lockwood: conversation. I've loved chatting to you. And, without I I
Joanne Lockwood: don't wanna be patronizing, but you you you tracked me down. You
Joanne Lockwood: Googled me. You found me. You applied, and now you're here.
Joanne Lockwood: I think it's amazing. You know, as a young person, you've got
Joanne Lockwood: such a great command of of English with your accent. You've obviously achieved a lot.
Joanne Lockwood: You're doing a lot in your communities, and I've got so much hope for you
Joanne Lockwood: and desires for you to succeed in whatever you choose to do, whether it's in
Joanne Lockwood: medicine or or carrying on in what you're doing now. You're gonna
Joanne Lockwood: be incredible, and and I I wish you every success. So how could people get
Joanne Lockwood: a hold of you? They the biggest thing that they can do is visit
Caroline Praveen: my website, the fluency forward foundation dot
Caroline Praveen: org, where I have a lot of opportunities for
Caroline Praveen: online volunteering or actually in person sessions that
Caroline Praveen: I con I conduct with these immigrants and refugees.
Caroline Praveen: And the other thing that anyone can do really is reach out on LinkedIn.
Caroline Praveen: My LinkedIn is just my name, Caroline Praveen. And I've
Caroline Praveen: received a lot of kind of business inquiry inquiries that way.
Caroline Praveen: And just being able to have that kind of conversation 1 on 1 with
Caroline Praveen: anyone about the kind of work that I'm doing and the kind of work that
Caroline Praveen: they want to be involved in has been life changing for a
Caroline Praveen: lot of people that I've talked to. Alright. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you
Caroline Praveen: so much for having me and for being so open minded to
Caroline Praveen: kind of understanding the plight of someone completely different from you. I think
Caroline Praveen: it's people like you that are actually helping to make this
Caroline Praveen: positive change that I'm so desperately working towards. Thank you.
Joanne Lockwood: As we bring this conversation to a close, I want to
Joanne Lockwood: express my deepest gratitude to you, our listener, for
Joanne Lockwood: lending your ear and heart to the cause of inclusion.
Joanne Lockwood: Today's discussion struck a chord. Consider subscribing to
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Joanne Lockwood: This is Joanne Lockwood signing off with a promise to return
Joanne Lockwood: with more enriching narratives that challenge, inspire,
Joanne Lockwood: and unite us all. Here's to fostering a more inclusive world,
Joanne Lockwood: one episode at a time. Catch you on the next bite.