thank you very much for this opportunity to the organizers I just want to begin my talk with a little story when first I came to the states I was in a barbecue here on campus that was like two years and a half ago and one of my American friends approached me and asked me so which kind of superheroes do you guys have in Salvador was like we don't really have superheroes down there and then I started digging up a little bit more in that answer and then I realized that in my country since the very beginning in the family and in schools we are taught that if we want to see change if we want to Foster change we have to get together with other people build relationship and act as a family act as a community that's why we don't really feel the need of Superheroes having said this um my talk is about that social change community and superheroes and when I was crafting this do ER I started doing a little brainstorming of the ideas that came to my mind when I heard a social change and the first thing that came to my mind were names of people that have done great contributions to societies around the world like Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi or Rosa Parks or Cesar Chavez and the problem with these iconic figures in history is that they are portrayed as icons almost as godness and we kind of relate them to superheroes so we can see that superheroes are not only in Comics superheroes are also in the way how we learn history and that's very dangerous because we don't really feel connected to these like big social leaders and we feel that we don't have their power to Foster change in our society for example I'm not feeling really capable right now of um Gathering 250,000 people and bring them to Washington in order to Foster some very Landmark act I don't feel like I have Martin Luther King's power I feel disconnected but it's because I have learned that Martin Luther King was a very special person like a hero and I feel like I'm more normal however I rather conceived these social Heroes as Community organizer and I'd rather dig up a little bit more into into history and I realized by myself that these people were not alone they really buil power among the community they were not doing these things by themselves they reach out to churches they reach out to other communities and that's why they were capable of fostering these big Landmark transformations in these in their own societies and there is a huge difference among heroes superheroes and Community power and as you may recall superheroes usually act alone bys they climb buildings they can fly they don't need anyone while Community Empower empowerment is all about reaching out to people making connections doing relationships also superheroes are most of the time hidden they have a hidden identity they use mask they don't want to be noticed while Community organ izers they need to become public they need to Showcase their plans whatever they capable to do so they need to be there in the public s additionally superheroes build dependence citizens are dependent on superheroes what will Metropolis do without Superman nothing they are fully dependent on Superman but Community organizers they try to build power in the community they they try to empower regular people and they help them realize that they are capable of fostering change if they act together as a community and finally the most important difference is that superheroes do not transform Society they only fight evil in the surface level that's why we have so many movies of Batman like Batman one two three I think next year is going to be Batman 15 because there are evils coming and coming and coming Batman hasn't been able to really transform Society in such a way that wouldn't allow more evil people to come to the city and having said this I need to clarify the concept of social change for me social change is intrinsically related to social justice and social justice is the way how Society delivers wealth opportunity and and power among Society members so any sort of social change has to do with that has to do with transforming the society in a more equal and fair environment and I I want to put an example on this for example food stamps food stamps are very good but they are not really fostering social change because food stamps are not really transforming the economic structure that is excluding people people from the capability of going to the supermarket and buying the food by themselves or growing their food food stamps are just in a surface level they are not changing that economic system that excludes people I'm not saying that food stamps are bad but are not social change can be a public welfare program or could be charity or Goodwill but they are not social change social change has to do with social justice um I want to give you three concrete takeaways H Beyond this like theoretical concept of social change and these three takeaways I didn't read them in a book I didn't learn them watching movies but I experien them by myself in social movements the first one is this picture that's a gigantic human chain of a thousand people covering almost a mile and what they are doing is that they are bringing together two monuments one Monument is representing Monument to the justice and the other one is representing dignity this took place in El Salvador in a country that poverty rate is over 35% so when I was back there I was working for a nonprofit and we decided to take a step farther we decided to affect the decision-making structor that was excluding people people to Poverty so we invited the communities that we were working with all over around the country there were around 25 communities and we asked them to come to the capital and to voice their needs which means that although the general topic was there is no dignity without Justice communities were allowed to um claim and advocate for their own issues for example some communities were advocating for land rights or clean water rights or violence or lack of safety in the in their communities so the takeaway of this successful public demonstration in this social movement is that communities and the participants really owned the activity so ownership will be a very key element in social movement the next picture is back in Al that's my town and I was born there and El Salvador also is very well known because it's high crime rates so nobody there goes out at night by thems and we and some other friends decided to challenge that perception and we decided to go out for a run at night it was a short run like four miles when we went back like an hour later we felt something good we felt like we had fun but besides that we felt excitement because we were challenging um very well-known and spread perception the the the perception of a unsafety and because it was good and we enjoyed it we decided to replicate the same run the next week but with my more friends we decided to invite more friends so the next week we were not just four we were 13 and the next week we were around 35 and so on and so on after two month we were 200 people 200 citizens running every single week at night in El Salvador one of the most dangerous countries in the world now I came to the states and some of their friends took over the leadership of the initiative and three years later they are not 200 they are 500 Runners and they do not only run once per week they do it twice per week so we really transform the City by just doing some sport at out night and now the city is not alone at night you have hundreds of people there and they are taking care of of each other you have thousands of eyes there that are witness of anything that may happen there it's a safer City now the takeaway of this experience is that I didn't show you the how the movement looks like now yeah that's like around 500 people right there and the takeaway of this movement is you have to do something cool something that the people really like but at the same time something challenging we were challenging the perception that nobody goes out at night in Al Salvador and for young people that's very attractive and the last experience that I want to talk about um is in campaign for change that's my job I'm the full-time organizer for this grass Roots initiative in the next city to Bethlehem which is Allentown and as you may know the American public education system doesn't work in the same way for all especially doesn't work well for African-Americans and Latinos and in Allentown there is a huge concentration of Latinos and African-Americans so we decided to do um an assessment of the school board and to try to make them realize that they are accountable to the people who pay taxes and who boast them into power so we used a very um well-known tool that teachers use to grade the students the report card everybody who goes through the American public education system receiv periodically report cards to in order to inform their parents how their children are doing in schools so we asked the community to design a report card for the school board so the community designed this huge report card in English and Spanish and we failed them in some categories and we publicly delivered this report card to the administration building and it was great we had a lot of media coverage we had the morning call Channel 69 The Express Times covering that activity and it was a great and easy ER approach of how to empower the community how to make them realize that they have the power of hold these public officials more accountable using the same tools that they are already used to and that's that takeaway of this experience use the tools that are already available in your own community in this case the tool was a report card everybody knows and everybody knew in that time what was the report card for and I need to put these three takeaways in a broader perspective right now in the in the world we are still facing hunger we are still facing War we're still facing crime however we have the technology knowledge and resources to solve it but nobody is doing nothing meaningful regarding solving these issues and is because Frontline communities and people who are really experiencing these issues in the world they don't have the political power to use the resources and Technology to solve solve those issues but now I'm giving you these three specific takeaways these three specific steps for you to use them and start your own social movement and my last message to you will be you are not superheroes you are real you are real people capable of transforming your own Society thank you