Voices that Move: In Conversation with Liza Soberano & Pritika Swarup | Goals Lounge

Hi, everyone, and welcome to GOLF's Lounge. It is a pleasure to have you join us for today's conversation. We're talking about the power of our platforms, experiences, and influence to drive meaningful change. In a world facing complex and interconnected challenges from inequality and poverty to climate change and conflict, we are reminded that progress towards the global goals is not always driven by institutions. it is often sparked by individuals who choose to use their voices and share their stories to inspire people to act. Today's speakers have done exactly that. Through their work, creativity, and public engagement, they've leveraged their platforms not only to achieve success in their own respective fields, but to also mobilize communities and encourage meaningful action. So thank you, everyone, for joining us today, both here in the Gols Lounge and online. I hope today's discussion inspires everyone to use our voices and influence. It's now my pleasure to hand the floor over to Mohamed Lila, founder and CEO of Goodable. Mohamed, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Anne-Marie. Thank you to the entire Goals Lounge team. Thank you to the security on 46th Street for letting us all in. If you've made your way in today, you know it's just another quiet day at the UN, nothing special going on. And thank you, all of you, for your presence and your time and your attention. We're here to talk about something that each and every one of us has right now in this room. And no, it's not the cell phone that you're urging to check right now, it's your voice. Every one of us has a voice and every one of us has the choice to choose that voice to make the world better. It's easy to say we don't have a position. Maybe we feel like we're not influential, but each and every one of us has a voice. And today we're gonna explore that. And we're exploring it here in the Goals Lounge, which is where the world's most innovative and forward thinking conversations take place. Speaking of innovation, we are actually going to try something new, I think one of the first times that it's being tried here in the Goals Lounge. We're introducing the newly launched Goals Lounge app. And we've asked people in this room and online to use that app and to answer this question, what gives a voice the power to drive lasting change? For those of you that use the app, there are a few choices. The options are authenticity, knowledge, courageous leadership, strategic partnerships, compelling storytelling. As those responses hopefully come in during the session from the people that are also watching this online, let me take a moment to introduce our fantastic guests. Liza Soberano is an actress and Save the Children ambassador who has become a strong advocate for children's rights, education, and gender equality. Joining her is Pritika Swarup. She's the IOM Goodwill Ambassador for North America and an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, whose work at the intersection of business, philanthropy, and advocacy focuses on empowering women and expanding opportunities for communities around the world. Please join me in welcoming both Liza and Pritika. Thank you both for joining us. Now, before we start, again, this is innovation, trying this to see if this works, I think it will, we talked about the poll and we talked about the new app. Before we start the conversation, I want to look over and do I have a green light? Perfect. Let's take a quick look at the results. I'm going to bring them up on screen in just a second and I'm going to stand just out of the way so that we can see. So we asked, what gives a voice the power to drive lasting change? 60% responded courageous leadership and the rest were more or less in a similar range between 27% and 36%. You'll see that number may move during the course of this conversation. That's what we mean by innovation. We can take people's responses in real time. To the conversation, thank you, ladies, for joining us. It's an honor to have you both here. You both have your own platforms. You're both very successful in your careers, but you're also using your voices to speak out about causes that perhaps other people might not speak out about for any number of reasons. What makes you feel that you should use your voice to speak out? And why don't we start with you, Liza?

Yeah, so I've been working for a long time now. I started at the age of 12, and so I've been acting for about 16 years now. And I always thought that having a platform just meant having an audience, having people willing to listen to you. But as I grew up and I became more aware of what was going on in the world, I think there was this realization that that same visibility also gave me access, access to rooms, access to certain people, access to certain conversations that not everybody has the privilege of having. And so when I realized that, I was like, how can I take that privilege and bring other people, maybe not physically, but into those rooms with me? And help them benefit from what I'm benefiting from. And so I think that's what kind of got me very passionate about speaking up and bringing awareness towards topics that are important to me.

Pritika, talk about your journey and what made you get to a point where you said, you know what, I need to say this, I need to step up and do this. How did you get to that point?

I also started not as early as you did, but when I was 17, I was scouted at Disney World.

Wow.

So that really, that caused me to move to New York and start my career. And You know, early on, I think just being in those rooms and being in this industry where I didn't see a lot of women that looked like me, especially in media and entertainment. And I just realized how powerful representation is, right? And this idea of diversity and inclusivity. And that's how I started using my platform, you know, at that time to really champion not only Indian women, but champion just what like diversity looks like for all of us, right? Because that's how we can connect, you know, as we talk about storytelling And then also I started working with Operation Smile. And so I've been working with them since I was in eighth grade and I became their global ambassador also in 2018. And so just seeing how. Telling these patients stories, whether it's to our corporate donors or it's to just people I'm sitting on the train with, for example, it really opens their eyes to a new cause that creates awareness, that creates action and opportunities to really benefit these children. And I just saw all of that come together and as I started speaking out more and more, seeing how you can have a real impact by just sharing your experience and that really propelled me to do more.

Let me ask you a question that I think must have come through your minds at some point. Both of you have not only done amazing things in your career, but you've also broken through a lot of barriers that exist. Some of them could be systemic, some of them could be because you're from particular backgrounds or genders or whatever that is. And you prove that you have a rightful place on that stage. Both of you have proven it with your work by far. As you know, when you break through barriers, there's a tendency for people to sort of try to make you fit a certain mold. Do your job, just do your job, that's it. We don't need to hear your opinions on world events. It would have been very easy for both of you to say, look, I had to work so hard to get where I am. I don't want to do a little bit more to do anything to jeopardize that or to do anything where people will think of me differently. Both of you have said, no, these causes are really important. We need to speak out. How do you get over that worry or that you're taking a risk that somebody might take something the wrong way?

Well, to be honest, I had a really rough upbringing as a child. I was in the foster care for a while, foster care system, and then I eventually got adopted. And I've been through my fair share of rough experiences. And so when I started speaking up and I started taking attacks from people online that just were trying to silence me and trying to silence the things that I was fighting for, at first it would affect me and it would feel really like, oh, like this would cause my career to end or it would jeopardize the things that I'm working on. But I realized that I had gone through so much worse before that, that I feel like I do have an obligation and a responsibility to pay it forward to the little girl in me, but also the people that I'm witnessing, maybe not in my immediate circle, but the people that are going through hardships. And I feel like because I've been through it, I am talking from a place of experience and I owe it to them to also speak up. And that's always what I try to remember. It's the little girl in me, but also every other little girl that I see.

Do you see that little girl every day?

Oh, yeah, especially right now. Things are just flashing back to me, and it gets really emotional. But yeah, I'm very passionate about making sure that no other little girl ever feels like they don't have the proper knowledge or resources to speak up or the support.

Pritika, let's turn it over to you. Do you ever worry about what people might say or that it could jeopardize all the work that you put into this?

I'll be honest, I don't worry about it. I think that we're in a time and a place where we can really be open about expressing who we are, what we're passionate about, what we stand for. And I think this new generation too isn't as afraid to do that. And so for me, that's probably, I mean, yes, do I hesitate sometimes and maybe I feel a little bit nervous about it, but at the same time, I believe that it's so important to use your voice, whether it's to champion causes that you're deeply passionate about, to be able to storytell for women and children that, you know, their stories deserve to be heard. I think that that's the best way you can really communicate and you can really share all of these, all of these wonderful stories and also the stories that maybe are difficult to hear but are so important to share.

What's one story that just stays in your mind that you wish everybody knew?

Oh, I have so many. I've been on six surgical programs with Operation Smile, and I think every program I come back with, I spend most of the time with four or five patients. So, I mean, even Fianch, I'll tell you about Fianch, he'll take a minute. So he was born with a bilateral cleft, and he was left at the hospital by his parents. when he was born because they saw that he had this craniofacial condition and they did not want him anymore. And so Operation Smile, our team took him in.

And where was this?

This was in India, in Raipur, India. It was actually my first program and I was, I think I was really surprised by the fact that we could really connect and interact with our patients and being able to learn from them and understand what they've been through, I think really changed my perspective on what I wanted to do with my voice And so Piyush, I'll just tell you, he was left by his parents and he didn't have a family. And so we were looking for a family that could adopt him. We actually gave him the surgery. He was healthy enough, so we actually, he was a bit malnourished. We made sure that he was healthy enough to receive surgery. And then he could, I could even see him starting to smile and just being able to breathe and eat and speak normally. And so then he was adopted a few months later. And so just, it's this tangible impact. I can't stop smiling when I get to hear about that and I remember it because that's really what we're trying to do.

Do either of you feel overwhelmed because there's so much work that needs to be done? And I say this because I spent years as a correspondent covering global conflicts and I would go to the conflict and as soon as they redeployed me, I'd go to another conflict. And it just got to a point where it's like, when is this gonna end? Do you ever just feel like you're just trying to push a boulder up a mountain, like the work never ends? And how do you deal?

Oh, yeah. There's definitely moments like that where it feels like you put in a lot of work and effort, and then you accomplish things, and then you're onto the next, and it's even bigger, and it's even harder to tackle. And oftentimes, I mean, it can feel discouraging, but then you also look at the past work that you've done and see how much impact you've actually created and how many lives you've actually changed. And one thing that I like to keep in mind is I take inspiration from my own personal life and experiences too, wherein when I was going through the hardest times of my life, there would be individuals, whether it was a teacher, a mentor, a friend, or even a stranger that would come up to me and say something to me that would completely change the direction of my life. And they probably didn't know it at the time that they had that effect on me or my life, but that just made me think, there's this ripple effect that people can have on each other and society that kind of inspires me because I know that like sometimes when I'm doing the work and it doesn't feel like anything is happening, I know that it makes me realize that impact cannot always be seen, but it definitely is felt.

I'm thinking back to, I know there was a moment, so I'm a big NBA fan, I watch basketball a lot, Toronto Raptors, yeah, we have a good team. But I remember there was some criticism about athletes coming out and taking very political stances and trying to change the world. One of the famous quotes that came out when there was pushback, I think somebody famous said something like, "Just shut up and dribble. Just be quiet and just do your job. That's what we pay you for." Thank you both for not shutting up and dribbling. You're actually out there doing the meaningful work. But what do you say to people like that who say that, "Well, you're very good at what you do, keep doing what you do and don't delve into things that are out of your lane."?

Well, I would say that even if you're not an expert in one lane, doesn't mean that you can't have an opinion and you can't be influential in that lane. I think that if you're certainly passionate about it, you're interested, you never have to limit yourself. And I think that we've both done that. And I may not be able to rattle all the data points and statistics about a certain area, but we can sure as hell tell people that it's important to focus on certain causes and certain disasters, whether that's in Venezuela for the earthquake or in Nepal for the floods. And I think just being able to confidently help people connect the dots on where they should be focusing, for example, that's what we can do, right?

Both of you talked about how your personal life and your upbringing shaped who you are today as entrepreneurs, as very successful people in your fields. There are going to be a lot of young girls and young women that are going to watch this session and look at both of you as role models. They're going to say, I would like to be Ritika, I would like to be Liza. If you were talking to a five-year-old who's watching this, what would you tell them?

I would always just encourage any five-year-old who is listening to me or looks up to me, to always just be their most confident self. I would not discourage them from the little quirks that make them unique to who they are. And I want to build the self-confidence that the children have in themselves, because that will only allow them to be able to voice things out whenever there's something that doesn't feel right for them, or feel like they can stand up for other people. And so, yeah, I just want to keep telling little kids to be confident, be themselves, don't be afraid. And, you know, there's a lot of good people in the world that actually want to help people. And I know at a young age, it's hard to, like, identify those people. But I feel like for me, I've always had, like, these gut instincts of, like, where the true, like, nurturing comes from and the true, like, like, true goodness comes from. And Yeah, I just want to keep on spreading that because I feel like once a child can identify what that is, they just go to it.

Perti, I want to give you a different version of that question.

Okay.

What would you say to your five-year-old self? If you were talking to yourself at five years old.

I think when I was five years old, you're discovering yourself. You may have somewhat of a strong sense of identity, but you're still... learning and I mean I would probably just tell myself to stay true to who you are. I've definitely had many moments in my career in the beginning, especially where I felt like I was pushing myself to do something that maybe didn't feel right or just wasn't something that I believed in fully and once you go down that path, you realize that it was not meant for you. So just always staying true to who you are, just being authentic and just being passionate about. what you're doing and I very in every way when I say that because it's not easy, you know, it's not easy to like we say to speak up and it's not easy to get to a certain place in your career. But I think as long as you're staying true to who you are and also believe in yourself, you know, when when you're a child, you don't know that you should be believing in yourself like that. But I would tell every little girl to believe in themselves and no dream is too big.

What gives you hope? There's a ton of reasons to not be hopeful, but what gives you hope?

I would say a few things, but I'll just give my top two. So I think just now in this day and age, we are so connected. Like I was talking about earlier, we're very much more open, and I think lines have blurred a little bit. Like we talk about how maybe we're not experts in one field, but we are able to provide a lot of value to that field. I think people are also able to communicate better, you know, storytelling is possible, rooms have opened up to more diverse groups, which obviously really helps with innovation. We talk about that a lot with the IOM and I just think people genuinely do want to help others. I think they're passionate. I think it's just a matter of opening their eyes to what's most important. And sometimes they're looking for different resources, they're looking for different ways to be involved. And so once I see that kind of excitement and passion and just genuine care, that gives me a lot of hope.

Liza, what gives you hope?

For me, honestly, I really believe, I really believe in the youth. Like I, When I see this generation, I see a generation of kids that aren't afraid to question things. When I was younger, I remember always just being afraid to question things because I would look at the adults around me and I would notice that oftentimes they would just accept things for the way that they were and they wouldn't question things themselves. And so when I look at today's generation, I feel like they're so brave and they have access to so much knowledge that's on the internet and everything. And I feel like with the proper guidance and the proper direction, this generation of young people can really make the world a safe and great place.

So talking about that, one of the interesting things about this generation that's digital first and sort of digital native, where they grew up with all these social media platforms, which I didn't grow up with them, right? look at the Yellow Pages or the White Pages to get somebody's phone number. We use the old maps that were on a piece of paper. There was no GPS. If that page of that map in the book was missing, you didn't know where to go. You just called them up and said, "Sorry, I can't come." I don't know if you've ever had this, but when I was growing up, you would just agree on a time to meet your friends at the mall, and you left it to fate whether they'd show up. And everyone showed up at the same time, and then you spent the rest of the evening. But this generation has certainly some challenges, but they have a bunch of advantages too. It's easier now than ever before to gather attention, to get people to say, everybody look at this. From your perspective, what you've been able to do is you've not just been able to draw attention, but actually get people to take action. So how do you turn attention into action? Just walk me through that because you're both experts at that.

I think from my years of just like working and like really building up a brand for myself, I realized that attention, I mean, having an audience just brings you kind of that attention. But it's really important to build a community. And as an influencer and as an actress or as a model, I think the best way that we do that is by being very consistent about the messaging that we put out and consistent in the way that we carry ourselves, even throughout the work that we do, and really leaving tangible next steps for the people that do want to support you in your mission. Whether that's through social media or through events that you have, making sure that there's always a final thing that they can go home with so that they know what to do. Because I always want people or my fans or my supporters to walk away not thinking, oh, this is something that Liza is doing. And I want them to think, oh, this is how I can help support the mission that Liza is so passionate about, or even they themselves become passionate about that mission themselves.

I want you to have the last word. How do you get people to care enough to donate their time, donate their money, read more, share an article with their friends? What's that secret ingredient to getting people to actually do something?

Well, in my experience, I think it's really about the storytelling. I think it's about and I also think it's about when I'm connecting with patients or different communities or even our community for my beauty brand, for example, being able to. communicate what they're going through, what the challenges are. It's the human touch. It really is. That's the best way I can say it. And when you're able to share those stories and people can really connect with them, I think that people want to take action and they don't sometimes know how to take action, but that's where we come in and we offer, you know, a variety of pathways to be able to support. So that would be the number one. I just when people see like tangible impact. I think, for example, I bring up Operation Smile because I've been working with them for so long, but when you see a child that has a cleft condition and then a 45 minute surgery later, $240, it's all repaired and it's just, You see what I'm saying? It's just, you see the child can live a normal, healthy life, and being able to share stories like that and just see that change, it really, really inspires people.

There are children around the world right now who are smiling thanks to you, who can eat thanks to you, who live in safe homes thanks to you, who can dream thanks to you, who can go to bed at night safely and not have to worry about someone knocking at their door, thanks to both of you. None of those girls, I think, are in this room right now to say thank you, but all of us are in this room to say thank you on their behalf. So thank you to both of you for joining us today. I'm going to stand up, just wrap things up, because it makes it a little bit more formal. But today we've heard about how you can use your voices, whether it's through advocacy, storytelling, leadership, hitting share on an article, forwarding an e-mail to your friend, or if you have an auntie on WhatsApp that sends you recipes about how turmeric is going to heal all your diseases. You all know what I'm talking about, all the South Asians in the audience. You know. But it's sometimes it's as simple as just hitting forward on an e-mail or a message. If you can't feel like you can speak, you can press a button and sometimes that can be even more powerful. Thank you to all of you for joining us. And please, let's give our panelists one more round of applause. Thank you so much. Thank you and thank you everybody.