The Public Service Project

Gary Barker, PhD, is President, CEO and Co-Founder of Equimundo Center for Masculinities and Social Justice. A quick Google search reveals how wildly impressive Gary is, so we'll skip the recap and go right into the questions driving this conversation: Why and how is Gary Barker so compassionate, resilient, and deeply principled? Where did that come from? How did his childhood experience witnessing gun violence shape how he thought about safety, and what predisposed him to look upstream for the causes of violence in communities? How do we all experience gender dynamics in our homes and in society, and how does economic pressure exacerbate the frailties baked into rigid norms around what is expected of men and women? What is equality, and how is a focus on care central to understanding that we are all underserved by the status quo? This episode weaves its way through Gary's life and somehow answers all of these questions, and that is why he's the best.
For more on Equimundo, head here: https://www.equimundo.org/
And for Gary's TED talk on revolutionizing the role of men in dismantling gender inequality: https://www.ted.com/speakers/gary_barker

Maryum Saifee is living, becoming, rethinking and rewriting the American dream. She is her parents' greatest wish come to life, and she holds herself to the highest possible standard when it comes to serving the country that made her. She challenges herself, and all those around her, to face each day with conscience, courage, and moral clarity, and she does it with humanity and grace. Her credentials are impressive, from time spent serving with PeaceCorps to AmeriCorps to the U.S. Foreign Service. She experienced the Arab Spring up close in Cairo. She witnessed the impacts of the U.S. troop withdrawal from her post in Baghdad. She helped shape the State Department's approach to tech and diplomacy, and she is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, but what comes to the surface in this conversation is not just where she's been - it's how it has changed her. Despite being separated from her vocation against her will one year ago, Maryum is not done. She's not looking away from the many contradictions that make us who we are. She continues to hold us all accountable: to ourselves, to each other, and to the promise we made to form a more perfect union.
Stick around at the end of this episode for a special visit from Maryum's mom, whose relentless courage and incomparable work ethic have rippled throughout her community and across the globe through her own service, and her daughter's.

Jeffrey Levy served the public in the U.S. federal civil service for 31 years, through 21 years at EPA and 5 each at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department. With a background in Physics and Environmental Policy, his digital communications career came as a surprise. His impulse to embrace the web as a powerful tool for connecting the American public with the agencies that serve them became a life and career defining choice, and now one year into retirement, Jeffrey is sharing stories from the early days of the interwebs; insights into the role (and value) of public affairs work; and deep reflections on ethics, integrity, and personal redlines. His wisdom and sincerity are unmatched.

Uzra Zeya is President and CEO of Human Rights First, and former Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Human Rights, and Democracy - the pillar tasked with advancing human rights, strengthening the rule of law, supporting refugees, elevating the fight against corruption, and combatting transnational crime and human trafficking. Her distinguished diplomatic career has included assignments in France, India, Syria, Egypt, Oman, and Jamaica, as well as roles advising Secretaries of State Rice and Clinton. In this episode, Uzra shares a bit about the family that raised her, and the experiences (like motherhood) that shaped her. She reflects on the challenging decisions she's faced in her life and her career, and offers her thoughts on what it means to be an American today, and always.
Access Human Rights First's recent report (referenced in the show) here: https://humanrightsfirst.org/library/human-rights-first-and-raices-release-new-report-exposing-systemic-due-process-violations-and-cruelty-at-dilley-ice-family-prison/

Sarah Sladen is a Senior global leader with 20+ years developing and implementing strategies at the intersection of social impact, youth and community development, economic opportunity and wellbeing across government, philanthropy, and civil society. As a current Senior Fellow at Georgetown University and the most recent Senior Advisor for Youth at USAID, Sarah knows what she's talking about when it comes to implementing a Positive Youth Development framework, leading everything from training and coalition-building to grant-making, and so many other tasks that I will probably never understand.
As the granddaughter of a South African anti-apartheid activist and the child of parents with a serious case of wanderlust, Sarah brings a unique perspective to all the big questions: How are young people impacted by conflict and politics? How are brains shaped by trauma? How useful and responsible is the CVE lens? And how can we all live our best lives? It's a special gift to spend time with Sarah, and to trace the threads of conscience and courage in her family across time and place.