Carol Cone:
I'm Carol Cone, and welcome to Purpose 360, the podcast that unlocks the power of purpose to ignite business and social impact.
The next series of Purpose 360 episodes were taped in person on site at the One Young World Summit that was held in Montreal this year. For those of you who are not familiar with One Young World, I hope that these conversations will get you very, very excited to follow them online because they are making terrific impact around the globe. At the conference, there were nearly 2,000 changemakers. And you have to apply to get accepted to this amazing event. And some leaders at the conference say, "You know, it's harder to get into this conference than it is to get into Harvard." Wow. The young ambassadors represented 190 countries, and you should think of this like the Olympics for changemaking. Also in attendance were leaders across the board, around the world. Think older individuals like myself, who have worked in the field for so many years helping to make change.
Today, we have another scintillating, dazzling conversation with one of the key delegates at the One Young World Summit, Katie Hodgetts. And Katie, welcome to the show.
Katie Hodgetts:
Thank you for having me, and hello, listeners.
Carol Cone:
Oh, thank you so much. That's so nice. So just talk about ... It's your first time here with One Young World.
Katie Hodgetts:
Yes. Yes.
Carol Cone:
And so how did you find out about it, how's the summit been, just a little bit of background?
Katie Hodgetts:
I found out about it because it's a big deal.
Carol Cone:
Ah, it is.
Katie Hodgetts:
I've seen so many people attend, I've seen clips from amazing speeches. And this year, I've been lucky enough to come with the Z Zurich Foundation as a scholar.
Carol Cone:
Oh, nice.
Katie Hodgetts:
Yeah, and it's been amazing. It surpassed all my expectations.
Carol Cone:
So let's talk about your social impact.
Katie Hodgetts:
Let's do it.
Carol Cone:
All right. So why don't you talk about how you got into your focus and what your focus is.
Katie Hodgetts:
So my focus is climate change. And when I was growing up, I don't know about you, but I was always given the image of the polar bear on the melting ice cap.
Carol Cone:
Right.
Katie Hodgetts:
And it didn't really do anything for me. I do love animals but the polar bear didn't do too much in my heart. And then I started learning that actually, climate change is not just about animals and biodiversity, but it's a very human and political subject matter. So there is a group of very wealthy people that were obfuscating the climate science so that they could continue making profit for some of these big multinational fossil fuel companies. And in short, what I realized is that my right to a just and fair future was being jeopardized by the profit motive, and that made me feel quite angry. So instead of staying with this anger, I decided to get active.
Carol Cone:
Great.
Katie Hodgetts:
And I joined an activist group in the UK, and then Greta Thunberg also got active.
Carol Cone:
Have you met Greta?
Katie Hodgetts:
I have, yes.
Carol Cone:
Oh, she's amazing.
Katie Hodgetts:
Yeah. So Greta and I organized a protest, where I was living, in Bristol, and we organized it in five days, and there are about five of us organizing it for 30,000 people.
Carol Cone:
Fantastic. How long ago was that?
Katie Hodgetts:
That was in 2020. So 2020, so it was a week before the pandemic.
Carol Cone:
Oh. Oh my gosh. Okay. Good timing.
Katie Hodgetts:
Yeah. Yeah.
Carol Cone:
It was then after, when it was closed down. Okay.
Katie Hodgetts:
Yeah. So we had this huge amount of energy and inspiration from this 30,000-person strong march, and then we went into the pandemic, which actually for me, gave me time to pause, and think and restrategize, and think about, "Where is the Youth Climate Movement going, and how do we protect it?," which led me to set up my organization, The Resilience Project, which is established to fortify a generation of climate leaders.
Carol Cone:
Fabulous. Good name.
Katie Hodgetts:
Thank you.
Carol Cone:
Okay, so we're four years later.
Katie Hodgetts:
Yes.
Carol Cone:
And so talk more about The Resilience Project and the progress you've made.
Katie Hodgetts:
Yes. So my experience in the Youth Movement, so my early 20's was a phenomenal one, however, there is a darker side to youth climate activism, which is that these young people who are being activated feel the burden and the pressure to be the generation to fix it. So consistently, I was being told that I was inspiring by adults, and whilst that was really positive affirmation, it added another layer of pressure onto me, that I thought, "Well, as well as studies, as well as working, I also need to save the planet."
Carol Cone:
Okay. A lot of pressure.
Katie Hodgetts:
So there was a huge amount of burnout that happened in the movement, and climate anxiety, and poor mental health. And of the young leaders that I was organizing with, we were a group of eight, and seven of them were medicated, to deal with this extraordinary pressure of being born into a crisis that you didn't create and feeling like you need to change it when you don't really have the tools or the communities. I, myself experienced a burnout, because I was co-founding different movements. Over two years, I mobilized over 80,000 people for climate action. Extraordinary, right?
But I really struggled to switch off. And my burnout led to me, taking a step back from climate activism actually for a year, and that moment with Greta was one of the first things I came back into, and then we had the pandemic.
Carol Cone:
Yeah.
Katie Hodgetts:
And I thought, "It is so unfair that all of these millions of young people are stepping up for their planet to be custodians, and they're being met with despair, and hopelessness, and mental health breakdown, and nobody's doing anything about it." Enter The Resilience Project.
Carol Cone:
The Resilience Project. Great name. Great name. Now, I have better understanding of the context.
Katie Hodgetts:
So the organization is working to mitigate the high levels of climate anxiety and burnout to help young leaders develop their sense of leadership so they can be in green careers for their life, not just for one year or two years. We need their talent, and we need their tenacity, and we need their power for the long run.
Carol Cone:
So let's get specific about The Resilience Project, because it sounds like you've been so thoughtful about how it's been organized, and then your actions, because I know it's not just, "Well, feel better." It's not a light touch.
Katie Hodgetts:
Absolutely not. Over four years, I've been working with climate psychologists and leaders from around the world to develop something that we call the Climate Activation Model. So it's a community-led and peer support approach. It's one of the only ones of its kind, and it is working to reduce climate anxiety, increase feelings of belonging, and tackle the simultaneous mental health crisis that we face.
Carol Cone:
That's wonderful. So how do people find you, and how are they engaging with you? And all of those elements you've talked about are really important. Is the mental health being activated and utilized stronger than some of the other areas? I'm just curious about how it's manifesting itself.
Katie Hodgetts:
How we work is that we operate the trainer model. So each year, I bring together international leaders, and I train them to deliver our Climate Activation Model to their movements, to their localities, or around shared lived experience. So we have a co-design principles so that people are delivering what we call a Resilience Circle, this eight-week model, for other young people around them bespoke to their community needs. What we're finding is that the summer camp, we just ran one a month ago, and we found that 100% of our participants described it as life-changing.
Carol Cone:
100%.
Katie Hodgetts:
100%. Yeah. We've had life-changing results since the beginning, since our pilot in 2020. This word, life-changing keeps coming up. So this year, we're working with Stanford University and Imperial College London, and they're evaluating our Climate Activation Model to understand what exactly is it that is changing people's lives.
Carol Cone:
Oh, that's ... When will those results be in?
Katie Hodgetts:
That will be in Q2 of 2025. Yeah. So there are circles happening now around the world. We've got some in East Africa, in across Europe as well, and in the UK, and they're currently being evaluated for the purposes of the research next year.
Carol Cone:
Is the mental health issues, the climate anxiety, is it different in different regions of the world?
Katie Hodgetts:
It's an interesting question. The most recent data, because it's still a very new topic, but the most recent data surveyed 10,000 youth across the world, and they found that climate anxiety was impacting daily functioning at higher rates in countries that will be more impacted by climate change, so mostly countries in the global south or MAPA countries, which stands for most affected peoples and areas. But globally, the picture is that 84% of 16 to 25-year-olds are experiencing climate anxiety. So there's nothing soft about mental healthcare when you look at the stats.
Carol Cone:
And how about the crossover with just social media, and Instagram, and Pinterest, and TikTok, and I assume that's exacerbating the situation?
Katie Hodgetts:
The question that keeps me up at night is, "What is happening with my generation's mental health?" We exist in a polycrises, so it's not just the climate crisis, it's the cost of living crisis, it is humanitarian crises, we're witnessing genocide, and we have social media, which gives us a view to that at all times, all whilst making us feel like a tiny individual, making us feel far more lonely. So the best term I've heard to describe what is going on is something called the degradation of the soul.
Carol Cone:
The degradation of the soul.
Katie Hodgetts:
Powerful, right?
Carol Cone:
Very.
Katie Hodgetts:
So if we take the diagnosis here as the degradation of the soul, perhaps that's why our work has been so life-changing, is that we're offering these spaces of belonging for people to connect, and feel seen and heard and understood, which is essentially a core human need that all of us need, not just climate activists.
Carol Cone:
Fascinating. So I'm curious, is there a ... Now, when you have your workshops, are they all face-to-face, or some of them virtual? How are you dealing with that?
Katie Hodgetts:
So we do in-person and we do online. So currently, we have these eight-week online programs. And it's really interesting because having an international group of young people, you might think, "Oh, their experience is too different for there to be meaningful dialogue." What someone on the Niger Delta is facing is so different to what someone in where we now, in Montreal is facing. But actually, the commonality between these young people is this sense of helplessness and this sense of loneliness. So actually, the social connectedness of bringing people together, we find far more psychological and emotional similarities rather than differences.
Carol Cone:
And then, how does it manifest itself on an ongoing basis? So they've gone through your workshops, but then what happens?
Katie Hodgetts:
So our Climate Activation Model and The Resilience circles that we build are built to become sustainable. So they go through a 10-week program that is led by youth for youth, and then they are encouraged and trained to keep their circle running. And the reason why it's really important that they're self-sustaining is because the next time there is a wildfire or an extreme weather event, you might forget that acronym that you learn in a workshop, or you might forget that one podcast that you heard that was inspiring, but what you won't forget is the person who is there to support you. So whilst we can't change climate change or the climate crisis tomorrow, we can protect ourselves and each other from the trauma of being alone with it.
Carol Cone:
Brilliant. Was there a moment in time that all of a sudden, you had this great aha, that you really wanted to create The Resilience Project? I love community of care, Resilience circles. I mean, brilliant. Was there something that happened?
Katie Hodgetts:
Yes, yes. During my burnout, I was fortunate enough to get some therapeutic support. Sure. It's a good story.
Carol Cone:
Okay. So start with during my burnout.
Katie Hodgetts:
So when I burnt out, when I was 23, I had some therapeutic support. And during that support, we were working through the pressures that come with being a climate activist, and the therapist said to me, "What is it you want?" And I burst into tears and I said, "I just want to make daisy chains.�
Carol Cone:
Daisy chains.
Katie Hodgetts:
And it was at that point when I realized that I'd been speaking at international conferences like COP. I'd been essentially trying to be a mini politician, because I felt like my politicians weren't doing enough, and I'd foregone my sense of innocence, and joy, and youth to become this adult far before my time, which is what so many young people are going through at the moment. And it was that moment when I thought, "Why is there not an organization which is protecting the innocence, and play and joy of young people who should just be in the parks, playing with daisies?"
And I think I've been working in the scene of burnout now for a really long time, and one thing that I've learned is that often, the body is the most reliable narrator. It's the mind that will say, "I can keep going," "I can keep working for this other person," "Everything's fine," "I have more to do." And naturally, it's the body that comes alive and pulls you over to the side of the road and cries, or pulls out from nowhere this idea that you want to make daisy chains, and actually listening to the body can be some of the most helpful ways to mitigate burnout.
Carol Cone:
Quite amazing. So do you touch upon finding your personal purpose in any of The Resilience Project work?
Katie Hodgetts:
Climate activation is a journey which takes us from inner to outer. So climate activism has become a bit of a dirty word. It's become synonymous with people being very disruptive, and honestly in the UK, gluing themselves to things. But actually, we still need action and we still need activists. So climate activation actually is a journey, where we start to understand why we want to do what we're doing, what we want to do.
We then move into understanding the narratives that exist within us, which might contribute to burnout, which might contribute to feelings of imposter syndrome. The next layer is building a strong community of care, and then the final layer is taking action. And we posit that after you've been on this inner journey, the action that you design will be underscored by imagination, community, connection, togetherness, which is absolutely the action that we need to see rather than action that's being forged in disconnection.
Katie Hodgetts:
So we, as part of the Climate Activation Model, the first step is really, to understand who we are as humans, not just as change-makers, not just as our job title, but actually what drives us, what is our sustainable fuel to keep us going for our careers.
Carol Cone:
Our sustainable fuel. Oh, personal purpose, sustainable fuel. That's great. What was your fuel?
Katie Hodgetts:
My fuel was anger. And I noticed that the fuel of many young people around me is anger, and you can see that by looking at people's Instagram bios, and you'll see that it is anti this, anti that.
Carol Cone:
Interesting.
Katie Hodgetts:
And actually, anger really has its place. I'm a huge proponent of anger. You probably won't tell by my soft, calm voice, but I am deeply angry about many things. But actually, a much more sustainable fuel to keep you going for longer is love. And it sounds simple and it sounds wishy-washy.
Carol Cone:
What sort of message, if we can get you on ... If you were on that main stage tomorrow, what message/messages would you want to leave to these over 2,000 change-makers from over 190 countries around the globe?
Katie Hodgetts:
I have been so fortunate in my 20's to work with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of change-makers internationally, and hear their stories, and be trusted with their stories. And whilst the words differ and the impact areas differ, they might say that they feel climate anxiety here, they might say that they feel stressed over here. Underneath all of that, what I witness across the board is a sense of loneliness, which is only being exacerbated by social media and the age of individualism.
Do not underestimate the power of social connectedness, of showing up authentically as your human self, not just your title in forging connections to feel more of a sense of togetherness, because ultimately, egos aside, this is a team sport, not just generation to generation, but age to age.
Carol Cone:
Right.
Katie Hodgetts:
We need more togetherness, and where it starts is vulnerability, and perhaps the vulnerability to say, "Actually, I am feeling quite lonely. Let's do something together."
Carol Cone:
Fabulous. And how about to the older generations, my generations, potential partners that might help to scale your work? What message would you want to give to them about being aware, and then joining in?
Katie Hodgetts:
Here's my unpopular opinion to older generations, particularly to people of power. What I wish for you is I wish for you to have more climate anxiety, because more climate anxiety in people in positions of power will result in less climate anxiety for my generation, because more climate anxiety will result in meaningful climate action. So I want you to be engaged, not just with the shiny stuff, the One Young World stuff, but the hard stuff. Look at the trajectories, look at the science, then come to young people honestly, and don't deflect the responsibility to us. But actually, what we want is we want your kinship, we want your companionship, we want you to say, "Yeah, I'm scared too," but let's look at this together, because again, togetherness, together, we can really, really make the impact.
Carol Cone:
Super. Thank you, Katie. This was an amazing conversation. I really appreciate your time.
Katie Hodgetts:
I've loved it.
[5-second music transition]
Carol Cone:
Today, at the One Young World Summit, I'm going to be talking about a very important issue, and that's health equity, especially in Africa. And with me is my guest.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
My name is Dr. Babatunde Adewumi.
Carol Cone:
And thank you for joining me. And tell me what kind of doctor you are first. Let's just start with that, and then I want you to talk about your organization, Quinta Healthcare.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Okay. So like I said, my name is Dr. Adewumi Babatunde. I am the founder of Quinta Health. I'm a public health physician. I have a master's in public health, and I'm also a senior registrar in public health.
So basically, I walk around prevention. That's what we do to make public health easier, to explain public health is just basically about preventing diseases and ensuring that people have good health and well-being.
Carol Cone:
And I'm curious, why did you pursue this as your career?
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Okay. So from my med school days, I have always wanted to make impact on a broad scale. And I find sitting down in the hospital and seeing just the patients quite boring, so I like to go into the community and ensure that I impact lives on a large scale to work on the community, rather than individuals.
Carol Cone:
And you are where in Nigeria?
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
I currently work with the Federal Medical Center, Abeokuta in Ogun State.
Carol Cone:
Okay. And so you are at the summit, and it's your first time at the summit, and I asked you what it was like, and you said, "Incredible, amazing." So why don't you share with our listeners why you came and the kind of conversations that you're having.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Okay. So I got introduced to One Young World by a friend of mine, who knows about the work that I do with my organization. So he said, "Why don't you apply for this?" And I just got a rejection mail, actually from another organization.
Carol Cone:
You got a rejection?
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes.
Carol Cone:
Oh.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
From another organization. I think I applied to three organizations, and he brought that and said, "Apply," and I said, "Ah, what's One Young World?," and he said, "Just do it." So-
Carol Cone:
Okay, just do it.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yeah, so I applied. He nudged me to do the application process. I applied, and then I got in. So it was after I had gotten in, that I knew how huge One Young World was, and because of the rejection had gotten before it clouded my eyes, and I actually didn't even research it because I didn't want to put my mind to it, and now, not get chosen again, but when I looked at One Young World and the impact that One Young World has made in the lives of young people, young leaders worldwide, I felt grateful that I'm part of this, and it was something like a dream come true for me.
Carol Cone:
Oh, that's wonderful. And so why don't you share with our listeners what Quinta Healthcare, what you focus on, because it's a lot about women's health and health equity?
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes. So Quinta Health deals with female sexual and reproductive health, and we screen women for both breast and cervical cancer. I think I read you up. You did something about breast cancer also?
Carol Cone:
Yes, we did. Yes.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes. All right. So what we do is we have a mobile clinic. We go round to underserved communities, to screen women for both breast and cervical cancer. And for those who have cervical dysplasia, right there on the spot, we treat them, because the World Health Organization has a program called see-and-treat.
Carol Cone:
Okay.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
So, yeah. So we use visual inspection with acetic acid to screen them, and then we treat those who have cervical dysplasia there and there on the spot. We also create awareness. We advocate for the human papillomavirus vaccine, which also prevents cervical cancer. We've given women across Nigeria 500 doses of that vaccine.
We've screened about 8,600 women for cervical cancer, and we've treated 787 women for cervical dysplasia. We also use social media to create awareness for women to get screened, and we also advocate with governments. One very important part of our job, again, is that we serve as technical partners to state governments and non-governmental organizations to ensure that they have permanent screening centers in their states. And one notable work that we have done is in Gumbi States in Nigeria. That's not East Nigeria, where we have set up 11 centers in conjunction with an NGO and the state government, and those 11 centers have screened more than 10,000 women right now.
Carol Cone:
Oh, that's fantastic.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes.
Carol Cone:
So you said that being in the hospital's not exciting, so getting out into the community seems like you're having tremendous impact.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes.
Carol Cone:
And so are you meeting colleagues here that you can talk with about additional scaling of your work?
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes, absolutely. I met a young man, who is doing excellently well. He's a lawyer, but he's also interested in breast and cervical cancer screening. He's from the Caribbeans. So we have spoken on how we could collaborate.
I also met a lady from Peru, who is also doing something in the area of sexual and reproductive health. So I believe that one of the things that One Young World does is I connect people of like minds, brings great minds together, and find a way to ensure that we could work together and ensure that we compare notes, and also share ideas with one another. So, yes, I have met quite a number of people that I have spoken to. I also met someone from my country, Nigeria, and I'm talking to him about how we could use AI to make the cervical cancer screening that we are doing better. So I'm also open to meeting several other people, and I know that these connections that we've made would last quite a long time and would be able to make impacts together.
Carol Cone:
That's very exciting.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Thank you.
Carol Cone:
Yeah. So how about ... You've got some colleagues back home in Nigeria, and they're in social impact, ideally in healthcare. And what would you say to them to convince them that they should enter and hopefully they'll get accepted to come to the next One Young World Summit?
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
I am going to be an advocate for One Young World the moment I get back. I have young people that look up to me, and I have a lot of volunteers in my organization about, my more than 66 of them that work with me, and we tour around the country together. I'm definitely going to be the one to help them with the application process because I see that my mind is open, and I'm blown away by how organized the event is, the quality of people that are brought to speak to us. Like yesterday, at the opening ceremony, they were great speeches, like amazing speeches.
Carol Cone:
They're wonderful. Yeah.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes, very wonderful people. Spoke to us this morning. I also saw the South African woman who started the school for people for free in South Africa. So all these things, apart from the people that I'm meeting, the speeches, the environment, the organization of One Young World has opened my mind, and I'm going to go back to my country to ensure that people who look up to me also come down for this program, and even my colleagues.
Carol Cone:
That's fantastic. That's really great. Now, how about to ... You're sponsored by government. Do you have any sort of corporate sponsors? I mean, what would you say to the government in Nigeria or corporate sponsors to help you grow the work that you're doing?
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes. So that's another aspect that I'm looking forward to, especially here in One Young World. The work that we are doing is important, because every two minutes, one woman worldwide dies from cervical cancer, and in my country, about 8,000 women die from cervical cancer every year, and that's just like a tip of the iceberg because most people don't even present in the hospital, so the numbers could actually be much more. So I'm calling on government, corporate organizations who are interested in female sexual and reproductive health, especially preventing breast and cervical cancer to support Quinta Health's work. We have a track record.
We have been doing quite amazingly, and we are a credible organization. We keep our records properly, and yes, people can attest to the facts that we are doing amazingly well in Nigeria. So to ensure that the work goes well and even to leave the shores of Nigeria to Africa and the world, I would be happy to have people who come sponsor the work that we are doing and invests in the health of women, because women are actually very productive people. And in Africa, women hold the family together, and when a mother dies, the whole of the family is in disarray. So saving one woman, for me, is something that gives me joy because I know that when you save one woman, you save a nation.
Carol Cone:
That's beautiful. Well, thank you so much. I'm so glad that you got selected to come to One Young World, and then I know you're going to go back, and you're going to be an amazing ambassador.
So you've come to the summit, you're meeting lots of people. So what advice would you give to potential social impact entrepreneurs back home, who are thinking about, "Well, maybe I want to get into healthcare, or maybe education," or something like that, but what advice would you give them?
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Okay, so I'm going to say just to do it, like I was told. My impact journey started with me, just being on my couch in my room after my youth service, and I thought to myself, "How can I impact people?," coupled with the fact that I had lost someone to cervical cancer, and I started ... It wasn't pretty easy from the beginning. It wasn't a smooth journey, but I can say that now, I look back and I'm happy, so even if you don't get noticed. I've been doing this for the past seven years, and nobody has really, really noticed us or given us an opportunity.
Even if nobody notices you, people are watching, and the impacts that you make would actually give you joy at the end of the day. So if anybody who is listening to me, like a young person, I'll just say to the person, "Just do it."
Carol Cone:
Just do it.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes.
Carol Cone:
Marvelous advice.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes.
Carol Cone:
And keep doing it. Great. Thank you so much.
Dr. Adewumi Babatunde Enoch:
Yes, it's my pleasure. Thank you.
Carol Cone:
This podcast was brought to you by some amazing people, and I'd love to thank them, Anne Hundertmark and Kristin Kenney at Carol Cone ON PURPOSE, Pete Wright and Andy Nelson, our crack production team at TruStory FM, and you, our listener. Please rate and rank us, because we really want to be as high as possible as one of the top business podcasts available so that we can continue exploring together the importance and the activation of authentic purpose. Thanks so much for listening.
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