Social Impact Heroes: Why & How Daphna Edwards Ziman Of Children Uniting Nations Is Helping To Change Our World
Well, first you have to really understand what you’re looking at. So the first thing you have to do is get involved as a volunteer and really understand what is the cause of the problem. You can’t solve something if you don’t know it. So you have to really give your time. Volunteer in places where you can see where the system can be improved.
And then once you do that, you also start getting to know who cares. Connect yourself with the people who really care.
Then you begin to build a community.
Once you build a community, ask those people about your idea as to where you think the solutions can be brought forward. See what they say, what they think, and then spend time with the children, a lot of time, and see what they think, what they want, what’s important to them.
And once you build a community around you, only then do you deserve to say, “I’m going to open up a charity to help.” Because otherwise it’s just the figment of your imagination. It doesn’t survive in reality.
I had the pleasure of talking with Daphna Edwards Ziman. Daphna embodies the spirit of advocacy and transformation, channeling her passion and commitment into tangible actions that address some of society’s most pressing issues. As the chairperson and founder of Children Uniting Nations (CUN), Ziman has dedicated her life to elevating child welfare to the forefront of global consciousness, tackling problems ranging from nuclear proliferation to environmental degradation, and advocating for the rights and well-being of children across the globe.
Born and raised in Israel, Ziman’s upbringing instilled in her a profound appreciation for the values of democracy, freedom, and community. This foundation, coupled with the influential lessons from her family and the symbolic gift of a Statue of Liberty statue from her grandfather, set the stage for her lifelong commitment to making a positive impact on the world. Her early career took her into the realms of media and entertainment, where she pioneered in the punk and new wave music scene before transitioning into a role as a consultant for MTV during its nascent stages.
Ziman’s journey took a personal turn following a challenging period in her life, leading her to use art and literature as forms of therapy. Her experiences fueled her desire to contribute meaningfully to society, particularly in the areas of child welfare and support for the underprivileged. This led to the creation of Children Uniting Nations, an organization aimed at giving a voice to the world’s children and addressing the systemic issues within the foster care system.
Through her advocacy, Ziman has been instrumental in changing legislation to better protect abused children, shifting the focus towards the best interests of the child rather than the preservation of biological family ties at all costs. Her work extends beyond the borders of the United States, addressing issues of child exploitation and poverty on a global scale, including efforts to transform the lives of girls in Africa from sex workers to empowered individuals contributing to their communities.
Ziman’s contributions have been recognized through numerous awards, including the Jacqueline Kennedy Award by JFK University, the Women of Achievement Award by North American Council for Adoptable Children, and the Peace & Tolerance Lifetime Achievement Award for Child Advocacy. Her dedication to fostering change not only for children but also for women and the homeless showcases her holistic approach to advocacy.
In addition to her humanitarian work, Ziman continues to make her mark in the entertainment industry as the president of Edwards Entertainment International, producing content that reflects her commitment to storytelling with purpose and impact. Her film “Footsteps,” screened on Showtime, exemplifies her ability to weave her passions into her professional endeavors.
Daphna Edwards Ziman’s life and work exemplify the power of individual dedication to societal change. Through her leadership in Children Uniting Nations, advocacy for legislative reform, and continued influence in the entertainment industry, Ziman stands as a beacon of hope and transformation, driving forward a future where the welfare and rights of children and marginalized communities are prioritized and protected.
Daphna, it’s a delight to meet you. Before we dive in deep, our readers would love to learn about your personal origin story. Can you share with us the story of your childhood and how you grew up?
I grew up in Israel, and it’s really interesting because I believe the reason Israel gave me such a strong foundation is due to the experiences of my parents and grandparents. Being in Israel, coming to a land, and creating it imbued them with a unique perspective on the incredible value of life, family, community, and, most importantly, belonging to a country where freedom was a fundamental principle. When I was six years old, my grandfather gave me a statue of the Statue of Liberty as a birthday present. He explained that I needed to visit the United States one day because it represents freedom. He emphasized freedom of speech, the possibility that anyone can become president, and its identity as a country of immigrants, where everyone arrives with one word on their lips: freedom. This symbol of the United States and what it stood for provided me with an incredible foundation to believe in democracy, freedom, and other essential values for human well-being, even in the face of sometimes being distorted by the media and people.
Yitzi: Amazing. Can you tell us a bit about how you got involved in this career path and tell us about CUN?
My career has always been rooted in media and entertainment, something I’ve been drawn to from an early age. I kicked off my journey by starting the world’s first punk and new wave record company. This venture was driven by my firm belief in individualism, a principle significantly influenced by my grandfather and his reflections on the Holocaust. He believed that the tragedy was partly due to a lack of individual thought, which resonates with me as I observe similar patterns today.
Unicorn Records and SST Records, my companies, aimed to challenge societal norms through punk music, which was inspired by Wagner’s aggressive compositions. This period, especially the 1980s, was dominated by repetitive singles, lacking the emotional depth and cultural commentary my ventures sought to express.
Our work didn’t stop at music production. We were pioneers in the music video industry, producing the first punk videos to be aired on MTV. During MTV’s infancy, I contributed as a consultant, assisting with the selection and coaching of VJs. This phase underscored my transition towards storytelling through audiovisual media, focusing on uplifting and culturally significant narratives.
However, my career took a slight detour after marrying my husband, who was immersed in real estate. He believed in the importance of not dividing our focus between vastly different spheres. Prioritizing family life, I embraced the roles of a mother and wife while also collaborating with my husband to build our businesses. This balance allowed us to look towards the future as a unified family, aiming to make a positive impact together.
Lo and behold, my marriage ended up being threatened, and ultimately I had to walk away. This situation threw me into questioning what life had in store for me, something I couldn’t really grasp at first. As a form of therapy and without any intention to promote it, I wrote and produced a music album called “Dance on Your Own” and formed a band named Lavender Thorns. Surprisingly, our song “Gimme Me the Money Honey” climbed the charts.
At the same time, I began writing a book to cope with the severe pain of leaving my marriage. It allowed me to live vicariously through the characters, creating a world where I could learn from their lives and relationships on how to heal my own heart. The book, titled “The Gray Zone,” made it to the New York Times bestsellers list and won several awards, which boosted my confidence.
Returning to the entertainment industry, I noticed significant changes from when I was previously engrossed in running two public companies with my husband, Richard. I was dismayed by the plethora of reality shows and the cultural influences that seemed to warp people’s beliefs, dividing the population. Politics, too, had morphed into an entertainment spectacle, using methods to sway public opinion, fostering hatred. This is the troubling scenario we find ourselves in today.
Yesterday, I felt emotions I’ve never experienced before, such intense fear and hatred. How can someone look at a 15-year-old person and shoot them in the head? How can you do that? What makes a person capable of being tempted by such violence? How can you rape a girl or have 10 people rape a girl and then shoot her? How can somebody do that?
When I got married, I felt I needed to contribute. So I started writing checks to different charities that focused on children or battered women. It’s always been about how do I reach out and become significant in contributing to women and children.
In the process of doing that, I saw things that made me aware we needed to create change. So the whole idea of Children United Nations was created because in understanding the foster care system, I also understood that every foster child was begging for a mentor because they felt that at least they’ll have one caring adult in their life that’s not a part of their system.
I created that ability by doing Day of the Child and introducing university students and others to become either life skill mentors or academic mentors. And we’ve helped thousands and thousands of children.
The big problem was, people staying in the system meant they were moving from home to home and school to school. By the time they were 18, they were being thrown out on the street. So we needed to do something about it.
The first thing I did was join the public council to try and create adoption day in children’s court. And we were successful. Now it’s in every children’s court in the country. Hundreds of thousands of kids have been adopted, but that didn’t really solve the problem.
So I tried to figure out how to solve the problem. I started having conferences in the congressional auditorium to educate our legislators on what our own kids are suffering and what we’re doing to innocent kids. All of these kids, so many of them end up either being trafficked or in jail because they’re institutionalized. That’s what they get used to.
There’s no services for them after they emancipate, and they don’t have skills. I felt it’s a federal issue of such great importance because that’s where the crime starts — look at the homeless, 90% are former foster kids. And we are not attacking the core of the problem. We are trying to find a bandaid to put on cancer, and that’s not doing it.
Then when I was invited by Prince Muamba at the Democratic Republic of Congo to come to Kinshasa, I saw areas where 98% of the girls, seven, six, eight-year-olds, were being prostituted. They had all these kiosks run by Hezbollah, and they were charging a dollar for a man to have sex with these young girls.
I said, “Oh my God, we ought to do something about that” because these are, again, kids who are sometimes being sold by their parents because they’re so poverty-stricken they don’t have food, not even a cup of rice.
So that’s what threw me into this, and that’s where we are today. This event on Oscar night is a fundraiser because over the past few years, we’ve been able to figure out a solution to the problem. We partnered up with Innovation Africa and went to villages that were destitute and poverty-stricken because of no water and no power. Israel actually donated, putting water towers powered by solar power, and we’ve turned these villages into micro-agricultural economies. We’ve taken girls from being sex workers to being farmers. So at least we have some success on the ground.
We are now in a thousand villages, but that’s a drop in the ocean. We need to be in 30, 40, 50,000 before it even makes a dent because there are 28 million underage girls just in Africa being sex trafficked. It’s a 200 billion, 300 billion dollar business on the backs of young girls, and it’s the height of racism because most of them are colored. So, that’s where I am. This is why we’re doing this.
Yitzi: Can you share a specific story about how CUN made a difference in a particular person’s life? I know you’re doing a huge amount of work, but we often lose sight of the individual stories when we hear about such large numbers.
Well, there’s this truly incredible story. There was a kid, Gabriel, from the 18th Street gang. Despite being just a teenager, he was already making a name for himself within the gang by trying to earn his place. I met him on the Day of the Child. He came with some gang members, intending to cause trouble. But for some reason, and this is why I believe in divine intervention, Gabriel listened to what I had to say to everyone. He was a former foster child, and after the event, he told his gang not to do anything harmful. He waited to speak to me privately. When I walked by, he called out, “Hey, lady.” I responded, and he said he needed to talk. He expressed his skepticism, telling me about the tough conditions in East LA, the financial struggles, constant conflicts, and his negative experiences with the police and foster care system. He questioned why he should trust anyone.
I told him that with a mentor, his situation could have been reported to the authorities, potentially changing his circumstances. He was curious about my motives, asking if there was any financial gain for me. I explained that I was there to help, not for money. Gabriel’s skepticism turned into a mentoring relationship. He was incredibly smart and eager to learn. He improved his reading and writing, went on to attend engineering school, which I helped sponsor, and eventually graduated. He secured a job as an engineer, supporting his family with his earnings. Gabriel’s transformation illustrates the power of personal investment and belief in someone’s potential.
Another story is about Desmond, who Joyce Ray, a well-known figure in real estate, met during the Day of the Child. She took Desmond under her wing, teaching him to play tennis. He excelled and even attended a camp run by Serena Williams. Desmond is now married with children. These stories show the impact that individual attention and care can have, transforming lives in profound ways.
Yitzi: The name Children Uniting Nations, what was your idea behind choosing that name?
Well, originally, it was a part of the UN. Originally, when Kofi Annan was there, it was going to be called Children United Nations. And it was going to be an action arm of the UN to actually do things and see results on the ground. But when I looked at the name Children United Nations, I thought to myself, my God, it’s not true. The nations are not united. So therefore, it’s our children that are going to help us unite the nations. I wanted it to be proactive, therefore Children Uniting Nations.
And it’s the one thing that I would love you to stress — sex trafficking would not be there if we didn’t have the demand and men are the demand. We need to educate men to really think twice. Everybody has a daughter, a sister, a mother, a cousin, an aunt. Everybody needs to stop. These young girls, they’re not objects. There’s somebody else’s daughter.
Yitzi: Unbelievable. So you have a lot of experience dealing with the challenges with the foster system. Is there anything that the community or readers, society can do to help improve the foster system?
Yes. First of all, the foster care system is accessible now. People can become foster parents — good people that care and give these children a chance. You can become a mentor. You can donate your time. You can take a kid for a visit. If you’re an academic person, go to school with the kids four times a week. Four hours a week makes all the difference. They know there’s somebody there they can call when they have an exam or something. Teach a child life skills. Most of these kids have never even been in a supermarket. They don’t know how to take public transportation.
Sit and talk to them. Don’t do things like you have to take them to the movies or entertain them. They just want somebody there to be their extended family and you’ll be amazed how beautiful they are. Yes, there is an initial period that’s really tough because they don’t trust anybody. But once you get beyond that, there’s no better loyalty. I adopted two kids from the system.
Yitzi: This is our signature question that we ask in all of our interviews. Looking back to when you first started CUN, first started your nonprofit organization, can you share five things you need to create a successful nonprofit or social impact enterprise?
- Well, first you have to really understand what you’re looking at. So the first thing you have to do is get involved as a volunteer and really understand what is the cause of the problem. You can’t solve something if you don’t know it. So you have to really give your time. Volunteer in places where you can see where the system can be improved.
- And then once you do that, you also start getting to know who cares. Connect yourself with the people who really care.
- Then you begin to build a community.
- Once you build a community, ask those people about your idea as to where you think the solutions can be brought forward. See what they say, what they think, and then spend time with the children, a lot of time, and see what they think, what they want, what’s important to them.
- And once you build a community around you, only then do you deserve to say, “I’m going to open up a charity to help.” Because otherwise it’s just the figment of your imagination. It doesn’t survive in reality.
Yitzi: This is our final aspirational question. So Daphna, because of your great work, you’re a person of enormous influence. And people take your words very seriously. If you could spread an idea or inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Eradicating violence against women, children, eradicating racism, antisemitism, and all hatred.
Yitzi: Beautiful. How can our readers continue to follow your work? How can they support your work? How can they contribute? How can they become volunteers?
They can go on childrenunitingnations.org. There’s a place where they can pay it forward, or they can contribute or volunteer. Or they can go, which right now is so important, on justiceforwomenintl.org. On there, they can become members. They can volunteer. We need to build a place here. Down on Figueroa Street, there are thousands of girls walking the street on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And Mercedes and BMWs are stopping to pick up these 13-year-olds, 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds. This is happening right here. We need to create a community that would help these girls. We need a place to rescue them. You can become part of the solution, which is what I’m trying to build now with Rescue America, with several huge organizations, and with the mayor. Karen Bass is very concerned about it. So please, go on Justice for Women International. If you can donate money, that’s great. If you can volunteer, we would love that. But be part of the solution.
Yitzi: That’s brilliant, brilliant — such an honor to meet you. I wish you continued success and blessings.
Thank you so much, thank you. It’s so lovely to meet you.
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