Transcript
Ari: The most important thing about Diller, it’s not the year of Diller, but what happens after that.
Lucas: My name is Lucas and when I was 15 years old, one year before starting Diller Teen Fellows, I lost my hearing. It was really hard to be all the time telling others to do something different for me.
Ari: When I met Lucas back then, I think in those moments was like the hardest time for him.
Lucas: Ari had a really important role in our group because when we connect in something like that and we talk about our identity, our Judaism, what are we scared about and what we feel, it’s something that’s connecting our hearts and it’s something really powerful.
Ari: That process let all the Fellows and Lucas be open to bring stuff out.
Lucas: It was a really good space for me to be. We were like learning from ourselves.
Ari: For a Diller Coordinator, this is one of most amazing feelings to see the Fellows, I don’t wanna say changing, but growing and understand that I’m part of something bigger. After Lucas finished the program, I keep in touch with him. He told me “Listen Ari, I was wondering if we can meet and and talk about some ideas I have.”
Lucas: I realized that I wanted to share my journey with the hearing implant to people that is facing the same problems. It was really important for me to have the support of Ari in that moment, because he asked me different things that were really helpful for me and to focus.
Ari: In that conversation, I knew that Lucas was going some place, like an amazing place.
Lucas: I started the podcast where I interview people that is facing similar difficulties in their life. It’s reaching more than 80,000 people all over the world. It’s listened now in more than 55 countries.
Ari: It’s amazing what he’s doing now. It’s amazing. This whole community he built.
Lucas: Diller is an organization that showed me I can help others and change lives. And also with podcasts, it started to have costs that I need to pay, so the Diller funding really helped me to do this more professionally and to reach more people and to do it better. That was really helpful because I’m not making money off this so Diller trusts this project and also they gave me a mentor.
Ari: They are on a path and you have to work with them side by side and give them all they need so they can do what they want to do. If they want to change the world, they can change the world. If they want to change their life, they can change their life. This is not something about only one year, it’s what can become in the future.