Lifelong women’s rights advocate Kavita Ramdas spoke of the Palo Alto High School graduating class’s potential to affect dramatic change in her remarks at the baccalaureate ceremony at Memorial Auditorium on Sunday.
Ramdas quoted multiple musical artists during her speech, a tendency she said she acquired as the lead singer of her band in high school. She referenced American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert as representation of the global state of affairs, saying, “It’s a mad world.”
Ramdas, whose resumé includes experience on the advisory board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mt. Holyoke and Princeton Boards of Trustees, listed many global issues that have intensified during the last 10 years as an illustration of the challenges Paly students have ahead of them. She specifically named climate change, human rights, the effects of Sept. 11, and Hurricane Katrina.
“You grew up in a nation at war,” Ramdas said. “You grew up thinking it was normal to take your shoes off at the airport.”
Ramdas contrasted the list of challenges with the success of the current generation.
“You’ve made it possible to stop the madness and change course,” she said.
Ramdas’s reference to the November election drew much applause.
“You are the first and only class of seniors in United States history to graduate with an African-American president who is at home in the not-so-White House,” she said.
The women’s rights advocate recalled her own battle with depression as she recognized Palo Alto’s recent teen suicides.
“I know that to be young is not only to be full of life and the future,” she said. “It’s also to struggle.”
Ramdas said a search for meaning in her life at age 19 turned into depression, which she survived with the love and support of her family and friends.
“You seized the day,” she said about students who went to memorial services, created Facebook groups in memoriam of the deceased, and advocated for a person to be stationed at the Alma at-grade crossings 24 hours a day to prevent future suicides.
“In a way, the world is a young adult, struggling with self-doubt,” Ramdas said. “We can choose to extend a hand instead of a clenched fist. And in the words of President Obama, ‘All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort — a sustained effort — to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.'”
Ramdas emphasized that everyone has the power to give back to the community. “Grades and Ivy League college admissions are not everything to success,” she said, prompting huge applause.
Although Ramdas grew up in India, she lives in Palo Alto and will become a Paly parent in August when her daughter Mira joins the sophomore class.
Since 2003, Ramdas has garnered awards from all over Silicon Valley and the world, including the Duveneck Humanitarian Award, the Girls’ Hero Award from Girls’ Middle School, and the Bay Area Local Hero Award from KQED Radio, among many others.
“You, more than anyone else, have the power and ability to remake this world,” Ramdas said. “You are the ‘Yes We Can’ class. And I don’t think Bob Dylan would hold it against me to say that the times, they are a-changin’.”