In the 20 years of working my way up through the ranks in the film industry, I became increasingly alarmed by how media uses its power to fan the flames of polarization, division and unrest. I am now fully dedicated to uniting humanity and co-creating an eco-centric world. That’s why I co-founded Big Change Makers with Mel Wymore, a seasoned systems engineer and social impact entrepreneur.

The mission of Big Change Makers (a Georgia-based company) is to empower individuals and organizations to elevate their impact and produce transformative results at scale. Making a real difference means not only committing ourselves to positive change but shifting the systems that perpetuate discord and harm. So many of us have common goals but no common approach. Big Change Makers is a social impact platform that brings everyone together. We offer online educational programs filled with new perspectives, tools, and processes that enable anyone in any context to produce measurable and lasting results for their communities, cities, countries, and the world.

Today, I’d like to highlight the work of two of our Southern participants: Tara Trantham and Tony Brown (Tone of Truth). Through their participation in one of our Big Change Makers programs, Tara and Tony designed social impact projects that will transform the fields of family violence and mental health.

Tara, an attorney, author, and C-Suite executive is committed to creating a world in which no person suffers from family violence or abuse. Sadly, 10 million women and children in the US are subjected to violence at the hands of their own relatives. Powered by her stand for equity, justice, courage and compassion, Tara is organizing people throughout South Carolina to see “domestic violence” from a systems perspective. “Addressing this problem will require more than “fixing abusers’,” says Tara. “If we build healthy dynamics across the entire family, then we can end this cycle of violence once and for all.” While Tara doesn’t pretend to have all the solutions, she is uniting stakeholders across families, social services, and the legal system to co-create lasting change. Since starting her project, she has already produced a significant result: now recovering perpetrators can schedule essential counseling sessions without having to risk their jobs to attend fixed time slots. “It’s made a huge difference for everyone involved,” she says.

Anthony (Tony) Brown is a planning and logistics specialist and Veteran who feels deep compassion for people who suffer with mental health challenges, especially among those who are incarcerated. Indeed, 44% of all US inmates grapple with a mental health challenge, but few receive sustained treatment. Tony envisions a world free of mental illness and all of its consequences.

Fueled by his stand for empathy, compassion, and love, Tony works tirelessly to destigmatize mental health problems, shift protocols from crisis reaction to early detection and prevention, and make life-long mental health care a cultural norm. As Tony says, “Mental health is at the root of so many hardships we face. If we can create a paradigm that makes mental health a priority, we will experience society at peace.”

Mel and I could not be more proud of the Big Change Makers graduates who are shifting systems in accordance with the universal values they feel deep within. We look forward to sharing about more people and projects in Atlanta and beyond!