TEDxTuesday is a weekly installment featuring a different TEDxSFU 2012 speaker leading up to the annual conference in September. This week, we are turning the spotlight on Lauryn Oates, a Canadian human rights activist who discovered her passion for working on international development and women’s rights in Afghanistan at 14 years old. In this mini-interview, she discusses her favourite TED Talk, her love of dogs all over the globe, and what she would do on her last day on earth.

TEDxSFU: What is your favourite TED Talk?

LO: Dr. Paul Zak’s “Trust, Morality and Oxytocin” is my favourite TED talk because I believe that his findings on the role of the molecule oxytocin support the idea that human rights are truly universal, in that there is a code in our genetic material that propels us towards treating each other with compassion and generosity. Our biological make-up causes it to be in our own interest, as both individuals and as a society, to reduce pain and suffering among those around us, and to promote happiness and wellbeing. At the most basic level, this is what human rights are about: guaranteeing the conditions that allow for each person to live fully, freely, in comfort, and in dignity. It’s something many people know inherently to be the right thing, but it’s exciting that science backs it up.

TEDxSFU: Dogs or cats?

LO: Dogs! I’m crazy for dogs, especially my two mutts at home in Vancouver. I also spend time with dogs in Afghanistan, at shelters run by NGOs in Kabul. One is operated by an organization called Nowzad, who rescue stray and abandoned animals in Afghanistan. I once heard an estimate that there are over 100,000 stray dogs on the streets of Kabul alone. It’s heartbreaking to see so many dogs and puppies trying to fend for themselves in the garbage heaps of the city, trying to survive the harsh winters, and being routinely kicked and otherwise abused by passersby. While it may seem trivial to worry about the conditions of dogs in a country where millions of people live in poverty, the state of the animal population has an important impact on the human population. Getting the stray dog population under control in a humane way, and supporting Afghans to treat animals ethically and safely, means reducing rabies and other diseases deleterious to the health of humans. You can find out more about Nowzad at http://www.nowzad.com/.

TEDxSFU: The Mayans were right: today’s the last day on earth. How will you spend your time?

LO: I would be grateful to be doing my usual work. I’ve always felt really lucky in that I found a line of work early on for which I was deeply passionate. It’s not always easy work, but it is never, ever dull. The hours I put in are validated routinely, when I see the impact of the work we’re doing in Afghanistan at Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, which serves as great fuel for carrying on with enthusiasm. A teacher and scientist I know, a woman named Marianne O’Grady from San Francisco, who has worked in Afghanistan for many years as a volunteer training science teachers, once told me about a time she was in a very dangerous, remote rural part of Afghanistan. She was training a room full of Afghan teachers, who had never had any kind of training before (and many had very little formal education themselves) but were nevertheless working teachers. In the middle of the training, locally stationed US Forces called her to advise her of an eminent threat, wanting her to leave ASAP. She said, “There is no place I would rather be more than here,” and hung up the phone. For Marianne, it just didn’t get better than that, nothing could make her happier than where she already was, and every second she spent with those teachers counted, so she wasn’t going anywhere.

(Source: tedxsfu.com)