Vida Velasco has been speaking up for Israel and educating audiences on the facts for the past nine years as an individual. She was hired to launch a national internship to train and mentor high school students by StandWithUs, the Los Angeles-based international Israel education organization in recognition of her passion and commitment. Vida was recently appointed the StandWithUs Multi-Cultural Outreach Director.
As their first non-Jewish Emerson fellow in 2011 at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Vida showed the organization the need to invest in engaging non-Jewish people on the issue of advocating for peace Israel and its neighbors. After a successful year of planning and executing pro-Israel events on campuses around Chicago, Vida joined StandWithUs to continue her work on a larger scale. Not only mentoring and training high school students into being lifelong advocates for peace, but also reaching out to her own community of Asian Americans and Christians around the country. She has been incredibly encouraged by the outpouring of awareness and support bridging different communities has sparked. Since August 2012, Vida has spoken to thousands of people of varying backgrounds and has helped many along their journey of discovering why everyone has a responsibility to speak up and act. It has also been her honor to help shape the next generation with the networking, critical thinking, and leadership skills they will need as they build towards the future.
Vida left her successful career as a real estate broker in Manhattan to give back to the world in a meaningful way. Having grown up with Jewish people, and in a Bible-believing home, she never questioned Israel being the home of the Jewish people. That conviction laid dormant for most her life until she became aware of the growing movement around the country that held her Jewish friends personally responsible for what Israel was doing. This led to several encounters that left her shaken, but awakened the need to learn more. After a careful study of the breadth of the issue, it became clear that her life was meant for educating and inspiring people about Israel, with the goal of peace for all people surrounding the Jewish state. You can reach Vida at .