Christinaswwworld Unlimited

Imagine with me, the HaaSii Wave

2018-07-08T19:46:00.001-07:00

A wave
is coming.
30 months,

2500 events,

4 fun formats...

Cozy, personal
Evenings at home,

Saturday afternoons,

Weekends away in nature,

Adventures to far off lands
Moments of deep connection
with 50,000 magical beings.
co-creating a whole new kind
of global story when we
gather to consider

17 Global Goals
for our people
and planet.
Gathering
in a wave
of small
connected
groups
for 30
months.

:: :: ::
Imagine.
It's a wave

of co-creative

thinking, learning

& energy unleashing

whenever we show up todive in.
Multi-cultural magic happens.
Small groups. Awesomepeople.
Our cultural lenses, a bridge.
Sharing moments that
expand us. Pursuing
adventures together
that reshape us.
Co-creating a
new normal
of what we
know is
possible
when we
humans
decide
to align.
:: :: ::

It's a cleansing,
spiralling wave,
See & feel it with me.

Of human-ness flowing,

loving leaves & leaving love,

listening, learning, leaning in.

Activating a new vibration where

Man and woman-kind love being kind.

know how to connect, and know how to learn

to know ourselves and the world through opening

our hearts and minds to one another as human beings.

Angels, warriors, hosts, co-creators, and all magical humans

who are with us Ignite! A world wide wave of cross-cultural co-creative

passion in action can lift us, spiralling as we rise from the mud of our cultural ruts

Stand tall, start small, welcome all along the wave.

Teacher, learner, leader, champion

wisdom flowing effortlessly

from one to another

as we rediscover
and remember

the magic of

humanity

and this

earth we

all call home.

:: :: ::
Climb aboard
the Wave and ride it
together with everyone
in your community you love.
Oh! The places we'll dare to go!
The multi-cultural magic we'll make!
The new kind of global story we'll see
and learn from real people along the wave
As we make time for moments giving meaning to
each other and 17 sustainable development goals.

July 2018 - Dec 2020: say yes to the WAVE
when it arrives on your own horizon.
This story is writing itself for you to
reject the ever-more digitalized &
story-controlled version of what
our amazing earth is & can be.
Join with the magical beings
who are remembering who
we are & can choose to be.
Come, let's play together
in the Wave and learn to
wash our world anew.
And you can be sure,
dear reader, this
message, in fact
this whole idea,
is intended to
especially
reach
YOU.

See http://HaaSii.Club to learn more.

Christinaswwworld revival

2018-06-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

A new business, an old blog.

I've re-used the name of this old personal blog to register a Los Angeles based sole proprietorship called Christinaswwworld Unlimited.

Accordingly, I've switched the old blog up a bit to house some basic info about the business.

But there are stories archived in these pages, from former lives lived by someone named Christina in Kampala, Brussels and Chiang Mai.

I shall leave them, undisturbed and on the shelf, to remember her by.

Who do you think about when you're alone?

2014-06-20T23:40:00.000-07:00

The view from my outdoor hotsprings water
"bathroom" this month in Pai, Northern Thailand

While my kids are away with their dad this month, I've rented a small house in the mountains north of Chiang Mai, near Pai - a lively and lovely small town that we've visited before. I am on my own with the intention to disconnect for a while. Since arriving 4 days ago, though, one lingering issue keeps disturbing my peace.

Some dear friends of mine in Uganda are facing a serious crisis. What remains of the Life in Africa I founded in 1999 is a tight-knit group of self-empowering war-affected women who live in Kampala's displaced Acholi Quarter. After years of working together to learn skills that would serve them whenever they managed to move back home to Northern Uganda, the land in the displaced camp/slum these women live on has now been sold for commercial development. They now need to move back to Northern Uganda urgently, which is causing quite a lot of unrest and fear.

Some of them have nowhere to go with their families and not enough money saved to buy their own land. Some do have land to eventually resettle to but nothing to eat there in the countryside yet, and no shelter for their family to sleep under. Without an immediate place to go they will end up homeless - forcibly displaced again - which will greatly disrupt all the progress they've made over the years since the war, on getting their families lives back together.

They are hoping to face this challenge together, through buying some land in the north jointly and establishing a Family Transition Center. With 5 days left on the fundraising campaign that would enable them to begin, I find myself unable to sleep well - and fully disconnect - until I know that they've raised what they need to get started with. I have contributed what I can and helped them set up the campaign. I know they are also working on selling off some Life in Africa assets. But none of that will have been enough if they don't end up being able to buy the land - a measly $4000 seems so little, and yet for these ladies - most of them living on $2-3 per day - it's an impossible sum.

Last year I visited Uganda to do some book research with the Life in Africa ladies about the organization they've built, their Acholi culture and their life stories. Over the past month I've been writing about some of them, to help promote their campaign. These are real stories of people I know personally, and love.

Jennifer Adoch: a small woman with giant shoulders - Jennifer's mom is looking after her kids while Jennifer works at a full time job, but her mom has leprosy and is being chased off of her land by neighbors. Jennifer now also needs to leave where she lives and is desperate to know where to go.

Betty's choice: the importance of community in healing the wounds of war - Betty still suffers from the unspeakable trauma she experienced at the hand of Lord's Resistance Army rebels, and needs the support of her community more than ever in facing the transition in going home;

What this African grandmother taught me about co-creative leadership and thrivable community planning - My dear sister Esther is a leader with such a loving heart for her community. She must be tearing her hair out with worry right now, wondering what will become of them all if the campaign is not successful.

Right now there are 5 days left to raise just under $1500 more in pledges, so that the Life in Africa ladies can begin moving their families to safety together. Try as I might to disconnect from the world for a while, their beautiful and kind faces are haunting my sleep.

Surely this is doable - Can you help with even $10? Or maybe a tad more?

Click here to pledge what you can to help build up some end of campaign momentum please. Even $10 counts, and you will be charged nothing unless their minimum goal of $4000 is met.

Crazy how hard it is to disconnect from the world. Who do you think about when you're alone?

Slowing down to see eye to eye

2014-06-16T00:48:00.000-07:00

The Ci2i Global group never ceases to soothe and amaze. If we've done nothing else together in the past 3 years of regular working group calls, we have developed a beautiful culture of being together in community with each other, even if we are spread out on all continents of the globe. What we continue to learn from each other - about our work and about ourselves - is an important source of inspiration and energy for all of us as we make our respective marks in the world.

I wrote about our most recent call at the Ci2i blog, where - among other things - we reminded each other how important it is to take each time for ourselves and slow down in order to maintain a sense of peace and presence. See the post:

LEARNINGS FROM A VIRTUAL CIRCLE OF CO-CREATIVE IMPACT PRACTITIONERS

Enjoy the deep wisdom of these amazing social impact-driven women.

Milestones, eras, shiftings

2014-06-12T00:45:00.000-07:00

It's just us 3 next year...

From my facebook:

So graduation festivities are over and much else has begun, or is in motion. My 3 boys are at this moment in the sky on their way to Holland and the US for the summer, marking the end of an era for our joy-hunting family - chances are high that we will never again all live under one roof as the 4 of us. Single mom of 3 boys is no longer part of my identity, as my first born leaves to live as a young man on his own, in another friggin' country, no less! I will see him again before he takes up residence in the Netherlands, but his stuff is with him in the air now - except his awesome sculpture class work, which just couldn't be packed

It feels milestone-like, happening in the midst of more shifts happening (and asking to happen) at different levels. Only hours after the boys were gone I was coming together back to back with the Evolutionize It Board and my beloved Ci2i Global working group in skype gatherings that felt productive in stabilizing ways. Feeling grateful especially to Alycia de Kraa and Christelle Van Ham and Jean Russell in the roles you played in helping those to go well. Milestones, eras, shiftings.

My own summer intention now is to get a day each in onhttp://startsomegood.com/lia and http://pigletsforprogress.org/, and connect with friends (yoohoo!) for whatever Chiang Mai fun we can find this weekend, before heading 3.5 hours into the mountains for a month on my own at Hester's little house near a meditation center in Pai (a town you can visit in my photo albums). I'll be taking with me some deep thinking and inner listening to do around what my next 2 years in Chiang Mai could look like and what life-magic I might wish for after that.

Then it's off to the US for a graduation trip to NYC with Thomas Haitsma and a reunion time with family in Santa Cruz.

My gratitude to the universe for todays range of experiences and anticipations is lightening my heart enough to bear the inevitable melancholy. But grateful I am, indeed today - at the end of an era - for this one and only life that is mine.

A nice moment in the CMIS graduation ceremony
for Thomas and his class to thank their parents

My belated birthday wish for a new Life in Africa

2014-06-03T00:36:00.001-07:00

My birthday was yesterday, so today I am celebrating the successful launch of my 48th year on this planet, and the re-launch of a crowdfunding campaign for my dear sisters at Life in Africa.

These are some LiA Members who recently learned to grow mushrooms together. They're part of a group of 35 war-affected women who are now urgently seeking funds to help deal with another forced family displacement.

Please know that your support to this campaign at any level will feel like an invaluable gift to me personally. If I could just give these ladies $15,000 myself, I would. I have known them for 15 years, and they are like sisters to me. They are soon to be homeless and really need the power of their networks to pull through for them now - not to mention that they are a wonderful group and their plan is a good on. This all means I'll be appealing more directly to everyone I know on this one than I normally do. You're invited to a facebook event page where we can follow and nurture the campaign's progress together thru the campaign's 23 June deadline.

After a recently unsuccessful attempt at raising almost $9,000 toward the Family Transition Center last month, community leaders Grace Ayaa and Peter Ndelo have really rallied this past week to get the campaign back up and running with a lower tipping point of $4000. That lowered amount will at least enable them to buy land. Even if that's all they raise of their total $15,000 goal, they can start out camping together on the land - my Life in Africa sisters and their families will not be completely homeless when the bulldozers come.

If you think about it, $4,000 is such a ridiculously low amount of money, and yet a whole community of lives are at stake. Even the $15,000 total goal they are seeking is small compared to how they can leverage it to serve the enormous need for resources in starting over again after a devastating war. In truth, the LiA ladies always knew they would have to go home someday, and have been preparing for it for years in ways that will help them sustain life in the north once they get started. But now the stone quarry land that this war-displaced group has been living on for 20 years has been sold, and there is unrest among the affected Baganda (Kampala's local tribe) that's becoming increasingly targeted at the war-displaced Acholi families. The question to ask yourself about the Family Transition Center plan is not "is this a good idea?" but "can they hold on until they find the money?"

I am so pleased with and grateful to Peter and Grace, for pulling themselves up to relaunch this campaign right away; to Patty Simonton from startsomegood.com for amazing support to the re-launch during her vacation; to my friends who have already contributed in the past 24 hours...

and to YOU for considering this belated but heartfelt birthday wish.

Make whatever pledge you can afford, large or small
(your pledge only becomes a contribution once the $4000 tipping point goal has been reached)

Help share stuff & cheer the campaign on thru June 23

What if the Happy song and video memes came with more actual happiness in the world?

2014-05-29T03:27:00.002-07:00

Pharrell Williams' 2014 hit Happy song and the 24 hours of Happy video have sparked a meme that's even more fun for high school kids than the Harlem Shake was in 2013. Graduating seniors at Chiang Mai International School have danced their goodbyes in a Happy montage, that keeps me grinning ear to ear (and not just at the moments my oldest son is in it!)

But Pharrell Williams isn't the only force moving us toward greater happiness these days.

Fascinating new research on happiness is now available, about what it actually is and how it actually comes to be in our lives. The "Happy" movie is well worth the $2.99 to rent it. Right after I watched it I made my kids sit down and watch it with me - the practical information in this little gem of a movie made an immediate impact on our lives.

Happy - A Documentary Trailer from Wadi Rum Films on Vimeo.

Another inspiring must-see if you value happiness is the Economics of Happiness documentary released early this year. I've been sensing for a long time that the economic models we're using don't actually fit the world experience we're living. This film helped me understand some key things about how we measure "growth" today that really make ya go hmmmm...

You can rent the full documentary for a $5 contribution to the filmmakers at vimeo on demand. There's also a free pre-release version on youtube, in case you can't come up with the 5 bucks.

Of course, while it feels like such a universal value, not every society claims to value happiness - in Iran, young people were arrested last week after uploading their own Happy video. But maybe some controversy around happiness isn't such a bad thing under repressive regimes.

Will the 2014 happiness bounty leave us with more than just video memes to look back on? Hard to say, but maybe the more we know about and think about happiness, the more open we'll be to recognizing increasing happiness when it comes.

What would the world look like if we all started learning to be a little bit better at being happy?

It's sure been fun in my family :-) Clap along if you feel that that's what you want to do!

Co-creative learning from Piglets for Progress Phase 1

2014-05-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

Last week a friend and I invited the Mae Sot trash dump community to share their experience and learnings with each other about raising pigs, in order to surface the practical gaps to be addressed in planning for a possible Phase 2 of the Piglets for Progress initiative.

What they shared offers a super interesting read, with fascinating insights that I'm still chewing on.

Read more at the Piglets Blog about the event and how we facilitated the conversations between 100+ people whose language we don't speak.

Fire at the Mae Sot trash dump

2014-03-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

There’s a crisis with the air quality at the Mae Sot trash dump that is affecting both the families and the pigs. The people are not able to work, which means there is now also a food crisis.

A number of pigletsforprogress supporters are working together on facebook to do something helpful.

Gratitude to those who've contributed for a delivery or rice and cooking oil - details of the group effort are in the comments here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152699139078242&set=a.89826248241.108359.504778241&type=1&theater

My Career Case Study - presented at the Learn/Share Lab for co-creative impact and innovation

2014-02-15T03:21:00.000-08:00

View the presentation

Soon to be online at Ci2i Global, I've written about the work I've been doing for the past several years as a case study. Click the image above to see the presentation I gave about it. The text below appeared in a booklet of case study background information which participants at Ci2i Global's Learn/Share Lab for Co-creative Impact and Innovation also received earlier this month.

--------

Career case: designing frameworks for co-creative international development

Presenter: Christina Jordan

@christinasworld

Learn more: Lifeinafrica2.org | Evolutionize.it | ci2iglobal.com | pigletsforprogress.org

Ci2i Global Founder Christina Jordan’s career as a serial social entrepreneur in international development has spanned several continents, online spaces, container organizations and initiatives to impact globally marginalized local communities since 1999. She is also a passionate activist for collaborative professional development in the global changemaker space. More than looking at the background and impact of any of those individually, this case attempts to capture the evolution of an approach to professional career development that models, applies and supports co-creative approaches toward a desired shift in prevailing global development paradigms.

Key Outcomes Observed

New Life in Africa (Kampala, Uganda) is a community based organization of mostly war-affected displaced women who live/work at a stone quarry. The CBO devolved in 2008 out of the former Life in Africa Foundation, which Christina originally founded in 1999.

Evolutionize It, ASBL (Belgium) was established in 2010 as a non-profit container that applies collaborative / co-creative skills developed in Africa to professional event design and facilitation assignments, while also enabling continued co-creative pro-bono work with New LiA and other groups.

Ci2i Global was initiated as a support platform concept for social entrepreneurs in professional transition, and has evolved through the co-creative input of like-minded colleagues into a platform for the study/promotion/uplift of co-creative approaches, and support to professionals who design and employ them.

Pigletsforprogress (Mae Sot, Thailand) is an application of lessons learned in co-creative impact to a context similar to Uganda (Burmese migrants/refugees who live and work at a trash dump in Thailand)

Hundreds of online supporters have participated in unique frameworks for micro-giving and engaging in making a meaningful impact that Christina has designed through the above.

Hundreds of families in marginalized communities have directly experienced the impact of evolutions in Christina’s career toward inclusive co-creative development models.

More than a thousand changemakers have participated in event experiences that Christina has designed.

Key Processes Used

Modeling for targeted local impact: Christina’s approach to working with marginalized local communities begins with co-creative dialogue and events designed to unearth community needs and self-perceived potential, in order to develop plans that can be “packaged” into unique opportunities for global supporters to engage around. An initially curated process for emergent outcomes thus shifts to an open process that invites co-creative global input in achieving the desired outcomes determined by the local community. As much agency as possible is left with the local community to implement their plans using inputs crowdsourced through Christina’s global networks.

Nurturing replication/spread for global impact: Christina’s work in the global professional changemakers space uses art-of-hosting facilitation techniques and learning event/experience design to invite & nurture collaborative learning, co-creative planning and community building to support others who are actively engaged in shifting international development paradigms from top down to bottom up.

What:

Sector/field: war-affected/displaced families + the global changemakers space
Initial geography (where the co-creation initiative started): Uganda
Application geography (where the co-creation process has been applied): Uganda, Europe, Thailand, online communities (global)
Is it a one shot initiative ? an ongoing initiative ?: on-going
Issues to be solved/addressed: 1) flipping the prevailing top-down design paradigm in how global resources can be channeled to support development in marginalized communities, 2) increasing the collective impact of the global changemaking space.
Early objectives (at the start of the initiative): experiment with improved micro-finance opportunities, create opportunities for mainstream engagement in making a difference in the lives of the poor.
Later objectives (developed/evolved through co-creative process): income generating skills/opportunity development, job creation, local community uplift, global community engagement, professional support to changemakers with similar approaches/objectives.
Key words used to define the co-creative process: local community empowerment, income generation, skills development, crowdsourcing, online community
Key words used to define the context in which the co-creative process took place: war-affected communities, IDPs, refugees, changemakers, online community platforms

Why:

Briefly describe the passion behind why this initiative was undertaken: The first 10 years of Christina’s career included experience working with (and witnessing the failure of) global development agencies including the UN, the EU, USAID and NGOs. She set out on her own to establish a social enterprise (Life in Africa Foundation) through which she could experiment with developing better models and approaches.
What inspired the use of co-creative approaches in this work?: Impact of the Sept 11 attacks on Life in Africa’s online activities (initially NOT so co-creative in nature) prompted a complete shift in perspective on how to conceptualize local development that would be more resilient to external shocks. Nomination to the Ashoka Fellowship that same year opened a world of possibility and ideas with regard to what might be achieved through collaboration with other changemakers.
Which established methods were drawn from in inviting co-creativity? Trial and error (including LOTS of mistakes & reinventions), deep listening, Open Space Technology, Art of hosting facilitation techniques..
Why was a co-creative approach deemed better in this case than a more traditional approach? Initially, it was really about sharing the risk and workload involved in managing a local development initiative, underpinned by an evolving sense that sustainability would be enhanced when the beneficiary community had a direct stake in the initiatives success or failure. Over time it became clear that beneficiary engagement generated impact in it’s own right. More lasting empowerment came through the discovery of voice, agency and talent in the co-creative community building process than through the income generating opportunities that the community was receiving and managing.
What was the role of serendipity in guiding how this initiative unfolded? All of Christina’s work with marginalized communities has been born from serendipity - connecting with people in countries where she’s lived and listening to their stories has opened pathways of co-creative exploration around what might be done to nurture meaningful change. Her work with changemaker communities has been much more intentional and strategic, while still building on serendipitous relationships.

Who:

Stakeholders/stakeholder groups involved: 1) initial community building efforts in Uganda engaged artists, craftmakers and unemployed youth from across Kampala. This evolved to focus with more effectiveness on (mostly war-affected) leaders and residents of a particular physical community, which is also replicated in Thailand. 2) Online followers / supporters; 3) offline volunteers (often Christina’s friends and family); 4) collaborative partners & partner initiatives; 5) participants at changemaker events (these groups can overlap)
Roles of stakeholders: community residents participate and contribute to exploration of local wishes, talents and capacity; online supporters participate as financial contributors, advisors, promoters, consultants; offline volunteers participate in household surveys, digital storytelling, information analysis and relationship building; partners & partner initiatives have participated in the delivery of opportunities (examples: a partnership with Invisible children employed 100+ Ugandan community members in producing solidarity bracelets for their US campaign; partnership with another Ashoka Fellow provided a savings program for LiA children; partnerships with Uganda Microfinance Union and later with Kiva provided micro-loan capital against a Life in Africa community guarantee)
Role of a leader, or a leading team, if any: Dialogue event & survey design, deep listening, digital storytelling, “packaging” of community objectives into micro-giving/crowdsourcing initiatives, training for the local use of online tools, strategic organizational development, connector/champion role.
Were any funders involved in supporting the initiative? (When did they become involved?) Most initiatives have been funded through dispersed online global engagement strategies (including crowdfunding and community-crafted product sales). In 2006 and 2007 Life in Africa was a Community Favorite award recipient at Omidyar.net, resulting in $40,000 in external funding. Omidyar.net also provided $15,000 toward the costs of hosting an Open Space gathering of Onet and Life in Africa members in Northern Uganda. Evolutionize It channels fees earned on professional facilitation jobs toward defraying the costs of her co-creative experiments with Ci2i Global and Pigletsforprogress.org. On many occasions she has also self-financed the expenses involved in undertaking work she believes in.

How:

“Materialisation” of co-creation :
- events: Open Space Gulu ( Uganda), Cosi10 (multiple locations), #we_b, #we_b2 (Brussels), Ashoka Changemaker’s week (Paris), Learn/Share Lab for co-creative innovation (Thailand)
- meetings: Community planning meetings in Uganda and Thailand. In Uganda there were national planning meetings involving members at 2 locations.
- facilitation sessions: many that have engaged changemakers in collaborative learning under the Evolutionize It umbrella - both probono (Oxford Jam, Shine UK, several events at HUB Brussels) and paid (Womanity Foundation, The Women’s Forum, EU Innovation week…)
- co-developed content: hundreds of pages created by Ugandan community members at Omidyar.net; co-creative story telling by volunteers at pigletsforprogress.org
- joint actions: Uganda - community selected and guaranteed microloans, sale of community crafted jewelry, community mushroom project, tailoring skills development project, community created daycare center, co-created book under development; Thailand - fundraising, purchase and delivery of 50 piglets to migrant trash dump families; Global - ci2iglobal.com and related events
Technology involved (mobile phones….):PCs including solar powered computers used by the Life in Africa community in Northern Uganda, mobile phones used to communicate with the community in Thailand;
Social networks used: Omidyar.net (Uganda), Startsomegood (Thailand), Twitter & facebook (network outreach and professional development). Also used some early writers networks to share stories about Ugandan efforts (The Vines network & themestream).
Knowledge sharing processes used during the co-creation process: heavy use of skype, googledocs and email in collaborative work with other changemakers and volunteers; digital storytelling used heavily in communicating with online networks
Methodology : how did co-creation materialize..
..in the information gathering process: group inquiry/dialogue planning, deep listening, interactive events, mosaic mapping of thoughts/capacities, household surveys, case study procurement
..in the analysis process: integrative thinking & dialogue (plus all of the above)
..in the diagnosis process: deep listening
..in the recommendation design process: “yes, and” approach to idea-storming with communities and online networks, remaining open to the capacity contributions of others, consensus building
..in the implementation plan: crowdsourcing, inviting/making space for self-directed inputs, small working groups, story-telling as a form of transparent reporting, leaving the communities themselves in control of how to manage/distribute resources
..in the measurement plan: household surveys, direct questions, group processes
Content created: Lifeinafrica2.org | Evolutionize.it | ci2iglobal.com | pigletsforprogress.org. Hundreds of pages created at Omidyar.net, hundreds of stories published at lifeinafrica.com and other now defunct sites
Impact measurement: While there have been a number of attempts to quantify the impact, the most meaningful impact has been the immeasurable kind of empowerment and confidence that changemakers and community members report anecdotally. Individuals in marginalized communities where Christina has worked report feeling respected and valued by being included in the development process; changemakers often report increased clarity on their personal/professional value and direction.
Significant difficulties met: articulating an answer to the question “What do you do?” Financial uncertainty while exploring new models. Conflict with family members who did not understand. Repeatedly: conflict with project partners who did not agree with the principles of co-creative community control. Also, identifying the difference between corruption and lack of capacity within communities to achieve transparency, and adequately communicating with other stakeholders around that.
Conflict between stakeholder groups that arose:
- In Uganda there was a serious conflict between Life in Africa and a local partner, who perceived that the project had more money flow than it did, and fought viciously for a greater piece of that perceived pie. They argued that the community should not be responsible for managing it’s own finances and became quite deliberately destructive. Eventually, they wrote a project proposal that co-opted Life in Africa’s ideas as their own, received funding from an international agency and pushed the managing members of the Life in Africa community out of the project (which was at a rented location controlled by the partner in question).
- Life in Africa Gulu eventually failed to be revived when the women elected the men to hold CBO management positions because of their perceived capacity to manage community affairs (numeracy and literacy), and the men then cheated the women out of resources.
- After working with the community for over a year on co-creating a Life in africa Foundation transition plan (which included setting up a local CBO and a 501c3 structure in the US), conflict arose when the individuals who had committed to managing Life in Africa USA tossed out the community co-created plan and tried to implement their own ideas from the top down (which eventually failed).
- Working with Ashoka on the Changemakers Week event there was a conflict between co-creative event design approaches and what Ashoka believed their corporate (sponsoring) participants would expect. Unfortunately, Fellows were not allowed to bring their own issues to the event as had been hoped. In the end, however, the most positive feedback received on the event was with regard to the co-creative facilitation approach of the sessions that Ashoka centrally decided to include in the program.
Steps taken ahead of co-creation which made co-creation possible or enrich the co-creation process
Important in pursuing this career development path has been coming to peaceful terms with the flow of money in and out of the enabling equation, adopting a faith in the universe’s desire for this work to happen and it’s possibility to provide care and support in unexpected forms; Evolutionize It was created as an incorporated “container” for raising funds that can channel into co-creative endeavors. Curating the Ci2i Global group required formulating a vision around which to invite a co-creative conversation, and established networks of like-minded people to call to; PigletsforProgress was undertaken as a deliberately part-time/extra endeavor, which meant defining a container around the objectives and time available for it in advance - this would not have been possible without the many years of experience brought to the task.
Timeframe : how long did it take between the idea and its implementation - co-creativity has played a major role in Christina’s approaches since 2002; working toward a shift in prevailing global development paradigms will remain a lifelong endeavor.

A multi-family road-trip - to Mae Sot, with a mission!

2014-02-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

Last weekend some of my closest friends here in Chiang Mai came along to the Mae Sot trash dump, to help survey 50 recipients of new piglets to raise through the Piglets for Progress initiative.

My friend Gillian Caldwell has written about our trip on her blog.

Some salient results from our survey are discussed on the Piglets Blog.

Along with us were my 9 year old son and 2 other children, 8 and 12. While it was interesting to expose them to the concept of life in such extreme poverty conditions, they had a hard time breaking through the language barrier. Note to self: next time my son comes along, pay more attention to nurturing a connection with some of the children there. Some toys might help!

Creating opportunities for the very poor is not enough

2013-10-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

If we want people to take responsibility for their own progress, we must first help them believe that they can. (from Nurturing Progress in Marginalized Communities at the Evolutionize It blog.)

I've had a series of conversations in recent months, with a group of displaced Burmese people who live at a garbage dump on the Thai side of the border with Myanmar, in Mae Sot. You can read about them at the new Pigletsforprogress website, which I've just set up to help launch a crowdfunding campaign that will buy the trash dump community families some piglets to raise, if successful. Details (and a bit of me) in the campaign video below:

Piglets were not my idea, and I've really not got the first clue about raising pigs, or whether they can really be successful as a poverty alleviation tool. More than half of families living there already raise pigs, so this is not a new idea coming in from outside. For me, the point is that the community came up with the idea because they feel confident that this is something beneficial which the community's families can do, with knowledge they already have.

Taking responsibility for one's own progress does not just come naturally, especially when families who've gone thru trauma are living in survival mode. The fear of what might go wrong for undocumented immigrants like those at the Mae Sot landfill is very valid, and serves as a powerfully discouraging force to try anything that might shake up the status quo and cause more disruption.

Experiencing baby steps toward trying and learning can remind people who are stuck just how good it feels to have hope for something. And how powerful they actually can be as agents of positive change in their lives.

So that's what I'm setting out to help them with, thru pigletsforprogress.org and a startsomegood campaign. Help out if you can, and check back now and again to see how the piglets and their hopeful new owners will be faring.

A dreamy day in Holland

2010-06-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

Exploring my benelux surroundings, Dordrecht is a darling town I've enjoyed discovering in the Netherlands. It's such a friendly place - local families socialize on front porches and terraces. Though it's not a super tiny town (worthy of 2 train stations!), everyone knows everyone. A man who spoke with me on the street for a moment told me so. He knew right away that I was a stranger since the don't get many tourists in Dordrecht. He thought maybe I'd come for the little fair that was in town that weekend. Altogether a lovely late afternoon.

In case the embedded slideshow below doesn't show up, there are some photos on flickr I've shared over here.

Weaving a tapestry of shared air eXperiences

2010-06-07T05:54:00.000-07:00

Wow, the last month of my life has been incredibly content rich. Processing all the themes that emerged for me from my Shine UK shared air experiences - particuarly with @DaveDawes, @RedButtonDesign and @liadavide, and from spending 3 intensely bonding days in Geneva with a powerful small group of women social entrepreneurs - all in transition with new innovations at late stages in their brilliantly impactful careers.

Around those physical movement for real time immersion I've been trying to put an ambitious plan for cosi10.com together, and facilitated a session on Transparency at an all virtual "unconference" this weekend called Radical Real Time.

I have also joined the Board at @HubBrussels, which has involved (by my own choice) quite a few hours over the past few weeks, as I've sat in on some staff team meetings and attended lengthy General Assembly and Board meetings involving discussion about a lot of operational development issues.

All this experiential learning about such varied operational aspects of social entrepreneurship is bombarding me with so much to think about. It's been hard to digest any of it into anything resembling a blog post. It's been starting to feel like a lot on my intellectual plate.

With so much to think about I've been feeling a little zoomed out sometimes.

Spending time in the garden with the kids has been a very grounding, whole different kind of shared air experience. My Lucas is a high flyer in his social scene at the moment, so has not been interested in connecting to the earth with us just now. But both Ben and Thomas have enthusiastically embraced a renovation and replanting of our flower beds. We're getting toward the end of that big job, and the garden is already starting to look great... well, much better anyway! I got a sweet new camera for my birthday, so will be sharing pictures soon...

Meanwhile, I'm thinking maybe cleaning my room could be a way to keep getting my mind clear. It's been a little too long since I did that.

Happy Spring!

Reflections on life as a social alchemist

2010-04-24T13:23:00.000-07:00

It's sometimes odd to reflect that I have been planning events since way back in high school. It's quite a rollercoaster of a job, but somehow there's something magic in what can happen when you add structure to people interacting with each other. I think I am addicted to whatever that thing is. I have often described myself as a crazy social scientist who loves to experiment with human behavior. Tweaking social alchemy is a thing I'm good at.

In high school, I was the commissioner of activies and the homecoming committee chairman and the graduation ceremony organizer. What a lot of thankless work, but I fell in love with social alchemy even then. In college I organized a group fundraising event system for people (like me) who needed financial help to go and work 3 month internships in Washington DC. In Geneva, my 4 housemates and I threw great theme parties - Mexican Fiestas and champagne only formal holiday fetes. By the time I returned to DC to attend grad school, I had moved with some vigour into hosting dinner parties that brought together people I knew, but who didn't know each other well. I talked about them as my personal social experiments.

One of the best parts of my early married years in Brussels was also the events we threw - from a weekly open sunday brunch to huge backyard barbecues for 100 people, and lots of more intimate dinners with friends in between. In Uganda that changed, because I couldn't wrap my head around the role of servants and all matching china in the expat culture I was meeting people in. Nor was I able to wrap my head around the expectations of many Ugandans whom I invited home. My housekeeper Zarina was so helpful in that aspect, but we made some crazy mistakes together in organizing events that tried to break down the servant/employer hierarchies among the Ugandan workers at our home. Turns out, it wasn't just the expats in Uganda who had high expectations at parties.

I did host one really great party at home in Uganda that brought the diplomatic crew I knew through my husband's work together with some of my microfinance program clients, for a cook it yourself Mongolian Barbecue (ah yes, the food issue!). The crowd was entertained alternatively by a DJ and lively African singers in traditional costumes. At one point in the evening I could see people standing and dancing in place on 3 levels in our 4 level garden. Then my husband and I split, so that was the end of that.

With the change in living venue, I moved more into developing small learning groups and creating contexts for community planning dialogue. Life in Africa's history during my later years as Director is dotted by national events I convened, to see what could happen if the communities I had initiated in Kampala and Gulu planned together. By far the most interesting event I ever organized was a face2face meetup of a global online community in Northern Uganda. With financial support and online infrastructure from The Omidyar Network, we managed to get 100+ people from 13 countries to a weekend conference venue in an African post war zone. (Here are the photos.)

When I started my new social enterprise, Evolutionize It, with friends earlier this year, I wasn't thinking specifically about event planning as a business model. Inevitably, as I attend more and more social enterprise events, my mind is going there... and entertaining all sorts of exciting possibilities.

Stay tuned! I am imagineering some international social alchemy these days that could turn out to be lots of fun.

Nothing like a Volcano to kick off a party!

2010-04-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

In the background as I work this afternoon, I've got TedxVolcano rocking in the background.

What an amazing thing. A group of Social Entrepreneurs and big money who want to invest in Social Change got stuck in London after the Oxford Jam and Skoll World Forum last weekend. Their first thought, put together a spontaneous Ted event in 24 hours. Way cool. I'd managed to get home from the weekend's events with a previously booked train ticket, but it was enough to make me wish I could go back.

Meanwhile, last week's overarching theme was collaboration, so my inbox is overflowing with emails from people I met last week, who are still stuck in London and organizing post conference meet-ups among the stranded. I have a feeling they are getting some amazing things done right now. I have to wonder when they actually will be able to leave, and can't help but marvel at how powerful this volcano will end up being historically, in both destructive and constructive ways.

On the destructive side, there is the disruption in global trade. Thousands of air cargo planes are also grounded, with thousands of tons of agricultural commodities from sunnier parts of the world laying in wait for export. The long tail of this particular volcanic disaster is going to hit Africa very hard.

On the constructive side, I find it incredibly interesting to think about the implications of thousands of people taking an unplanned extended break from their lives in a foreign culture. What an incredible opportunity for Governments to collaborate for global security; what a terrific non-military challenge to spur innovation in the aerospace industry. What a fabulous gift of unanticipated time for deepening collaborative relationships among the Better World Builders who got to be part of TedxVolcano in London.

Career-change cocktail banter

2010-03-28T15:16:00.000-07:00

Yay! My perpetual state of career transition over the past couple of years has ended. I am now firmly in the saddle at Evolutionize.It, a new social enterprise I have started in Belgium. I suddenly find that I need to talk about myself differently in social situations. Each time I do, I end up reinventing it just a bit. I guess it depends on my confidence level that day. That's normal, right?

If you and I were face to face over a drink this week and you asked me what I'm up to these days, I might say something like this:

Well... I am basically back at the beginning. I left Uganda after 10 years of community development work and now I'm starting something brand new.

All I really have are some unproven wacky ideas for making an impact how our global development system works, and I am trying to develop a business around them that can actually pay people salaries.

Hmmm... doesn't sound very positive does it? True as those statements may be, on most days I'm actually really excited about what I'm working on. So if I was feeling more confident that day, I might reword myself:

I have just started a new social enterprise that is designing collaboration systems for social changemakers. I'm having lots of fun with it.

If we chatted a bit longer you'd probably ask why I am in Belgium (everyone asks that), and I'd give you the abridged version of our family context. You may or may not get the version that includes the unofficial separation from the husband who has the job that brings us back here. (Summary: we plan our lives collaboratively, we just don't sleep under the same roof.)

When you ask if we are in Belgium to stay, I'd mention (because I am determined to talk this into reality) that our hope is to move on to Asia in about 2 years. The kids and I would love to go to Thailand, if I can work that out somehow. A colleague of mine is thinking about going back to Uganda at around the same time, and we have some ideas for a project we'd like to start in multiple countries, to create a system for changemakers in under-connected parts of the world to collaborate with each other. If their dad can find a job within a 2 hour flight radius, our family can function well. It's worked well like that before.

If you seemed interested in my line of work, I might tell you that while in Belgium for these two years I am learning alot about social enterprise in Europe, experimenting with the design of online and offline collaboration events, and getting to build on what I learned from some of the mistakes I made starting my first social enterprise back in Uganda.

You might be curious about what happened to that when I left Uganda. If so, I would probably share something about new management structures taking over, and that it's been very hard for me to walk the fine line between supporting them and letting go of control.

After a long process, Life in Africa USA's 501(c)3 charity status in the USA has finally been granted (Yay!) The Ugandan management team have recently realized (on their own) that the new structure in place upon my departure from Uganda just isn't working for them. They have defined the structure they would like to have and are already embarked upon administrative changes that they feel will better enable the work they would like to do. Just last week, they constructed a darkroom for a community mushroom growing project to help finance the LiA center's expenses and raise start-up funding for additional community based projects. That's exciting for me to see.

Now mind you, it's rare that we would manage to cover all of these things over drinks - I tend to prefer asking questions to talking about myself in social situations. Not because I have anything to hide, but because I enjoy learning about all sorts of people and their view of the world.

In fact.... now that you already know the career and life-change skinny on me, let's just skip that part of the banter when you and I get a chance to see each other and get to the good part. You!

Writing & righting my wwworld

2010-03-21T22:54:00.000-07:00

Over the past few months I've been working on development of a couple of blogs, each targeted at a different audience. I wanted to let folks know more about what and where those writings are, so you can choose which - if any of them - you'd like to follow.

My party @ christinaswwworld blog feeds directly into my facebook notes. It is the most personal of my blogs, about my life as a global gypsy and some of the things I've learned.

If you are following me on Facebook, what I post at the christinaswwworld blog will appear in your stream automatically. You don't need to leave facebook to read those new entries.
I also share this blog with some friends in the entrecard.com blogger community, that I've made while learning about personal blogging from them over the past couple of years.
New posts are additionally tweeted out to @ChristinasWorld followers at Twitter, and appear in the twitterfeed that's published at http://Evolutionize.It .

Evolutionize It: change through collaboration, is a new blog that I have started to chronicle progress in building the new social enterprise that I have recently co-founded in Brussels, Belgium.

New posts at the Evolutionize It blog will NOT post automatically to my facebook account.
I have, however, just started an Evolutionize It fan page at facebook, and will crosspost new blog entries there. So if you'd like to follow the chronicles of building Evolutionize It via facebook, please Become a Fan of Evolutionize It and enjoy reading about some of our current and upcoming collaborative adventures in the global social change sector.
New posts at Evolutionize.It will also be tweeted by Evolutionize It board members @ChristinasWorld and @liadavide
If you'd like to subscribe to follow the Evolutionize It blog by email or in a blog reader service, please visit http://Evolutionize.It and subscribe in the top right column.

Internet4Change is another blog for an Evolutionize It project I've been working on sporadically since September. I have slowed down on it recently, but it is by no means a dead project.

Watch for new posts about online collaboration 4 social change strategies on Twitter @ChristinasWorld and/or @liadavide, or
subscribe with a reader to the Internet4Change feed, and visit the main site now and again to see what's changed.
A further developed Internet4Change site launch is planned for later this year, in conjunction with the launch of a guide to the collaboration in the online social change space that I'm working on with @NurtureGirl from Thrivable.org.

Finally, you're all invited to participate with me in the World Bank's Urgent Evoke game between now and 12 May.

It's an online game that's designed to teach world-changing collaboration skills in less than 6 weeks,
it's open for everyone on the world wide web to play.
I'm still figuring it out, and would love to see you there!

So there you go... it's up to you to decide how much or how little of what I'm writing you'd like to follow. Now you know where it is if you want it :-)

Happy Spring!

Enjoying my slice of life

2010-02-18T01:02:00.000-08:00

For the past 25 years or so I have gypsied my way around this wide world of ours, breathing in the experience of life, as it is known to all sorts and kinds of people who live it.

My quest has never been to experience the world's diverse natural wonders and climates, nor to witness all of humankind's amazing inventions. What drives me is to understand people, and how they make life work in different kinds of contexts. Along the way, I have lived with European millionaires, who call the very best that the world has to offer "normal." I have lived among the poorest of Africa's poor, displaced from their homes by some of the worst ravages the world knows how to inflict upon itself. I have lived with Asian Buddhists, who embrace self-inflicted poverty as the wealthiest kind of life they could possibly live. I've been a mom, a daughter, a sister, a neighbor, an employee, a boss, a friend.... albeit sometimes from far away.

If there is one thing I have learned, it's that we are all just people, wherever we live - through good times and bad, celebration and desperation, bad choices and things that just happen to us... even through the normal humdrum business of everyday trying to get by. We all do our best in our own way, to make the most out of whatever it is that the world offers to us. I don't claim to always understand when people are mean to each other, but I try not to judge too harshly. Everyone has a unique story, a unique context, a unique way of trying to piece life together in a way that makes sense. While it's that diversity that makes humanity so wonderfully interesting, our common human-ness unites us in ways we sometimes forget to see.

I recently had the privilege to zoom in on it for a while, when I took a month out to go home to the US and spend time with some people who are dear to me: family, old friends, and even some new friends who I'd only previously seen in virtual form. What an absolute treat to be welcomed into homes, to share meals, and to see how families have grown. What fun to reconnect with people I hadn't seen in 15 to 25 years. What a wonder to pick up old relationships from where we left off once upon a time, and to strengthen new ones with the added dimensions of reacting in real-time to facial expressions, and sharing the comfortable silence of simply breathing shared air.

How I love the feeling of connection to the world, that only time spent with other human beings can offer. And so I would just like to thank you, my dear ones, for sharing a little slice of your lives with me. My recent time with you all has made me grateful, and reminds me of just how delicious this thing called life can sometimes be.

Travel Alert :: California to Brussels

2010-02-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

Just a heads up to those of you who've been following my month long journey of connecting with new colleagues and old friends ~ looks like the whole country is getting stuck in snowstorms, so my planned landing back in Brussels Saturday morning could change. I am scheduled to spend tomorrow in Atlanta with my friend Cynthia G., visiting an amazing treehouse for a special summercamp that she has designed. But 1-2 inches of snow are expected in Atlanta tonight, so the chances are getting slimmer that I will land in Atlanta tomorrow morning. The flight from there to Brussels is scheduled for 12 hours later, so I may still be able to catch that. But if it keeps snowing then I might just have to sit tight in Southern California for a while longer and reschedule the whole thing...

I will keep you posted

A sharable Holiday Gift for the people in my wwworld

2009-12-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

We finally decorated at home in Brussels yesterday!

I received a very special gift from someone about 10 days ago.

Though I have seen her many times, I do not actually know her name. She was hosting a "social enterprise bazaar" stall next to mine. We were both features at the grand opening of The Hub Brussels - a social enterprise incubator where I rent 25 desk hours in a really cool group office space each month. I spend time there in the context of establishing my new social profit company and developing the Internet4Change project. The woman who gave me this gift also works on her project there. Her work has something to do with compassion building.

I remembered to take this gift out of my handbag and looked at it for a couple of days. I considered it, thought about it, showed it to my kids. Finally, I used it ~ and enjoyed it. I used it again... and kind of fell in love with it.

As I thought about it for a few days more, I became more and more intrigued by it's quiet power to subtly transform my thought patterns about conflicts in my life. About one painful conflict in particular, I started thinking about some practical lessons I'd learned. I stopped feeling hurt. Eventually I took an action that started to right an unintended wrong that resulted from that conflict.

And so I thought about this gift, for a few days more.

I imagined what might happen if everyone I knew and the people they knew, and people they knew all had this gift and used it at least once. I wondered: if more and more ordinary people used this gift regularly, could we - would we - actually, possibly, maybe, pretty pleeeeease build some more compassion and meaningful peace in the world?

Couldn't we simply learn to BE peace on Earth?

I'm crazy enough to think we ought to try.

When I found myself thinking about ways to magnify the gift's power, I realized that this was just the kind of thing I'd been looking for, to share with friends in my online wwworld this holiday season.

I am giving it to you.

Because I know you will enjoy it.

Because I have faith that you'll use it and share it for good.

There are some variations possible with this gift. I present you below with mine ~

The gift: A Practical Exercise in Compassion Building

Before you begin:

Think of someone with whom you have had a past conflict that you still have memory of.

Hold that person in your mind, and say inside yourself:
Just like me, s/he is looking for happiness in their life.
Hold that person in your mind, and say inside yourself:
Just like me, s/he tries to avoid suffering in their life.
Hold that person in your mind, and say inside yourself:
Just like me, s/he has known sadness, loneliness and desperation.
Hold that person in your mind, and say inside yourself:
Just like me, s/he seeks to satisfy their needs.
Hold that person in your mind, and say inside yourself:
Just like me, s/he is still learning about life.

Please join me in spending some time actively practicing peace this holiday season. Use your new gift. Enjoy the feel of it... and don't forget to share.

With love, and in honor of the beauty you add to the tapestry on my cyberwalls,

Here's to being peace on Earth!

I would love to read your comments.

Christina

Thinking back... to my back

2009-11-05T03:17:00.000-08:00

My youngest was ill this week - unable to keep anything down (including his own gastric juices), until I finally took him to the hospital for fear he was becoming dehydrated. At bedtime that night, I found myself telling him an abridged story about a time I was hospitalized as a child. The full version of that story perhaps answers a question my friend Michael Maranda asked this week: "What story would you Share, to help others live a proper way?"

I was almost 14 when my scoliosis was diagnosed. At that time, the curve in my spine measured in at around 40 degrees. My parents noticed it one day while I was bent over doing yard work in a bathing suit top. A chiropractor tried to help, but 1 year later the curve had progressed to over 60 degrees. My ribcage was severely twisted, and my lungs were beginning to feel cramped when I tried to breathe deeply. The orthopedic surgeon we visited predicted that I was likely to suffer heart failure by the time I was 19 if they didn't stop the curving and twisting from getting worse, and made me a priority case for an operation to insert a Harrington Rod. Next thing I knew, my family packed up and moved from Lake Elsinore to Huntington Beach, which was closer to the hospital where my surgery would be performed.

A Harrington Rod is kind of like a car jack - the two ends of the rod were attached to the top and the bottom of the main curve, and then it was made longer to push the curve straight. I grew 2.5 inches on the operating table, and was sent home from the hospital after 8 days with an awkward, pre-fitted brace that I'd have to wear for 6 months. The one thing bothering the doctor before he discharged me was my lack of appetite. Sure enough, within 2 days of going home I was physically unable to eat anything at all. It turns out that when I grew on the operating table it put a strain on a main artery that passes through the intestines. That strain caused a severe (albeit delayed) swelling that completely blocked my ability to digest anything (like my son earlier this week, though his seems to have only been some kind of bug).

The doctor told us that about 3% of all Harrington Rod patients experienced a similar complication. In only 1% of patients was the swelling delayed, like mine had been. And in only 1% of patients was the swelling as severe as mine was. There was no case the doctor could find where the swelling did not go away within a few days, and yet mine didn't seem to want to go away - I stayed in the hospital for another 30 days. At one point, they decided to insert a tube under my clavicle that would feed nutrients straight into my heart, and punctured one of my lungs in the process. At another point, I guess I kind of freaked out and broke a nurse's glasses in my struggle to get up out of the bed I'd been lying on for what seemed like forever (I have no memory of that, and was only told a year later!)

What I remember the most - and what has stayed with me as one of the most breathtakingly important moments of my life - was when my mother and the doctor were discussing the possibility of another surgical intervention. They were standing on either side of my bed when the doctor said he was concerned that I wasn't strong enough to survive another surgery, but he just didn't know what else to try. Meanwhile, my body was dwindling away. There I was at barely 15 years old and suddenly imagining my own funeral. We'd just moved to a new town where I didn't know anybody, and I had a hard time imagining who would even come.

Hold on a minute, I said to myself. I can't die yet, because I haven't yet really lived! And then, for no apparent medical reason, I started getting better.

When I finally got out of that hospital bed, I was not the same girl. I'd always felt "different," but in Lake Elsinore, I'd been meek, emotional and afraid of what my peers thought of me. Starting at a new school with a very visible and ugly back brace, I decided that if people were going to look at me anyway then I'd make sure they saw more than metal and fiberglass. I became a student leader, I embraced every opportunity I could find to excel, and decided with clear intent that my life - that precious gift which I had nearly lost - could be and would be a valuable one. 3 short years later, I graduated Girl of the Year - an award based on service to the school that I hadn't even attended for my whole high school career.

It is in a spirit of gratitude for my life that I have grown up to find the most fulfillment in helping and serving others. It's in that same spirit of gratitude that I have traveled so much and tried to learn what I can about the world. It is with gratitude that I believe in my responsibility to be the best that I can be, reach for the highest potential of my higher self, and suck the very marrow out of the experiences life offers every day. Life is so very fragile, short, and may be taken away at any moment.

As terrible as it was to go through all of that at such a tender age, I don't remember it as a terrible experience. It made me realize the true nature of the gift that life is, and helped me believe more in my own right to be who I am. Today when I think back on my back, I am always reminded to enjoy, be grateful for, and make the most of my life, while it lasts.

When asked "What story would you Share, to help others live a proper way?" this is it. May it inspire you to think about and understand the precious value of your own life, and the power within you to make the most of it.

Because we can

2009-10-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

Five years ago, I met photographer Tony Deifell in Chicago at a face to face gathering of an online community we both belonged to. Tony challenged participants with a simple question: Why Do You Do What You Do? Today the amazing WDYDWYD project continues to provoke thoughtful responses through artistic expression from around the world, and my own answer continues to be the same: I see that I can, so I must.

At that same conference, I also met a dynamic young woman named Theresa Williamson, who works in Brazil to help local communities in Rio identify and share solutions that work, to improve lives in that city's infamous Flavelas (squatter communities). I don't claim to know the deeper personal reasons why Theresa does what she does, but she does it tirelessly, and with obvious passion. Right now she and her friends at Catalytic Communities need just a tiny bit of help to do something really important. I see that I can ask you to help, so I must...

In the lead up to the 2016 Olympics in Rio, some of the city’s most peaceful communities are at risk. Some communities will be razed. Others will be invaded by police. And yet others will be gentrified. What is worse is that many times these communities aren’t being heard. But YOU can help give favela leaders a voice, and it won't cost you a single cent.

Catalytic Communities, the NGO founded by my friend Theresa that has nine years experience working with Rio’s favelas, is now in the final round of the ideablob competition to win $10,000 for their idea: “Rio Olympics: Ensuring a Powerful Legacy for Rio’s Favelas.” They need our help to vote. Its easy and quick, and the idea with the most votes wins.

If CatComm wins, they will train 200 community leaders from across the city of Rio de Janeiro in creative use of social media, which will amplify their voices so they are heard by the muncipal authorities, the media, and the global community. Rio´s current administration is very sensitive to media and foreign opinion, so there is a lot of power in CatComm’s approach.

Why do I think you should vote? Because it's a good idea, and because you can. It's really that simple.

Here's what to do:

Go here and click “VOTE”.
If you haven’t already registered at ideablob, you will need to register. Registration takes putting in your email address and confirming it’s your address by one click. That’s it. Anyone with an email address, regardless of your country, can register.
Once registered, login and vote for Catalytic Communities before October 31st.
Blog, tweet, and facebook about it! Try and recruit at least five friends!

Together we can make sure that all Brazilians feel proud to wave their flags in 2016!

Thanks for doing what you can do. Today.

My Money Madness

2009-10-19T19:17:00.000-07:00

I've had a really odd relationship with money since a pivotal moment that occurred when I was 13 years years old. After watching The Money Fix yesterday (highly recommended!), I found myself sharing that story with my 13 year old son, and thought it also worth sharing here.

I had just graduated Valedictorian of my junior high school, when a neighbor - who was also a close family "friend" - took it upon herself to let me know that I would probably never go to college. Yes, of course she knew that I'd always been very smart and done well in school, but it was important for me to face facts: I would not be able to go to college because my parents just wouldn't be able to afford it. I shouldn't get my hopes up to high.

I remember the smallest details of that moment: where we were standing, what she was wearing, and how her face tried to show me a gentle smile. More than anything, though, I remember the personal decision that I made at the time, in unforgettable words left unsaid, that pounded very loudly through my 13 year old head: I decided at that moment that I was smarter and more powerful than money, and that I would never let it stand in the way of achieving what I wanted to do in my life.

Two prestigious university degrees and 46 countries later, I've never regretted that decision. I worked and borrowed to pay for my own education, nor did my parents pay for much of my travel. Where there's a will, there's a way - I've never cheated or stolen or lied, but in my younger days I had a pretty strong will, and a strong faith that if I planned well enough I would always find a way.

I worked hard, married a financially stable guy, and always kept debt to a minimum. Though I actually earned pretty well for a while, money has never been an important factor for me in my career. When I moved to Africa, in fact, I stopped earning money (by choice) and started using what I had to create income earning opportunities for others. Things didn't always go well for me during that time - there's no apparent reason why I should have stayed financially afloat - but it was then I discovered a foolproof secret about money that not many people I know dare to believe.

If I give of myself to the universe, the universe will give of itself to me.

That's my secret, and my financial planning credo. Outrageous nonsense? Believe me, you won't be alone if you think that, but you also won't sway me from knowing that in my life, it's true. Since I started giving my time, talents and money to the world, I've had consulting jobs and fellowships fall into my lap that I wasn't looking for, earned more than expected on real estate investments, and somehow always had enough to be able to meet my own family's needs and give regularly to causes and people I care about.

It has not always been emotionally easy to live by that credo. There have definitely been times when I've been taken advantage of - sometimes by people I've loved. Even more painful was when some people simply didn't believe me (it's not normal, after all, to work from the heart for others) and suspected me of hidden foul play. I am not wealthy, by most Western standards, but I also don't lack any essentials. Most importantly, I know who I am, and I know that I have more control over my life than money ever will.

You don't have to live by, or even believe in the sanity of my credo, but before you write me off as completely crazy, watch The Money Fix. If nothing else, it will help you understand that money does not have to control you either.

(Oh yes - and without telling them what they can't do, be sure to share The Money Fix message with all the 13 year olds you know!)

10 simple ways my family fights climate change

2009-10-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Since moving back to Brussels earlier this year, I've been intrigued by local attitudes toward climate change, and our responsibilities as human beings to change our behaviors where we can. The Belgian government does a lot to make it possible for everyone to play a role. Belgians love their luxuries, however, and many ordinary folk I've talked to feel content to let the government be the only one who makes an effort.

Some friends have even told me they believe that "going green" is just another excuse to get people to consume more industrial goods - ie, that we are now told to replace every appliance we have with greener versions is just another push for increased consumerism. But there are also many, like me, who take their own responsibility to fight climate change pretty seriously. In fact, moving to a new country and creating a new life has provided opportunities for my family to develop some new habits (and continue some old ones) that I feel pretty good about.

In honor of Blog Action Day, I counted them up and found 10 worth sharing.

No car - Living without a car is something I really wanted to try to do, and so far, so good. Our house is really well connected to Brussels by public transport, which we all really enjoy using: it's way cheaper than operating a car, there are no parking hassles, and it's always fun and interesting to watch people on the bus and metro. We live within walking distance of a supermarket that has a delivery service, so our weekly shopping is easy too. I said when we arrived that I wanted to try living without a car for a year. In the past 6 months, there have only been about 4 times when I really wished I had one, so I think we're doing pretty well without.
No dryer - Did you know that a clothes dryer is one of the highest energy consuming appliances? Instead of buying one, we've been hanging our clothes to dry in the basement just next to the boiler where it's relatively warm. I'm hopeful that solution will work during the winter months as well. The big disadvantage is that I have to iron a bit more than I otherwise would, and irons also use a lot of energy.
Recycling - Belgium is huge on recycling, and has been for the last decade plus. We regularly sort paper, metal, plastics and glass, and there's different pickup days for each.
Composting - I was too late this year to plant a vegetable garden, but we will have some lovely compost to use next year. All of our veggie waste goes into a simple compost bin in back of our garden shed.
Organic foods - I love being able to choose to buy organic foods, and I am definitely willing to pay more for them. Not only do organically grown foods cause less damage to the environment, but they are also healthier for our bodies. I don't buy everything organic, but on a regular basis I do buy organic eggs, pasta, vegetables and sometimes meat.
Green energy use - when I signed up for electricity service, the Belgian national provider gave me an option to use all renewable energy at a fixed price for 2 years. That's a no brainer, as far as I'm concerned.
Energy efficient lights - yes, it's more expensive upfront to buy energy efficient lightbulbs, but it really does make a difference in my energy bill. So as the bulbs in the house burn out, I replace them with more energy efficient ones.
Sweep instead of vacuum - That's one less appliance, and I actually prefer sweeping to pushing around a vacuum cleaner. Most of our floors are tile or wood, so sweeping makes sense on those anyway. We also sweep our carpets with a stiff brush.
One meat free meal per week - we are not vegetarians but are aware that meat production is actually more harmful to the environment than driving a car. The Belgian city of Ghent has recently adopted a meat-free Wednesday policy in all public hospitals and schools, and they say that if the entire country would go meat free for one day a week, it would have an equivalent impact to taking 500,000 cars off the road permanently. So the boys and I have decided to do our part, with at least one meat free meal per week.
Use the short cycle on appliances - Our washing machine and our dishwasher both have quick-wash cycles that I use about 75% of the time. Unless the things we're washing are really dirty, we don't notice a difference. We also use eco-friendly detergents.

I've no doubt there are more things we could do to fight climate change in our modest way, and many would argue that the actions of 4 small people don't actually make a difference in the big picture of things. But it makes me feel less powerless over the issue to do what I can, and to teach my boys that it's worth doing for reasons that are bigger than we are.

And what about you? Are there things your family does differently now than you did before you knew about climate change? I'm always on the lookout for more ideas.