Mark Fowler, myself and the rest of us here at Revolutionary Conversations, LLC are so proud of the United Nations Associations of Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo for its efforts to support people of peace.
Along with our POWER OF PEACE™ podcasts, our involvement with the Rotary E-Club of World Peace and the Rotary World Peace Conferences 2016 and 2020, the UNA’s Annual Peace Award is one of our favorite ways to give back and to support people involved in helping to build a more peaceful world. This year, again, we are sponsors of the event. This is a very special event and this year we went all out to support and promote the event. To learn more and to sign up please go to the UNA website.
2019 NOMINEES
Leslie Clark, artist, founder/owner of Nomad Gallery and founder/president of Nomad Foundation
For the past 20 years, Leslie has worked to provide education, medical care, vocational training and water for under-served, marginalized nomadic groups on the edge of the Sahara Desert in Niger. Her mission: stability and social and economic well-being to nomadic cultures of the Sahara. She has worked to bring understanding of these “exotic” cultures through long-term cultural exchange and economic support through sales of their artistic creations. She has transformed lives and continues to change the lives of everyone involved. For 25 years, she has committed her life and career to saving and enhancing lives of Ancient Cultures of the Nomads of Niger in the Sahara Desert.
Website: The NOMAD Foundation
Evie Treen, founder of Friends of Woni International that builds wells and schools in Kenya.
Friends of Woni International was created as a response to deliver a critical resource and we hope that you will be inspired by our Woni (Swahili) – Vision. Evie Treen and Magdalene Ngina believed in the combined power of providing safe water and supporting education in underserved communities that receive little to no support from the governments in Sub-Saharan Africa. These are essential conditions needed to enable communities to break the cycle of devastation. Our agreed approach was to build on communities’ existing spirit of involvement and ownership which would allow people to feel enabled, energized and empowered. Friends of Woni supports education programs in rural community-run pre-schools through collaboration by putting public primary and high schools in the center of holistic community services, allowing the schools to become a portal for large-scale social change. This approach invites families to be part of the solutions and build communities that invest in their own futures – in the long-run, transforming the rural lack of opportunities while creating future community leaders. Our education goes beyond academics, we provide daily nourishment health care, strategic support, high school scholarship programs, uniforms and school facilities that enhance learning in classrooms.
Website: Friends of Woni
Sue Mantle DiCicco, the founder of the Peace Crane Project, inviting every child in the world to wage the cause of peace.
The Peace Crane Project was founded in 2013 by Sue DiCicco in order to promote world peace and raise awareness of the International Day of Peace (21 September). A “peace crane” is an origami crane used as a peace symbol, by reference to the story of Sadako Sasaki (1943– 1955), a Japanese victim of the long-term effects of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Sasaki was one of the most widely known hibakusha (Japanese for “bomb-affected person”), said to have folded one thousand origami cranes before her death. The Peace Crane Project invites every child in the world to fold an origami crane, write messages of peace on its wings, then through us, trade their crane with another child somewhere in the world.
Website: Peace Crane Project
Dr. Lori Leyden, founder of Create Global Healing that works with victims of trauma from genocide, refugees, and school-shootings.
Lori Leyden, PhD, MBA is a trauma healing professional known internationally for using EFT/Tapping in her work with hundreds of orphan genocide survivors in Rwanda. Dr. Leyden founded the non-profit Create Global Healing (CGH) and established Project LIGHT: Rwanda – the world’s first international youth healing, heart-centered leadership, and entrepreneurship program. Project LIGHT is a new form of humanitarian aid nurturing our next generation of young people to heal, work and lead us into a peaceful future. In alignment with her mission to create global healing, Dr. Leyden also heads up The Tapping Solution Foundation’s humanitarian work including supporting those affected by the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy. She is the Executive Producer of the documentary When I Was Young I Said I Would Be Happy which chronicles the transformation of 12 Project LIGHT Ambassadors and how they paid their healing forward to hundreds, in Rwanda and Newtown, CT.
Website: Create Global Healing
Professor Joe White, creator of A Year Without War to extend the Olympics Truce worldwide to a full year in 2024.
The 2020 AYWW social experiment is using technology never before available, to build and give VOICE to our global community to just say NO TO WAR for one year, 2020. Our growing, global community is initially focused upon securing a United Nations General Assembly Resolution for a one-year global truce in 2020 amongst all U.N. member nations. For nearly 20 years, the United Nations General Assembly has signed a one-month global truce every two years for the International Olympic Games. 2020 AYWW anticipates such a one-month global truce for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. We want that one-month Olympic truce extended to cover the entire year. 2020 AYWW is not focused presently upon either civil wars or non-state player wars. 2020 AYWW is a simple program with a clear Dream, precise Deadline and a detailed Plan.
Website: A Year Without War
Linda Eckerbom Cole, founder of African Women Rising that empowers women after war.
African Women Rising, a small nonprofit with big impact, was launched in 2006 in Santa Barbara and Uganda to empower women after War by providing technical skills and support for success via education, agriculture, and microfinance training. African Women Rising works in partnership with community-based groups to improve the lives of women in post-conflict areas of Africa. Rooted in the conviction that women should be active stakeholders in defining their own development strategies, African Women Rising builds on initiatives that the women themselves have started. Not only do women carry the heaviest post-conflict burden, but they are also central to the daily work of repairing fractured communities. When women are actively involved in decision-making, be it post-war reconstruction or small-scale civic action, their voices ensure that vital societal priorities are upheld.
Website: African Women Rising
Victoria Riskin, Chair of Human Rights Watch, Santa Barbara chapter.
Victoria Riskin served on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch for twelve years and was a founding member of Human Rights Watch in Southern California. The former co-chair of the Human Rights Watch Santa Barbara Committee, she now serves as Human Rights Watch’s Ambassador for Santa Barbara. For ten years she served as Chair of the Hellman-Hammett Prize Committee, aiding writers around the world who have been victims of political persecution. She chaired the Board of Trustees of Antioch University Santa Barbara for seven years and is currently the Chair of the Antioch Santa Barbara Leadership Council. She is on the Board of Directors of NPR station KCRW and chairs the KCRW Advisory Board in Santa Barbara. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities from USC, a Master’s degree in Psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, also from USC.
Website: HRW.org