The Goddess Within Workshop
Jennifer Partridge from XM’s Radio Show, brings an all inspiring workshop for the ladies, to empower the Goddess within us all. Her work shop consists of fun and interactive ways of learning from Chakra dance, laughter yoga, energetic healing, massage, guided meditation and your own sacred skin care formulation. The day is designed to inspire you to shout out and dance to the rhythm of your inner Goddess, so that we may take our light and touch the hearts of those around us. To book yourself in to be a Goddess call Jennifer on 310-721-2625 or log on to Our New Earth’s website at www.ournewearth.tv

Date: 29th June 2008
Location: Marina Terrace, Fiji Centre
13273 Fiji Way, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
Time: 10:00am - 4:30pm

Special 50 % discount tickets for all Empowerment Works supporters:
Original price: $150
Discounted Price: $75

Early bird discount: $55 (Call Jennifer to reserve your place!)

(please mention this advertisement and promotional code #Goddesslove)

2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and founder of Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus to Speak on “Creating a World Without Poverty” - Wednesday, January 16th – 8:00 p.m. @ the Arlington Theatre – 1317 State Street in Santa Barbara

2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus will deliver the illuminating FREE public lecture titled “Creating a World Without Poverty – How Social Business Can Transform Our Lives” on Wednesday, January 16 at 8 pm at the Arlington Theatre.

A revolutionary economist, Yunus will outline his vision for an original business model that combines the power of free markets with the quest for a more humane world –telling the inspiring stories of companies that are doing this work today.

Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank – a pioneer of microcredit, an economic movement that has helped lift millions of families around the world out of poverty – and is the author of Banker to the Poor – Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. The Washington Post writes, “[Yunus’s] ideas have already had a great impact on the Third World, and… hearing his appeal for a ‘poverty-free world’ from the source itself can be as stirring as that all-American myth of bootstrap success.”

Muhammad Yunus’s lecture is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures as part of the “Alleviating Global Poverty Event Series” and is sponsored by an anonymous donor. Admission to the event is FREE. For more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or visit online.

Just as the World Social Forum ended, another journey began in the Samburu tribal territory of Kenya’s Rift Valley where I was to join fellow LA based Coalition for a Sustainable Africa member, Kristen Kosinski on her program assessment trip. Kristen’s organization, The Samburu Project increases access to clean water as the foundation for the empowerment of women. The Samburu are a nomadic pastoralist tribe of over 150,000 people living in an arid, remote area of Northern Kenya just above the equator.

More on Samburu Journey – Uncovering Indigenous Solutions for Child Survival in Kenya

Dear fellow Think-Tankers and Co-Creators of the Partners In Empowerment Forum!

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR BRILLIANT INSIGHTS, INSPIRATION & INNOVATIVE IDEAS!

I am deeply excited about the possibilities that this forum presents: empowering public participation, as an incubator for REAL world solutions, setting forth new models of mutually-supportive social action!

TO help clarify this beautifully big picture, here are the core key concepts & components of the newly evolved Partners In Empowerment forum for collaboration:

Part 1 - EW Methodological Framework; the 6 key PIE Categories:

• Social Entrepreneurs (www.socialedge.org)
• Artists In Action (Using art for social change +++?)
• Collaborating Non-profits (Working in synergy, uniting force)
• Sustainable Businesses (can/ should we adopt www.Greenopia.com 4 leaf criteria/ evaluation process here?)
• Educational Institutions (innovative, environmental, or just partnering?)
• Responsible Media Groups (I’ve been using Jay Levin’s quote: “The profound mission of journalism in a democracy is to be dedicated first, last and only to the principle that the public get the full facts and a truly diverse set of opinions about the facts.”

Part 2 - (components/ applications/ action areas):

• Appropriate Technology Hubs - Listings, database, links to other forums relating to multisector approach to sustainable development;
• Poverty Eradication Toolkit Links - EW has a small tool kit that we apply in programs, but there are many more!, ie. systems to use Community Currency UNITS, Micro-credit lending, etc). Find out more about EW’s developing Poverty Eradication Programs (PEPs).
• EW Critical Mass Campaigns - This includes Policy Making / Public Awareness initiatives that this forum could unify to launch focusing on such things as Land Mines, Kyoto Protocol, Human Rights, etc.
• GLOBAL ACTION PROJECTS - Might include planting one billion trees, ie. or finding innovative ways of engaging public participation, collaboration, transfer of efficient tree-planting, etc., are great criteria.

With a little bit of insight from a lot of people we will have solid ideas to put into action at our next forum.

To propose criteria, definition &/or methods to engage related to PIE Categories/ sectors, Please post your blog w/ PIE titles.

There is a TON of green wash going on. Thus, to maintain integrity, and to truly inspire innovative action, the make-up of this forum must be defined by sustainable global values, supported by action.

Therefore, I feel the most fundamental next step is to set clear criteria for Business, media, and non-profits. I also like the idea of people, orgs, etc, signing on to a pledge of intention/ participation/ action, etc.

Please recommend existing standards that we can draw from.

To propose system of granting, evaluation, etc, for Campaigns, please use the titles listed in PART 2.

Examples might include:

1. Feasibility & measurable impact to promote human and environmental security;
2. Use of Appropriate Technologies;
3. Synergy/ value added integration of diverse PIE sectors.

We look forward to more of your recommendations for how this can work best thru the development of the 1Pie Community Collaboration Portal.

Love and thanks again for your partnership, Melanie,

melanie@empowermentworks.org

Melanie St.James, MPA

Executive Director

www.empowermentworks.org

“Celebrating Our Planet and its Peoples to Resolve Poverty!”

Dear Fellow Think-Tankers (in Action),

Thank you for your participation in the first official Partners In Empowerment think-tank, laying the foundation and setting goals for the 1PIE collaboration forum.

Here are the minutes from Courtney White - Empowerment Works’ Community Liaison:

Introductions and aligning in context of what we all bring to the table (THE WORLD).

1. Resources for Creating Collaborations, Forums, Coalitions

Global Social Movements towards Social Justice and Sustainability:

• WISER (www.wiser.org) —over 200,000 orgs coming together (aggregating) online
• World Social Forum http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/
• International Forum on Globalization www.ifg.org

Books:

• Cultural Creatives by Paul Ray - The number of Spirituals are rising
• Megatrends 2010: The rise of conscious capitalism by Patricia Aburdene
  

Publications:

• Business Ethics : A quarterly report on corporate social responsibility publishes List of top 100 corporate citizens
• Fast Company: An annual list of conscious corporations
• Interra.org - Can earmark where your money goes
• Gliving.tv - Green living online television station

2. Possible Campaigns:

• Getting Google to set up a stock that invests in Green

3. Approach: How do we go beyond preaching to the choir?

• Creating the value-added;
• Finding ways to make it mutually supportive;
• Beyond Environmentally Friendly;
• Shift and create a template: make an intentional community that advances the mission for everyone;
• One common denominator that everyone can get around;
• Creating stakeholders;
• It has to increase profits for the business sector;
• Present things as a cost => Economic shift. (shifting and reflecting to society idea of a cost to a Benefit);
• Total transparency;
• Giving measurable results. If you can’t see things making a difference it falls off the radar.

Coming together to do critical mass campaigns:

• Inner circle creates maybe 4 a year;
• Dialogues create Synergies;
• Affinity Groups.

4. HOW CAN IT WORK?

One example of how it can work is an Online Forum where people can nominate an Issue such as planting trees—Green World Project. Then build an organizational infrastructure and develop a mission and plan. Can develop in many ways considering all the different ways to get it done).

• Creating Criteria;
• Catalyst for launching appropriate technologies;
• Awareness and Action Campaigns.

Using Affinity Group Model:

Take a group of 6 people:

• Decide on an agenda (do-able);
• Each person goes out and recruits 5 people, and the movement grows;
• Everybody puts in $5, people;
• Coordinator help to Keep the teams on target;
• Money that comes in is used for staff/organizing/media campaigns.