How Hollaback! is Creating a Culture of Community Accountability and Mutual Respect: An Interview with Emily May. In the two weeks immediately following the Georgia attack that killed 8 people, 6 of them Asian women, over 40,000 people signed up for trainings in bystander intervention with an incredible organization called Hollaback! They’re really leaders in… read more
Who was Barbara Deming and why do we need her wisdom today? … read more
As the founding director of The Global Media Center for Social Impact (GMI) at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, Sandra de Castro Buffington passionately analyzes where mass media and positive social change meet. I was curious about Sandra’s take on how mass media might play a role in creating nonviolent culture, so I interviewed… read more
Earlier this week, Forbes published it’s 2015 list of the world’s most powerful women—”most powerful” as defined, of course, by Forbes. The magazine’s criteria: This is FORBES’ definitive annual audit of the foremost heads of state, iconic entrepreneurs and CEOS, celebrity role models, billionaire activists, and pioneer philanthropists, all ranked by money, media momentum, spheres… read more
May 10 “The outstanding impression that my mother has left on my memory is saintliness.” –Gandhi (Autobiography, p. 4) (See photo below of Gandhi with his mother.) While Gandhi had many influences in his life, none was greater in his spiritual development than his mother, Putilbai. A very earnest spiritual aspirant, Putilbai upheld in… read more
Ellie Cross is interested in using art as a problem-solving tool to create a more just world. A native of Seattle, WA, Ellie has painted murals designed to raise environmental consciousness in Malaysia, Thailand, Guatemala and the U.S. Her research in art activism and education has taken her to Ghana and Tibetan exile communities in Nepal, India… read more
March 13: “True knowledge of religion breaks down the barriers between faith and faith.” —Gandhi (From Yervada Mandir, p. 40) Religions, while they have their superficial differences, all point to the same reality: the unity of life and its realization. As the wisdom tradition maintains, “the paths are many but the truth is one.” Unfortunately,… read more
March 9: “I advise women to resort to civil rebellion against all undesirable and unworthy restraints.” –Gandhi (Harijan, 3-23-1947 p. 80) In India (as well as in all other places where Indians live) the celebration of Holi announces the arrival of springtime. Rose petals, marigolds, multi-hued powders and water-balloons are tossed in the air, signifying… read more
March 8: “Bravery is not man’s monopoly.” –Gandhi (Harijan, 1-5-1947, p. 478) As the world’s consciousness evolves to understand that all human beings, regardless of sex, are human beings, thus worthy of dignity, equality, economic justice, respect, and so on, it is the realm of nonviolent action that portrays this reality most effectively. Nonviolence… read more
Who really was Alice Paul? This is the question that Zoe Nicholson, satyagrahi, feminist, scholar, and lifelong activist, spent over forty years researching and synthesizing to realize the woman from the sensationalized myth of a woman we have been taught about in school or that has been depicted in film. Through her research Nicholson found… read more
