Global Passageways
Coming of Age in the Twenty-First Century
An Invitation to all who hear the Call…
Global Passageways is a growing community of our world’s leading rites of passage
specialists, positive youth and elder development specialists, and social change
movement leaders who are gathering together to revitalize the role rites of passage have
in the healing and transformation of our lives, our societies, and the planet Earth.
Born from a “call to adventure” heard simultaneously by youth and elders around the
world, this collaborative international project is dedicated to the safe passage of humanity
and our precious Earth as we navigate our way through the narrow passageway of change
we face in the twenty-first century. Our shared mission will be accomplished through
two global conferences, a dynamic multi-media website, numerous publications, and a
feature-length film documenting the process and power of rites of passage in these times.
Why Rites of Passage?
Throughout history rites of passage have served as a fundamental source of
transformation at all stages of the human life cycle. In cultures across the planet, they
have been a pathway for consciously initiating youth into maturity by connecting them
with their inner selves, their society, Spirit, and the great Earth community.
Today we find ourselves living in a global village that is increasingly lacking its elders, a
sense of community, and rites of passage for our awakening youth. As we confront an
unparalleled global crisis—what many are calling a time of global initiation—there is a
growing recognition that the revitalization of global rites of passage has the potential to
play a leading role in the healing and transformation of our world.
Now more than ever, our youth need to be initiated in healthy and holistic ways so that
they are deeply rooted in their connection with the Earth, with their bodies, with their
inner lives, and with the societies they have been born into. We need our ‘olders’ to
awaken to their role as ‘elders’ so that they can provide their greatly needed wisdom,
guidance, and blessing. Most of all, we need healthy and whole communities in which all
generations can come together in intergenerational collaboration, action, and celebration.
Many are calling our historical moment the time of the Great Turning, the Shift, or the
11th Hour. Together we are recognizing the remarkable times we live in as the threshold
of a great awakening, of a collective rite of passage, the transition of an Old World dying
and a New World being born. And it is with this understanding that it is becoming clear
that twenty-first century rites of passage will play a vital part in our planetary
transformation and renewal.
In these uncertain times of global initiation, the quest to bring together youth and elders
to revitalize rites of passage is being called to the center of our world’s stage.
Our Mission: Global Passageways is an international community of individuals and
organizations working together to foster rites of passage for the healing and
transformation of humanity, our societies, and the planet Earth.
Our Goals:
♦ To foster consciously created rites of passage for youth and elders.
♦ To foster consciously created rites of passage for our generations,
communities, and humanity as a whole.
♦ To connect our pathways of personal transformation with our pathways of
planetary transformation.
♦ To create healthy and whole communities by building intergenerational
relationships, collaboration, and action.
♦ To bring together the positive youth development community—youth leadership,
youth service, youth social entrepreneur, youth activism, youth adventure, and
youth civic engagement—to explore how these programs can more effectively
serve as holistic, contemporary rites of passage.
♦ To inspire the creation of twenty-first century rites of passage programs.
Project Timeline:
I. “Generation Vision Quest: Rites of Passage for an Awakening World”
October, 2008 on the Big Island of Hawaii
This five-day retreat will serve as a collective vision quest for a community of leading
practitioners to explore the role of rites of passage in the awakening of our world. We
will be bringing together a dedicated group of approximately 60 individuals who are
actively working in the fields of rites of passage, intergenerational collaboration, and
positive youth & elder development.
By bringing together leaders who are actively working across cultures, religions, genders,
and generations, our intention is to awaken a collective understanding of how rites of
passage unfold; what creates well-being and success in these processes of transformation;
what traditional and contemporary practices support the different and essential phases of
these passages; and how this awakened wisdom can actively be applied to the lives of the
peoples across the Earth in support of these initiatory times.
This gathering will also serve as a time of visioning and planning for a large-scale
conference that will take place approximately one year later.
II. “Generation Waking Up: Coming of Age in the Twenty-First Century”
Spring of 2010 (location still to be determined)
This extraordinary conference will serve as a coming-of-age celebration for our
generation and humanity as a whole. The event itself will take place as a collective rite
of passage, opening and closing with ceremony, and incorporating both traditional and
modern practices.
The theme of this conference will focus on both individual and collective rites of passage
as we connect our personal pathways of transformation with our larger pathways of
planetary transformation. In attendance will be a dynamic global community of youth,
elders, rites of passage specialists, positive youth development organizations, and
representative organizations and leaders from our positive change movements.
Along with a traditional conference style of keynote speakers, panels, workshops, and
breakout sessions, there will be a wide variety of cross-cultural sharing and experiential
activities through the arts and other relevant tools and practices of transformation.
III. Global Passageways Interactive Website (ongoing)
To harvest the collective knowledge, wisdom, resources, and creativity that will arise
from the global community and conversation around this project, an interactive website
will serve as a virtual community space to share resources and ideas, to connect and
dialogue, and to sustain our work and goals in an ongoing way.
This site will include:
♦ A comprehensive listing of related resources: books, articles, videos,
organizations, and programs
♦ A community dialogue and networking platform.
♦ A multimedia interface featuring video and audio clips of people from around the
world sharing their rites of passage and coming of age stories
Intended Outcomes:
♦ A global institute (Global Passageways) for the sustained study and promotion of
rites of passage in the 21st century.
♦ An edited book about contemporary rites of passage for a popular audience and an
edited book for practitioners and specialists in the field (scholarly/best practices).
♦ A feature length video-documentary on youth, elders, and the revitalization of
rites of passage in the 21st century.
Please Join This Call to Adventure!
Global Passageways is a project that is being called forth from deep within the creative
forces of our time. As we share the story of this emerging project with others, we are
finding that many people from around the world have been hearing this very same call.
As a highly collaborative project that can only fulfill its mission through community and
shared action, we welcome your participation and are excited to learn about how this
project aligns with your own work and highest aspirations.
We look forward to having you join us as we embark upon a journey deep into the heart
of our collective awakening and global renewal.
Our gratitude and respect,
Joshua Gorman and Melissa Michaels
[email protected]
[email protected]
Initial Organizing Team:
Joshua Gorman is the founding director of Generation Waking Up, an emerging
organization mobilizing the awakening global youth movement of the 21st century. He
lives in Washington, DC where he is completing a degree called “Global Youth and
Social Change” at George Mason University. As a youth organizer he is involved with
youth projects locally, nationally, and internationally. Currently he is writing a book
entitled Generation Waking Up: Coming of Age in the Twenty-First Century.
Melissa Michaels, Ed.D., is the Founder and Director of Surfing The Creative®
International Youth Rites of Passage Programs, SomaSource, LLC., and Golden Bridge,
a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving and empowering the lives of young
people from around the world through dance-based rites of passage programming. Her
work engages young people from around the world, hundreds of whom are now stepping
into leadership in authentic and innovative ways. She is immersed in mentoring emerging
leaders, along with training diverse groups about how to bring these somatic, social and
soul based pathways for healing and awakening into their communities. She is currently
writing a book about this work and the young people who have transformed their lives.
Initial Partnering Organizations:
Generation Waking Up is an emerging youth organization mobilizing a new generation
of fresh ideas, energy, action, and creativity to radically change the world. Its central
mission is to help facilitate a ‘generational rite of passage’ that awakens a new generation
of global changemakers and catalyzes a movement of whole-systems planetary change.
www.generationwakingup.org
Golden Bridge is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to healing the lives and
awakening the creative potential of young people through rites of passage programs,
mentoring, and community support. It is also a rapidly growing network of youth and
adults dedicated to reweaving the fabric of cross-cultural community through shared
practice woven with social and environmental action. www.goldenbridge.org
Global Passageways Intergenerational Advisory Council (biographies of Council members to date) Dominic Allamano, founder of The ReGeneration Project, has focused his life energy on empowering the birth of a healthy human culture in intimate and generative relationship to the Earth. He has been facilitating small groups for over 14 years, collaborating with Tej Steiner since 2004 on developing and sharing the Heart Circle model. He travels widely speaking about the experience and passions of the awakened young generation, as well as the dynamics of midwifing the birth of a new human culture while hospicing the death of the dominant world culture and navigating the consequences of our past choices. George Amiotte, an Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge, is a Guardian of the Oglala Lakota Sundance Society. He became a healing professional after a near‐death experience as a marine in Vietnam. Upon his return home George searched for ways to restore his own wounded spirit and for a direction in Life when he was guided by Lakota elders to pursue a career in medicine. He successfully complete a graduate program as a physician’s assistant and at the same time he studied medicine with Lakota elders. He, therefore, has a unique background that combines modern and traditional healing modalities. Amiotte has worked extensively helping veterans overcome post‐traumatic stress disorder. He actively facilitates rites of passage ceremonies for at‐risk youth transitioning from adolescence to adulthood and has co‐produced a youth empowerment documentary called ʺA Healing of Nationsʺ which focuses on the value of traditional ceremonies and teachings and the impact these traditions have on young native people. Kristen Arant (www.youngwomendrum.com) (www.drumlady.com) is a percussionist, West African drum instructor and performing artist living in Washington, DC. She is the Founding Director of the Young Womenʹs Drumming Empowerment Project ‐ a drumming, poetry and performance art empowerment group designed to bring out the authentic selves of teenaged girls. She is also a co‐founder of the activist drumming group Rhythm Workers Union, and performs with a variety of rhythmic musical ensembles lending her talent on drums, whistles, vocals and oboe. Kristen leads drumming workshops at a variety of DC middle and high schools, and also for women, girls, and mixed groups of youth, adults and elders throughout the DC metro area. Kristen holds bachelorʹs degrees in music and women studies. She has studied the djembe with Tammi Hessen and Baile McKnight, and has taken classes with a variety of West African drumming instructors including Mamady Keita and Mahiri Edwards of the Tam Tam Mandingue West African Drumming School. Currently you can find Kristen performing with the Young Womenʹs Drumming Empowerment Project, the Rhythm Workers Union, OmegaBand, and the Afro Blue Collective. Jenna Arnold (www.pressplayproduction.com) is the Founder and President of Press Play, a global production company designed to develop social and cultural competencies among youth. Pulling from a vast array of experiences, Jenna has developed social programming delivered through engaging media approaches. Most recently, Press Play’s television series, “Rites of Passage,” (now titled Exiled!) has been funded by MTV for a series of pilot episodes. Jenna’s expertise lies in developing content that sparks positive social change. Jenna was the youngest American to work at the United Nations serving as a Media and Education Specialist where she created multi‐platform programming that co‐
branded the UN with Fortune 500 companies, reputable celebrities and international institutions. Most recently, Jenna served as a UN Producer for the Diary of Jay‐Z: Water for Life (MTV) and she brought the celebrity studded ‘What’s Going On?’ (Showtime) series into classrooms making it the second best‐selling education product nationwide. Jenna has extensive knowledge of the world having taught in 13 countries, traveled to over 30, and has authored 15 different curricula about global topics. A graduate of Columbia University’s International Education Program, Jenna provides thought provoking approaches that educate youth about peoples and problems beyond their borders. Aurelio (www.auroville.org/environment/avag/avag_mohanam.htm) (www.auroville.org/environment/avag/svaram/svaram.htm )is a communal artist and activist living in Auroville, India. He has studied linguistics and music ethnology, followed by explorations in music and consciousness, harmonic science and music therapy. He has traveled extensively, practiced organic farming, and a led a contemplative life style. Settling in Auroville he gained experience in administration and community building. Aurelio has been part of the Auroville dance company and Adishakti theatre project, touring India with both. He initiated an art project for village children and produced cross‐cultural theatre and dance performances, which led to the foundation of ”Mohanam Cultural Center” in a local village. From there, Aurelio guides youth in creative education and Tamil Heritage Work. He directs Svaram, a Vocational Training and Musical Research Station, and develops new musical instruments and music ceremonies. Recently he has been involved in international youth work and exchange programmes. His passion is to look for concrete ways ‐ cultural, communal, spiritual ‐ to bring together the young of the world, especially among the southern hemisphere, and he hopes to co‐create youthful learning bridges between Tamil Nadu and Africa. Orland Bishop (www.shadetreefoundation.org) is a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Violence at Drew University and the director of Shade Tree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles. He combines a deep dedication to human rights advocacy and cultural renewal with an extensive study of medicine, naturopathy, psychology and indigenous cosmologies. He has pioneered approaches to urban peace‐making and mentoring at‐risk youth that combine new ideas with traditional ways of knowledge. Shade Tree employs a unique process that draws on both contemporary and ancient practices, particularly that of the South African tradition of Indaba or ʺdeep talk.ʺ David G. Blumenkrantz, M.Ed. Ph.D. LADC (www.rope.org). The warrior courted and married the maiden from a far away land and the seeds of initiation were carried during the hero’s adventure. David was born from those seeds, conceived by his parents, who met in Ireland during the Second World War. Those seeds bloomed early into a consciousness fertilized in the soil of summer sleep away camp, put down deep roots on becoming a Bar Mitzvah, and matured in the sunlight of varied traditional and non‐traditional initiatory experience and education. One of David’s first intentional rite of passage experience installations took place in a state facility for adjudicated juvenile delinquents in 1976. Over 150 youth, age 12‐16, engaged in self‐exploration in an “Outdoor Challenge” that contained the architecture of rites of passage. In 1980 a youth and community development strategy, the Rite Of Passage Experience©, ROPE® was conceived and installations began to be advanced in communities large and small. Since 1981 David has been facilitator of magical moments and transcendent events for individual and groups within the context of community. David is the founder and executive director of The Center for the Advancement of Youth, Family & Community Services, (www.rope.org) and the developer of the Rite of Passage Experience©, ROPE®. He is the author of Fulfilling the Promise of Children’s Services (Jossey‐Bass, 1992), along with numerous articles about youth and family issues for professional journals, newspapers and magazines. He has served on the legislatively mandated State of Connecticut Drug & Alcohol Policy Council, and on Connecticut legislative and agency‐based committees on teen pregnancy, substance abuse and delinquency prevention. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at the Bush Center for Social Policy and Child Development at Yale University. He is presently an advisor to the Search Instituteʹs Center for Spiritual Development in Childhood and Adolescence. David has also held a variety of professional positions as an administrator of public and private agencies. He presently consults with communities, schools, colleges, agencies, businesses and individuals on a variety of topics related to human and community development and provides program design and evaluation services. David holds a B.A. in psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo, a M.Ed. in educational psychology from Boston College, and a Ph.D. in Community Psychology & Social Policy from the Union Institute. He is also a nationally certified and Licensed Alcoholism and Drug Counselor and a Certified Prevention Professional. In addition, he has studied and lived with indigenous peoples throughout North America, researching ancient rite of passage ceremonies and rituals and approaches to building and healing communities. Shiloh Boss (www.shilohboss.com) comes to the team with an expertise in the Psychology of Systems. With a background in Holistic Health & Wellness, Shiloh has integrated her capacity to effect positive change through group facilitation, curriculum development, personal coaching, event planning, & public speaking. Along with 5+ years of experience in business and administration, Shiloh holds degrees of study in Somatic & Transpersonal Psychology from Naropa University, Spiral Dynamics Integral: Natural Design in Systems, and Conscious Evolution. With a focus on New Paradigm principles & practice, Shiloh is dedicated to bringing holistic awareness into the world of community organization, social‐environmental systems, and business enterprise. Her concentration is to bring the learning process into teams and community through dialog, storytelling, inquiry, group endeavor, and contemplative practices. Standing firm in the conviction that sharing between generations is a key to creating a healthy passage to a new world, Shiloh creates environments where multiple generations come together to explore each other and the context of the times. She is a founding member of the Intergen Focus Group and Core Organizer of the 2007 Intergen Gathering in Ojai California. Juanita Brown and David Isaacs (www.theworldcafe.com) are co‐founders of The World Café. They co‐hosted the initial Intergenerational Dialogues at the Shambhala Institute in 2004 and 2005, followed by a whole series of intergenerationally co‐hosted dialogues at the Institute for Noetic Sciences, Quest for Global Healing, Awakening Global Action, International Systems Thinking conferences, and in key World Cafe gatherings on critical issues around the globe. This included the World Cafe Stewardship Dialogue that brought intergenerational participants from 16 countries to explore the future of the World Cafe as a global movement to create cultures of dialogue and committed action on key questions at the heart of our common future. Their intergenerational commitment is based on their belief that we are at a time in history when multi‐generational collaboration, around questions we are jointly passionate about ‐‐‐in contrast to traditional models of ʺmentoringʺ, ʺteachingʺ, and ʺelderingʺ in the current paradigm‐‐provides an evocative and innovative path forward as an ʺattractor fieldʺ for large scale systems change. This type of collaboration can help invite the powerful and needed conversations among diverse voices of all ages and sectors of society that can help to discover innovative paths forward. Sam Bull (www.leapnow.org) is the founder and director of LEAPNOW, an organization dedicated to transforming education. LEAPNOW has a residential campus in northern California, and runs LEAPYEAR an alternative first year of college for ages 17 to 22. LEAPYEAR students travel abroad for 6 months, and learn skills for conscious living during two months on retreat. The program is a full year rite of passage ‐ facilitating a conscious and powerful transition into adulthood through group travel, extended solo journeys, and formal rites of passage involving the students and their parents. LEAPNOW also runs Ring of Fire, a 5 month journey designed to assist young men in growing into conscious manhood. All of the programs that LEAPNOW runs are designed to awaken and empower youth to ʺbe the change.ʺ Luana Busby‐Neff is from the island of Moloka‘i where she grew up with eight siblings. Her background is grounded in integrating Hawaiian cultural beliefs and practices with everyday and special rituals. She is a member of the Protect Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana, Ka LÇhui, and ‘O ‘lio‘ula‘okalani: cultural groups dedicated to political awareness, education, and preservation of Hawaiian lands. She led the opening ceremonies at the Third Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, she was the Coordinator of Hawaiian Cultural Practices for an event with His Holiness the 14th Dalai on the island of Maui, and she served as the Cultural Coordinator for the “Hoea Ea Food Sovereignty Youth Conference.” Luana is also the owner of The Hawaiian Force, the Nation of Hawai`i’s leading clothing store. Gabriel Cannon is an outdoor educator, a videographer, and a musician. He has years of experience developing and implementing programs for high‐risk urban youth, bringing them into connection with the natural world and their creative selves. With an undergraduate degree in Human Development and Adventure Education, Gabriel is also deeply engaged in sharing the stories and practices of cross‐cultural initiations. He has interviewed numerous rites of passage leaders and has created a short video‐documentary introducing theories and practices of rites of passage. Gabriel has recently returned from living and working alongside the Masaai people in Kenya, Africa where he was fully engaged in their daily life and rituals while creating a school and building an eco‐lodge. Meagan Chandler has a passion for music, singing, dance, teaching and travel. A native of Boulder, Colorado, she has traveled to Spain, Morocco, the Emirates, New Zealand, India and beyond in search of the essence of the arts and creative adventure that have shaped her. She became engaged in rites of passage at age 16, studying extensively with Melissa Michaels and currently works with her both in the U.S. and abroad. Meagan has also studied intensively in women’s self defense with Melony Murphy, and in Mid‐Eastern Art based women’s groups with Jenna Woods. Her artistic studies over the past 15 years include Jazz, Choral, Spanish Flamenco, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Balkan music and dance. In 2007 She founded the Hermanito (Little Brother) Project to raise both public awareness and funds for today’s struggling youth by collaborating with various local performance artists. She currently travels to schools around the U.S. with Carlota Santana Flamenco Vivo to bring fresh opportunity for cultural and creative exploration to youth, and also performs, records, leads workshops and teaches privately in Colorado and New Mexico. Jim Channon (www.jimchannon.com) has mastered a unique process for coaching out the very deepest potential in a person or a corporation and then parading that essence forward in comprehensive drawings and dramatized stories that constitute a proactive prayer for manifestation. He does that live...on the spot. He has been described as a one‐man Walt Disney studio...since he can take any idea and bring it to life in cartoons, theater, or models...indoors or .outdoors, during an adventure quest. In his journey to become a renaissance man he has deeply explored the domains of visual language, strategic design, military tactics, corporate strategy, tribal cultures, geomythology, and the human spirit. He is a lucid whole systems thinker and a social architect. He follows the path of the adventure shaman of the Pacific, harmonizing deeper will by dramatizing all aspects of any solution proactively, spiritually, spontaneously, and lovingly. He stewards 109 acres of primal forest, a homestead with 3 acres of permaculture, 26 acres of virtual real estate, and a complex of mixed commercial enterprises in Hawaii. He is a world authority and practitioner of social architecture, corporate visioning, expeditionary simulations and adventure learning theater. He has advised 10 of the worldʹs largest corporations on their strategic direction and corporate cultures. In the army, the first of four careers to date, he led paratroopers in combat and commanded the First Earth Battalion, a 21st century military prototype. He has four advanced degrees and has written three books. Jim is the fastest systems illustrator on the planet. He also is a master storyteller and his favorite pastime is telling stories about a new social architecture for the emerging civilization. A lifelong philosopher and futurist, he can tell you what the best thinkers on the planet say about tomorrow. He leads the EARTHRISE project at the World Business Academy, where a positive 100‐
year vision for the planet is being created. He loves this planet...and he can dance. Nancy Geyer Christopher, mother of three and grandmother of four, earned her Ph.D. in interdepartmental studies (theater, religion, and anthropology) at Northwestern University. She taught anthropology and psychology for a dozen years in the upper school of The North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, Illinois. During that time she analyzed the school as an example of enlightened progressive education, just one generation removed from John Dewey. The combination of analysis and stories of the people who created the school in 1919 and those who nurtured that vision are preserved in her first book, The North Shore Country Day School: Seventy Years of a Community of Learning (1993). Her background in anthropology, her survival through the adolescence of her own three children, her close contact with high school students, and her years of exploring the original vision of The North Shore Country Day School convinced her that some kind of “rite of passage” experience is not merely a nice thing to do, but is in fact a developmental necessity. It can take many forms, but one of the most effective, given the nature of American democratic society, is an intensive service experience in a youth corps. Seven years of research on the impact of American experiments in youth service resulted in a second book, Right of Passage; The Heroic Journey to Adulthood (1996). In addition, she was co‐
editor of the book, Crossroads: The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage (1996). Dr. Apela Colorado (www.wisn.org), Oneida and Frank tribal elder, received her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Science degrees from the University of Wisconsin. As a Ford Fellow, she studied for her Doctorate at both Harvard and Brandeis Universities and received her Ph.D. from Brandeis in Social Policy in 1982. With assistance from the Canadian International Development Agency and private sector investment, Apela founded the Worldwide Indigenous Science Network (WISN) in 1989. WISN brought together Western scientists and indigenous practitioners of traditional knowledge in a series of international workshops, conferences, and overseas projects. The work created a forum and established a process to promote consensus, collaboration and cooperation between experts of Western and Indigenous knowledge in conservation and education programs and alternative resource development. In 1993, Dr. Colorado created the first accredited Doctoral Program in Traditional Knowledge at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The Traditional Knowledge Program (TKN) has attracted both students and institutional interest from the national and international community. Virginia (ʺGigiʺ) Coyle (www.ojaifoundation.org) (www.schooloflostborders.com) has worked in the area of healing, environmental activism, citizen diplomacy and womenʹs empowerment since the 1970ʹs. She has served as a trainer and director with The Ojai Foundation and the School of Lost Borders offering ceremonies of initiation as well as the practice of council. Today she works primarily as a wilderness rites‐of‐passage guide, council trainer, and group facilitator for youth, adults and elders. She devotes much of her time to training other guides in this work as well as continuing to catalyze and develop new programs for communities, corporations, philanthropic organizations, prisons, service and activist groups in the U.S., Europe, Israel, and Australia. Currently, she is designing a year long incorporation program entitled “Living Vision/Beyond Boundaries ” and helping catalyze intergenerational councils and rites of passages. She is co‐author of The Way of Council and The Box: Remembering the Gift. Rahima Baldwin Dancy (www.informedfamilylife.org) has been encouraging people to recognize the sacred throughout life’s passages and working toward changing the culture to reflect this. Since 1977 she has worked in various fields as a: midwife (women’s health; homebirth; co‐ran a birth center in Dearborn, Michigan for 9 years); parenting educator and conference organizer (Whole Parent, Whole Family); author; early childhood specialist and Waldorf educator; hospice midwife/administrator and natural after‐death care resource. After several decades as a midwife and childbirth activist, she recently went back to school and got an MS in Gerontology and Organizational Change to see how we can change the culture of aging, long‐term care, Alzheimer’s care, etc. She is in the last year of the Path of the Ceremonial Arts training in Boulder and has taken Melissa Michael’s intergenerational Foundation Year Training. Coleridge Daniels (www.educo.org.za), Elder, is a Programme Manager at Educo Africa. He is a qualified guide of Wilderness Rites of Passage / Vision Quest. His passion is the work of deep inner healing, using the Four Shields methodology in the wilderness setting. His presence and reputation in working with youth at risk is legendary. Jonathan U. Davis is an arts educator who has been living and working in Boulder, Colorado for 7 years. Since graduating from the Colorado College with a B.A. in Theater and Dance, Jonathan has worked in a variety of educational settings as a dancer, actor, musician and director. Jonathan has traveled internationally as a professional drummer and has studied with numerous traditional West African teachers. He currently works as a drummer, teacher and performer in diverse educational settings in Colorado. Jonathan began his journey of awakening at age 21 in Boulder, CO, when he found a deep connection to his soul’s calling through dance, ritual and creative expression during the first Surfing the Creative International Youth Rites of Passage process. Over the past seven years he has been closely engaged in this body‐centered work, serving as a youth leader and musician during Surfing the Creative. Jonathan also had the opportunity to participate as a facilitator for TRACKS, a weeklong rite of passage program for teenage boys in New Zealand. Jonathan’s primary goal is to enliven the next generation of leaders through embodied creativity and inspired self‐expression. Jeffrey Duvall (www.jeffreyduvall.com) (www.mensleadershipalliance.org) has been leading trainings and programs devoted to empowering and helping lead men and women, old and young, through the major transitions of their lives for over eighteen years; as a certified trainer for the Menʹs Council Project and Menʹs Leadership Alliance, the School of Lost Borders, and through his own innovative one‐on‐one mentoring programs. Jeffrey guides men’s healing and inspiration retreats around the country as an inquiry into the beauty of manhood, life potential, expression of personal mythology and healing of the heart. He is a wilderness rites of passage guide for youth and adults and assists individuals and groups in creating community rituals and blessing ways. Jeffrey is also the author of Stories of Men, Meaning, and Prayer, and a Four Gateways Coach© based in the healing studies of Dr. Thomas Daly world elder, teacher and visionary. Donald Eberly’s (http://www.ianys.utas.edu.au/index.html) principal connection with rites of passage has been through programs generally known nowadays as National Youth Service. He personally experienced it as a young high school teacher in Nigeria in the 1950s and witnessed it in his work with the service‐
learning program of the Southern Regional Education Board in the 1960s. In more recent years, he has studied Nation Youth Service in Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Indonesia, Israel, New Zealand, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Trinidad & Tobago, the USA and the UK. He has been active with the International Association for National Youth Service and has written several books about NYS including National Service: A Promise To Keep (1989), A Moral Equivalent of War? (1990) with Michael Sharraden, and most recently with Reuven Gal, Service Without Guns (Lulu Press, 2006). Duane Elgin (www.awakeningearth.org) is an internationally recognized author and speaker who looks beneath the surface turbulence of our times to explore the deeper trends that are transforming our world. For more than thirty years Duane has been speaking and writing in four major areas: 1) the big picture of humanity’s evolutionary journey at this pivotal time in history, 2) more sustainable and satisfying ways of living, 3) media accountability for an empowered citizenry and society, and 4) the convergence of science with the world’s wisdom traditions and their shared views of a living universe. Ashel Eldridge (www.artinactioncamp.org), an Oakland‐based artist and spiritual activist, has received a Master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology, a certificate to heal with Tian Gong from Chinese Grand Master Le Tian (www.tiangong.com), and helped launch Lotus Speech Mandala, which teaches Awareness Form, a Tibetan Buddhist movement meditation. All of these transmissions/practices focus on restoring the individual and collective soul to its home of purity. He is currently a music and meditation facilitator with Art in Action Youth Leadership Program where he works to empower low‐income youth from urban communities. Recently, he has been volunteering and assisting national campaigns cast by Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (www.ellabakercenter.org) and Green For All (www.greenforall.org), which focus on Environmental Justice and possibilities beyond prison and poverty. Ashel (aka Seasunz) performs spoken word, rap, and sings nationally with conscious Hip Hop, Dub, Reggae and Electronica bands including Wisdom (www.wisdomcreations.com) and Bassnectar (www.bassnectar.net). In addition to several past recordings, including Solar Stereo, Ashel is now working on a new recording project linking intergenerational and multi‐cultural voices. Ashel’s vision is to bridge the many emerging and ancient traditions for planetary and personal well‐being. His work aims to cultivate the links between both local and global movements for social justice, spiritual awakening, and ecological healing. Keith Fairmont (www.mensleadershipalliance.org) is executive director of Menʹs Leadership Alliance, a nonprofit organization that provides education and core training in leadership skills, team dynamics and empowerment. They encourage and support soulful living in the service of a just, joyful and sustainable world. He is also President of KF Insights, an executive coach practice assisting individuals and groups in navigating business and professional transitions. Keith is a certified resource for the Young Presidentʹs Organization (YPO). He is a dedicated husband, father of four, a mentor, a menʹs group leader, and a community builder. Ryan Feinstein (www.globalyouthinaction.org) is the global projects director and the founder/director of the Global Youth in Action programs of the Bali Institute for Global Renewal and the Awakening Global Action gatherings. He has facilitated intergenerational workshops on youth empowerment at numerous international conferences and created and facilitated the Global Citizen Leadership Program on his campus. Ryan is currently finishing his degree in international studies at University of California, San Diego. Ely Flores (www.lacausainc.org) Like the poem, “The rose that grew from the concrete,” Ely Flores ascended from a life that statistically condemned him to failure. Ely grew up in a gang lifestyle encircled by drugs, violence, and police and institutional oppression. Because of the conditions of poverty he was forced to live in, Ely committed crimes that eventually incarcerated him. At the age of 17, around the same time he was becoming a father, he was kicked out and banned from attending any school in the Los Angeles Unified School District for being one of the leaders in the racial violence that occurred at his high school. While being on a thin line facing three years of incarceration, Ely was introduced to a socially conscious charter high school in East Los Angeles, LA CAUSA YouthBuild. At LA CAUSA YouthBuild he was introduced to his own process of the de‐colonization of his mind. Through LA CAUSA he was introduced to an organization, Youth Justice Coalition, who fights for the rights and rehabilitation of incarcerated youth. Ely became a community organizer and led campaign against police brutality and the shut down and the California Youth Authority, the largest prison industrial complex for youth in the world. In a year he moved up to a Youth Coordinator position where he coordinated youth chapters across Los Angeles County. While working for the Youth Justice Coalition, he joined a fellowship, Public Allies Los Angeles, where he worked in many communities and was further trained in social awareness and social justice. Last year, Ely came back to LA CAUSA YouthBuild to co‐lead their leadership development component and also coordinate his own program, L.E.Ad. (Leadership and Empowerment for Adjudicated Youth). Through his program he has trained youth who have been affected by institutional and societal oppression in social justice and awareness, and community organizing. Although Ely Flores has been nationally recognized, he believes that the only reward he is striving for is to see the rise and empowerment of his people, and to see through the transformation of his communities to a positive environment and the equal distribution of power to people of color. Ely has always been a leader, from his days running with his people in the street to today, the days running with his people for justice and respect. Ramon Gabrieloff‐Parish is a lover of wisdom, poet, husband and father of three. He has served as a tutor and co‐teacher for at‐risk youth, co‐founded with his wife a community open mic and arts forum called VoiceSpace in the mountains of Colorado, and for the past two years served as a youth leader in the Surfing the Creative International Youth Rites of Passage Programs, after completing the Foundation Year Training with Melissa Michaels. Deep in the crucible of inter‐cultural/ethnic marriage and family relations, the raising of children, and manifesting his soul vision in the midst of modern economic life, he brings forth insight on his struggles with race, addiction, depression and purpose for the benefit of youth, peers, and elders. Ramon earned his B.A. in Philosophy/History from Colorado College and has recently begun a Master’s Study at Prescott College that envisions using ritual as a form of community education and the cultivation of a sense of cosmic identity. Dr. Ashok Gangadean (www.awakeningmind.org) is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Haverford College where he has taught for the past thirty‐nine years. Throughout his career he has focused on clarifying the fundamental common ground across widely diverse worldviews and seeking to expand philosophy and cultural life into a wider global context. In his two major volumes ‐ Meditative Reason: Toward Universal Grammar and Between Worlds: The Emergence of Global Reason ‐ he attempts to demonstrate that there is a fundamental Logos or Primal Field out of which all worldviews arise. This opens the way for deeper connections between widely diverse worldviews and paradigms, including Spirituality and the Sciences. He is Founder‐Director of the Global Dialogue Institute, which has developed effective methods of Deep Dialogue for renovating cultural life. His new book is titled The Awakening of the Global Mind. Ashok is also Co‐Convenor of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality which brings leading and emerging world leaders together in deep dialogue to help articulate global wisdom, vision and values in addressing the most pressing concerns and crises on a global scale. He presents Intensive Deep‐Dialogue Workshops around the globe to help participants at all levels transform their lives through the dynamics and skills of deep dialogue. He is also Co‐Chair of the World Wisdom Council. Jennifer Gidley is an Educational Psychologist and Futures Researcher experienced in all educational levels. She is a Research Fellow at the Global Dialogue Institute, Haverford College, Philadelphia, and an advisor to the Integral Education Centre of Integral University. As well as founding and pioneering a Rudolf Steiner School in Oz, she has published widely on youth futures and transformation of education, culture and consciousness, including: The University in Transformation: Global Perspectives on the Futures of the University (Bergin & Garvey, 2000) and Youth Futures: Comparative Research and Transformative Visions (Praeger, 2002). She is currently completing a PhD on the evolution of consciousness through the Centre for Children and Young People at Southern Cross University, Australia. Shawn Ginwright (www.shawnginwright.com) is an Associate Professor of Education in the Africana Studies Department and Senior Research Associate for the Cesar Chavez Institute for Public Policy at San Francisco State University. In 1989, Dr. Ginwright founded Leadership Excellence Inc. an innovative youth development agency located in Oakland, California that trains African American youth to address pressing social and community problems. In 1999, he received his Ph.D. from the University of California Berkeley. His research examines the ways in which youth in urban communities navigate through the constraints of poverty and struggle to create equality and justice in their schools and communities. He is the author of Black in School‐ Afrocentric Reform, Black Youth and the Promise of Hip‐Hop Culture and co‐editor of Beyond Resistance!: Youth Resistance and Community Change: New Democratic Possibilities for Practice and Policy for Americaʹs Youth. He has published extensively on issues related to urban youth in journals such as Social Problems, Social Justice, Urban Review, and New Directions in Youth Development. He is a highly sought speaker to national and international audiences. Joshua Gorman (www.generationwakingup.org) is the founding director of Generation Waking Up, an educational organization fostering the awakening global youth movement of the 21st century. He lives in Washington, DC where he is completing a bachelor’s degree called “Global Youth and Social Change” at George Mason University. As a youth educator and activist he is committed to helping young people come‐of‐age in powerful ways that give rise to personal and planetary transformation. Currently he is writing his first book entitled Generation Waking Up: Coming of Age in the Twenty‐First Century. Michael Gurian (www.gurianinstitute.com) is a social philosopher, family therapist, corporate consultant, and the New York Times bestselling author of twenty one books published in twenty languages. A number of his ground‐
breaking books in child development, including The Wonder of Boys, Boys and Girls Learn Differently, The Wonder of Girls and The Minds of Boys, have sparked national debate. His newest work Nurture That Nature provides a revolutionary new framework, based in neuro‐biology, by which to understand and care for the needs of children from birth all the way into the twenties. Michael has served as a consultant to families, corporations, therapists, physicians, school districts, community agencies, churches, criminal justice personnel and other professionals, traveling to approximately 30 cities per year to keynote at conferences. His training videos for parents and volunteers are used by Big Brother and Big Sister agencies in the U.S. and Canada. As an educator, Michael previously taught at Gonzaga University, Eastern Washington University, and Ankara University. His speaking engagements include Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, Macalester College, University of Colorado, University of Missouri‐Kansas City, and UCLA. His philosophy reflects the diverse cultures (European, Asian, Middle Eastern and American) in which he has lived, worked and studied. Tad Hargrave (www.tadhargrave.com) has been a full time innovator, social entrepreneur and changemaker since he was a teen. At 18, he founded The School Revolution ‐ a company that led daylong workshops for student councils across Alberta. Between 1996 and 2002, he worked as the Executive Director of the Canadian branch of Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!), a world‐
renowned youth organization. With YES!, Tad organized and facilitated over 40 week‐long summer YES! Action Camps! across North America for youth from over 40 countries. In 1997, Tad also founded of YES!’s Facilitation Trainings for young leaders. In 1999, Tad founded Youth Jams (www.youthjams.org). These week‐long community building events continue to connect and support young, committed changemakers from all around the world. In recent years, Tad has been running Radical Business, a marketing consulting business for “green,” locally owned, sustainable, holistic, life‐affirming and otherwise conscious entrepreneurs. Between September 2004 and February 2006, Tad dedicated himself to learning his ancestral language, Scottish Gaelic, in both Nova Scotia and Scotland. He also has a blog called “Healing Whiteness: An Exploration of the European Indigenous Soul” at which is woven around the core question, ʺAre white people indigenous? If not anymore, can they reclaim that?ʺ Tad was featured in the book Global Uprising and was chosen as one of the thirty leading young visionaries in North America by Utne Reader magazine. Juliana Hepp (www.connectivity2006.org) has been involved in many international youth projects working with the questions of modern initiation and is very interested in the role of storytelling today. She was one of the lead organizers for the international 1000‐participant youth conference Connectivity 2006, held in Sao Paulo, Brazil in July 2006. Juliana co‐founded the international youth network ʺIDEM ‐ Identity through Initiativeʺ that empowers young people to become active and start their own projects to contribute towards a new civilization. She grew up in Germany and is a registered nurse in Switzerland. During her high school years she was involved in various youth initiatives like establishing a school circus and various activist groups. She participated in the founding of Eos, a company for adventure experiential education in Germany and worked for the Youth Section of the School of Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum in Switzerland since 2001. Fanon Hill has an extensive background in rites of passage and youth development work. He is the community organizer for Safe and Sound in Baltimore, Maryland. He has been a staff member for the National Rites of Passage Institute and was an active part of the youth movement, the Simba Wachanga (The Young Lions), which has become a model and inspiration for numerous rites of passage programs and youth development programs nationally and internationally. Paul Hill, Jr. (www.ritesofpassage.org), is founder of the National Rites of Passage Institute (NROPI) in Cleveland, Ohio. The vision of NROPI is ʺto institutionalize a process that will result in the development, support, and regeneration of healthy and authentic community”. He is also a social worker and has been president for 26 years of East End Neighborhood House (EENH). EENH is celebrating its centennial anniversary in providing services to area youth and families. The mission of EENH is ʺA caring community, safely aiding others through lifeʹs passagesʺ. The National Rites of Passage Institute has directly initiated five hundred youth. Adults trained by NROPI have initiated another ten thousand. NROPI has provided training for 924 adults who provide services in public schools, county departments of children and family services, institutions of higher education, religious institutions, neighborhood based organizations, and correctional facilities. In 1989, Paul Hill, Jr received a W. K. Kellogg Leadership Fellowship. The three‐year Fellowship enabled him to travel world wide to study male socialization among indigenous cultures. In 1992, he authored Coming of Age, a book on African American male socialization and life cycles development. His work in the area of African Centered rites of passages is has been included in, The African Presence in Black America, edited by Jacob U. Gordon, African World Press and Deeply into The Bone: Re‐Inventing Rites of Passage, Ronald L. Grimes, University of California Press. He has also written and published other books and numerous articles on Black Child Development, rites of passage, ritual and ceremony, African‐Brazilian and West African History and Culture. In 2002, a documentary entitled ‘Re‐Inventing Rituals’ featured the work of NROPI with youth in Cleveland. Paul Hill, Jr has announced he will step down as President Of EENH at the end of 2010 and focus full time on his passions, The National Rites of Passage Institute and youth leadership development. He is in the process of succession planning and leadership transition with his board of trustees. Jay Horton (www.tracks.net.nz/outreach.htm) has been living in Aotearoa (NZ) since he was 14. He is the Outreach Coordinator and Media Manager for TRACKS TRUST. TRACKS is a Rite of passage program for 13‐16 year old boys becoming young men with the vision of making an appropriate community based Rite of Passage available to all boys in Aotearoa (NZ). TRACKS Outreach is about connecting with similarly dynamic and culturally integrated youth programs around the world and creating mutual support networks. One of my passions and privileges with Tracks has been to use video to document our program, other similar programs and interviews with relevant authorities. I am an artist who is excited by most creative mediums especially the links between creativity and spirituality. He has a bachelor of design in Craft art and runs his own sound recording, video and graphic design business. His favorite styles at the moment are Live digital video mixing (VJ’ing) dance/downbeat music electro/ethnic/fusion style, sculpting in wood, stone and steel, writing and reading poetry. The constants through all my creations are my interest in lifes rhythms, connection with spirit and my passion for connecting people together in meaningful ways. Right now he is excited about connecting with other dynamic people to foster the emergence of positive culture across the generations for all beings including our mother planet Papatuanuku/Gaia. Standing UP connected to earth and sky, searching for new, and remembering old ways, all generations waking up to our collective unity. Jim Horton (www.tracks.net.nz) is now in his early sixties and has spent the last thirteen years actively involved in the men’s culture that he has been a part of growing here as well in Australia, South Africa, Canada and the USA. He is the father and step‐father of five grown boys and considers this and the fact that he has lived in intentional community with several other families worth of kids growing up around him as one of the main triggers that initiated TRACKS. A dentist for 30 years, Jim is from England and has lived in South Africa, Canada where two of his sons were born, and now after living here fifteen years, consider New Zealand his home. His personal journey with men’s work led him to the concept of Conscious Mentoring and ʹRites of Passageʹ (Initiation) over eight years ago. Since then he has also been interested in the concept of ʹEldershipʹ in our modern society, growing a generational men’s culture that supports the growth of healthy people. He is an active Trustee of the Tui Spiritual and Educational Trust and lives in Tui Community, Golden Bay, with his partner Susan Jessie, their dog Maggie, and several small fish. Four Arrows, aka Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D, former Dean of Education at Oglala Lakota College and Associate Professor at Northern Arizona Universityʹs Department of Teaching and Learning, is a faculty member at Fielding Graduate University. He is the author of sixteen books, dozens of chapters co‐authored with such notable educators as Fritjov Capra, Henry Giroux, Michael Apple, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., E.Wayne Ross, Noam Chomsky and many others, and nearly one hundred journal articles. His most recent texts include: The Authentic Dissertation: Alternative Ways of Knowing, Research and Representation; Unlearning the Language of Conquest: Scholars Expose Anti‐Indianism in America; American Assassination; and Primal Awareness. He is the 2004 recipient of the Martiin Springer Holocause Instituteʹs Moral Courage Award. Rina Kedem (www.arava.org) is an Environmental Educator who currently coordinates and manages Jewish Arab environmental youth programs in Israel and Jordan, working on the grassroots level and policy makers in Israel. For the past six years, she has worked in the fields of youth leadership and empowerment, environmental leadership, building Arab Jewish relationships and cooperation, management and organization of projects and workshops. Her background includes: counseling for troubled youth, managing a Wilderness Department where she trained and supervised teams of outdoor educators and backpacking leaders, community building skills, group facilitation, conflict resolution and mediation with people of varied cultures in Eco‐villages across the planet, and serving on the planning committee of Camp Tawonga’s peacemakers program. Rina believes that dance and movement are tools for bringing together Jews and Arabs to work, co‐exist, and share in saving the environment by exploring, expressing, and coming to terms with and accept our inner conflicts. She is integrating these beliefs into her work and life in Israel with the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. Rachael Kessler (www.passageworks.org) is the author of The Soul of Education (ASCD 2000) and founder and president of the PassageWorks Institute. She has worked since 1985 to develop a framework and model for nurturing the inner life of students and teachers that is deeply rooted in rites of passage principles and phases which simultaneously promotes personal development in educators while directly impacting the nature of classroom pedagogy and teacher‐student and faculty relations. Comprehensive, systematic and theory‐based, the model is also highly attuned to the needs, language, obstacles and opportunities of public schools. Rachael presents, facilitates, and provides professional and curriculum development for educators nationally and internationally. A key contributor in advancing the spiritual dimension of education, Kessler’s publications in the arenas of rites of passage, transformative professional development and spirituality in education include “The Teaching Presence,”Holistic Education Review, Winter, 1991; The Soul of Education, ACSD, 2000 (forward by Parker Palmer); “The ʹSenior Passageʹ Course” in Mahdi, Christopher & Meade (eds), Crossroads: The Quest for Contemporary Rites of Passage. Chicago Ill: Open Court Press (1996) and “Initiation ‐ Saying Good‐bye to Childhood” in Educational Leadership, December 1999/January 2000, Volume 57, Number 4. Since the early 90’s, Kessler has worked collaboratively with educators and researchers in the fields of social and emotional learning, spirituality in education, transformative learning, holistic education, and contemplation and education. Kessler collaborated with 8 other educators and researchers to coauthor the seminal book Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators. Her book The Soul of Education: Helping Students Find Connection, Compassion and Character at School (ASCD 2000), endorsed by educators across the spectrum of religious and political belief, provided a framework and a language that could allow educators to welcome and nurture students’ quest for meaning, deep connection, silence, creativity, joy, transcendence and initiation. It was one of the first books to open the dialogue about the inner life in public education. David C. Korten (www.davidkorten.org) is the author of The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community and the international best seller When Corporations Rule the World. He is founder and president of the PCDForum, co‐founder and board chair of YES! magazine, a board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), and a founding associate of the International Forum on Globalization. Currently, his attention is focused on the Great Turning Initiative of the PCDForum, which gives high priority to supporting the mobilization of youth and elder leadership in the work of advancing a deep social transformation. Sara Laimon (www.greenambassadors.org), founder of Green Ambassadors, is an educator at Environmental Charter High School and has been a positive light within the sustainability movement for the past ten years. At age 17, Laimon ran for the City Board with a platform for greening her hometown of Pewaukee, WI, losing by only three votes. This loss did not stop Laimon from pursuing her passion to create change. At age 20, Laimon started a dairy farm in Zimbabwe which was the green spark that led her to understand how the United States systems needed to change in order for the rest of the world to have a sustainable model to follow. Since that time she has spent her life educating youth about sustainability and seeking unique and varied ways to reach this important audience. Sara, a National Board Certified Candidate, teaches the importance of actively contributing and being a steward of this planet. During her career as a classroom teacher, she has guided classes and school groups to create cob benches, convert a diesel car to run on veggie oil, create bio‐diesel, and eat organic. Sara has traveled to Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Haiti, Greece, and Galapagos finding, sharing, and learning solutions. Furthermore, she is devoting her life to creating and nurturing eco‐activists to be empowered to share the solutions of hope. Beyond that, Laimon is dedicated to making every school the center of green solutions, within every community across the nation and ultimately the world. Patricia “Jamie” Lee (www.manykites.com) has traveled extensively within tribal America during the eighties with her husband, Milt Lee. Together they have produced over 60 documentary radio programs on Indian people. Jamieʹs interest in the evolving human condition is reflected in both her fiction and nonfiction works. A visionary thinker and writer, Lee is the author of the award winning novel, Washaka—the Bear Dreamer and the nonfiction book Re‐
Visioning Adolescence and the Rite of Passage. Lee has a MA in Human Development, lives in Rapid City, South Dakota and currently teaches at Oglala Lakota College.
Maree Lipschitz (BSc Hons Grad Dip Lib Sc) (www.howdoyoudoit.com.au) lives in Sydney Australia and is a facilitator, executive coach and mother of two. She started her journey with rites of passage with her identity crisis on becoming a mother at 34. Through subsequent extensive feminine initiation practices, Maree determined her life purpose to be the reclamation and celebration of the three major rites of passage of women – the blood mysteries of menarche, motherhood, and menopause. She started ‘Motherhood Mysteries’ in 1997 to facilitate Motherhood Celebration Ceremonies and Mothers’ Circles for mothers to investigate the spiritual and psychological transformation that occurs for them during childbirth. Maree also then trained in facilitating puberty programs for girls “Changing Bodies, Changing Minds’ which she offers at the Royal Hospital for Women and girl’s high schools in Sydney. She along with two colleagues in 2004 developed a “Let’s Talk Growing Up’ weekend workshop for 9‐12 year old girls and their mothers to explore puberty and adolescence issues together. In 2004 she joined the Pathways Foundation as a facilitator for the mothers of the boys in the ‘Pathways to Manhood’ program and is one of seven cofounders of the ‘Pathways into Womanhood’ rite of passage program for 13‐15 girls and their mothers. Maree also works as a facilitator and executive coach for working mothers in corporate organisations to help them negotiate the huge changes in their lives and psyches when they become mothers. Meredith Little (www.schooloflostborders.com) and her husband Steven Foster co‐founded Rites of Passage Inc. in 1977 and The School of Lost Borders in 1981 – pioneering the methods and dynamics of modern pan‐cultural passage rites in the wilderness, and “field therapy”. The essence of their work is captured in articles, chapters, an award‐winning documentary film, and books that include: The Book of the Vision Quest, The Roaring of the Sacred River, The Four Shields: The Initiatory Seasons of Human Nature, and Lost Borders: Coming of Age in the Wilderness. Since Steven’s death in 2003, she continues both nationally and internationally to guide and train others in this work, and is director of Lost Borders International. Along with Dr. Scott Eberle, she has also co‐founded a new arm of Lost Borders entitled “The Practice of Living and Dying.” Her current passions include support for youth, conscious elderhood, restoring dying to its natural place in the cycles of living, working with stories through mirroring and empowerment, and the Four Shields of Human Nature. Diane Longboat (Turtle Clan) (www.sixnations.ca) is from Six Nations Grand River
Territory of the Mohawk Nation. Diane is a traditional healer and teacher and has
shared her knowledge and gifts with many communities in the areas of education and
community wellness. She travels globally to conferences and gatherings to teach about
peace and the beauty of the Indigenous way of life, its inclusive nature, balance with
the natural world, and laws of love for humanity. She describes her work as a full-time
labour of spirit, which has been the richest time of her life as the medicine has grown
around her and her own vision has unfolded, giving shape to the direction given by the
Creator who said, “go home an create a place of peace for the people.” In 1978, Diane
received her Master of Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.
She is an Elder and Spiritual Advisor for Children of the Earth, World Centre for
InterSpirituality and Ecology, Source of Synergy Foundation, World Spirit Youth
Council, Institute of Traditional Medicine, and the Council for Indigenous Wisdom
and Well Being.
Hannah Lowenthal, is a co‐founder of the non‐profit organization Um(u)thi Initiative. Um(u)thi is dedicated to bridging differentiated communities in and around South Africa primarily through dance and movement projects as well as other creative mediums. Her work is informed by 12 years of Waldorf education, her creative and practical training in London, her work with Remix mixed ability dance co, the Five Rhythms Teacher Training, and her life growing up in South Africa during the Apartheid Era and the transition into the current ʹpost‐
apartheidʹ times. Hannah’s service is rooted in dance as a movement of time and change. During her time with Remix Dance Company, Hannah taught and developed school programs along with deeply immersing herself in performance work, continually questioning our integrity around how we define ʹabilityʹ and ʹdisabilityʹ. Her dance projects have taken her all over South Africa as well as to Ethiopia where she worked with Adugna Integrated Dance Company. Hannah is currently working for CAPE Africa Platform coordinating and designing an Arts Awareness Program for schools in and around the Western Cape and for a Young Independents group for emerging creatives. She is carrying a youth group in the Paarl area using dance and other creative tools to provide alternative methods to support diverse young people’s needs for healthy development. Hannah also independently teaches dance classes open to the public that focus on movement as a contemporary medium for positive and conscious change in individuals and communities. Jay Ma (www.livingmandala.com) is a permaculture designer, facilitator, and community organizer committed to cultural healing through Peacemaker Principles. He received his first permaculture design certification through Naropa University in 2001, a B.A. through New College of California in Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Community with a concentration in Eco‐
Dwelling/Natural Building, and is a graduate of the pioneering training intensive in Regenerative Design & Nature Awareness. Since then Jay has been developing educational programs, retreats, workshops, and events as well as community land development projects with organizations including the Regenerative Design Institute (www.regenerativedesign.org), the Institute of Noetic Sciences (www.ions.org), Earth Circle (www.earthcircle.org), Divine Joy (www.divinejoy.org), Gaia University and others. He is currently an associate with Gaia University (www.gaiauniversity.org) in Organized Learning for Eco‐
Social Regeneration. Co‐Founder of Living Mandala (www.livingmandala.com) ‐ an emmerging collective of educators, designers, and consultants, Jay works with others in organizing educational courses, workshops, and events for eco‐social regeneration in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. Jay is also a certified Permaculture Teacher, a Fire Walk Instructor through Sundoor International (www.sundoor.com), and is passionate about renewing Rites of Passage experiential programs for people of all ages. Joanna Macy (www.joannamacy.net) is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with four decades of activism. She has created a ground‐breaking theoretical framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application. Her wide‐
ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and contemporary science. The many dimensions of this work are explored in her books Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age (New Society Publishers, 1983); Dharma and Development (Kumarian Press, 1985); Thinking Like a Mountain (with John Seed, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess; New Society Publishers, 1988); Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory (SUNY Press, 1991); World as Lover, World as Self (Parallax Press, 1991); Rilkeʹs Book of Hours (1996, 2005) and In Praise of Mortality (2004) (with Anita Barrows, Riverhead); and Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World (with Molly Young Brown, New Society Publishers, 1998). Joanna has also written a memoir entitled Widening Circles (New Society, 2000). Many thousands of people around the world have participated in Joannaʹs workshops and trainings. Her group methods have been adopted and adapted yet more widely in classrooms, churches, and grassroots organizing. Her work helps people transform despair and apathy, in the face of overwhelming social and ecological crises, into constructive, collaborative action. It brings a new way of seeing the world, as our larger living body, freeing us from the assumptions and attitudes that now threaten the continuity of life on Earth. Olivia Martin’s (www.ashoka.org) (www.genv.net), background, of mixed Spanish/British origin, ranges various themes and projects including the creation of a nursery school for single mothers of a shrimp‐farming community in Nicaragua, preparation and convening of strategic meetings on indigenous peoples rights while based at the United Nations in Geneva and bringing conflict resolution and peer mediation practices to primary and secondary schools in New Zealand, as well as to the post‐war Balkan region. Prior to joining Ashoka, Olivia worked as the International Coordinator of the Hague Appeal for Peace Youth Program, where she stimulated the creation and support of a global network of young people involved in the active promotion of a culture of peace. She followed this experience by integrating the Global Youth Action Network’s office in Brazil, where she helped design and implement a project that brought together youth engaged in social change from diverse socio‐economic backgrounds, ethnic groups and ideologies. Olivia has a Bachelors Degree in Sociology from the University of the West of England and a Masters in International Development from the University of Bristol (UK). She also holds a Certificate in Human Rights Training and is a member of the international advisory board of the Global Campaign for Peace Education. She is fluent in five languages. Olivia joined Ashoka as Program Director for the Young Innovators Initiative for Brazil in November 2004 and is now leading a program called Geracao Mudamundo (Generation Change the World) that stimulates and supports young people to launch their own social ventures, integrating a network of thousands of young social entrepreneurs in Brazil and connected to those in another 14 countries. Michael Meade (www.mosaicvoices.org) is an accomplished scholar of mythology, poetry and traditional ritual, a storyteller, a mentor to disadvantaged youth, and a drummer. He was a leading figure in the Mythopoetic branch of the Menʹs Movement of the 1980s and 1990s and he continues to lead men’s conferences with teachers such as Robert Bly, Martin Prechtel, James Hillman, Robert L. Moore, Coleman Barks, Malidoma Some, Jack Kornfield, Luis Rodriquez, and many others. His essays have appeared in To Be A Man, Tending the Fire, Wingspan, Walking Swiftly, and The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. His book Men and the Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of Men was published in 1994 by Harper San Francisco. He continues his work today under the auspices of the non‐profit organization Mosaic Multicultural Foundation. Maeona (Mae) Mendelson, (www.travellearnstudy.com). Through public dialogues and forums staged in Hawaii, Maeona Mendelson helped to spotlight young people’s perspectives on global and local issues and to engage young people in activities to address environmental sustainability, education, human rights, social justice, and poverty. When she realized that older adults could do more to help young people address their concerns, Mendelson shifted her focus to intergenerational strategies. In 2000, she became executive director of the Hawaii Intergenerational Network, a non‐profit that pairs older adults with young people – as tutors and mentors for preschool and elementary school students and as collaborators with university students in alleviating the isolation of elders living alone. After 9/11, Mae launched a program called “See through My Eyes, Walk in My Shoes,” in which high school students and older adults selected films, songs, and poems from their generations that exemplified American values; then discussed their choices. She helped create a video capturing the voices of Hawaii’s civil rights advocates, which became a high school resource. For her leadership and initiative, state lawmakers in 2005 commended Mae for cultural and educational contributions in Hawaii. After leaving HIN in 2007, Mae founded Travel & Learn, LLC which offers study tours for older travelers who want to make a difference for children and youth across the globe. She is Professor of Intergenerational Studies in Residence at Chaminade University. Among her volunteer activities, she serves on the national Board of Directors of AARP, an organization with a membership of 39 million adults over the age of 50. She is also co‐founder of the World Youth Congress series and currently serves on the International Advisory Committee. In 2007, she became a Purpose Prize FELLOW. This national program recognizes older adults for their social innovation and entrepreneurial activities dedicated to positive social change. Nina Meyerhof, Ed.D. (www.children‐of‐the‐earth.org), President and Founder of Children of the Earth, has made a life of working with children and youth. Her focus is to recognize that personal as well as world peace is possible. Dr. Meyerhof has extensive background in education, with Master of Arts degrees in both Special Education and in Counseling and a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies in Psychology. She also holds a doctorate in Educational Policy Research. The co‐author of Conscious Education: The Bridge to Freedom, she is recognized as an innovative educator committed to global responsibility through authentic learning. She is Academic Director of a Peace Studies Masters program. Having received many awards for her work from The Mother Theresa Award to the Citizen’s Department of Peace Award to The International Educators Award for Peace, Nina continues daily to focus on altering worldviews for creating a better future. Nina travels worldwide assembling adults and young people to focus on the potentials of bringing ethical living skills into world consciousness. Peace must come from recognizing our spiritual unity and the scientific knowledge that we are all interconnected. Nina advocates for an intergenerational movement for spirituality in action for peace‐
building. She is the incubator and spiritual mother of the World Spirit Youth Council, a cutting edge formulation of these ideas that is fostering youth around the world to unite, bringing spirituality as the positive force of world peace. She feels the time has come to go beyond individual rights, tolerance, peace, and conflict‐resolution to the understanding that in higher consciousness we are all one. Melissa Michaels, Ed.D, (www.bdanced.com) (www.goldenbridge.org ) is the Founder
and Director of Surfing The Creative® International Youth Rites of Passage Programs,
Wild Life Productions, and Golden Bridge, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to
improving and empowering the lives of young people through integrative rites of
passage processes and ongoing youth development and mentoring. She creates
intergenerational, cross-cultural educational opportunities focusing on the potential that
is available at major life thresholds. Mapping the journey from trauma to dynamic well being, her work utilizes universal somatic and social arts to establish body and heart as
resources for authentic expression. Rooted in rhythm and fueled by breath, this work
inspires the sacred union between Spirit, flesh, psyche, and deed. The work has been
made available to young people from Israel, Russia, India, Jordan, New Zealand,
Mozambique, South Africa, Argentina, Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain, Japan, Chile,
England, and all across the United States. Today, many of the hundreds of youth who
have completed her programs are stepping into leadership, bringing movement,
embodiment, and thus the awareness of the sacredness of life onto college campuses, to
Bedouin women, to children in third world villages, to peace studies programs, to
orphans, to elders, to children in prostitution, and to youth in prisons, for example.
Movement-based programs for educators, youth workers, parents, and therapists have
also been developed and extensively implemented, inviting adults to heal their own
adolescent biographies and to thus, consciously support their children and youth.
Melissa is a social artist, dancing and dedicated to our collective renewal through the
liberation of the creative spirit.
John Miller (www.serveyourplanet.org) is the founder of Albert Schweitzer College, a developing initiative, and cofounder with Eric Utne of the Earth Corps for Global Service. John grew up under the influence of Schweitzerʹs ethic of Reverence for Life. He is a longtime student of anthroposophy. John has worked with developmentally disabled adults (in the Camphill Movement), as a woodworker, a biodynamic gardener and farmer, and for 17 years as a Waldorf teacher. His current work, with the Utne Institute, is devoted to vastly increasing the number of individuals engaged in local and global service, and to help prepare them for effective service by accessing and integrating all the intelligences: personal (intellectual, emotional, and bodily awarenesses), social, and environmental. Whole people, healing our planet! Taliza Mizrahi is a passionate young woman dedicated to the positive development of every young person she encounters. Having overcome the grief of losing 5 best friends to suicide before she turned 21, as well as transforming her own severe depression and battle with addiction in her youth, she carries a deep commitment to awakening young people to their worth, power and inherent beauty. She has been a devoted apprentice of social artist and movement‐based educator Melissa Michaels for the past six years and has served as a bilingual youth leader for Surfing The Creative International Youth Rites of Passage Programs for the last four years. Taliza is a professional Hip Hop dancer and spent four years dancing with top Hip Hop artists throughout the L.A. area as well as developing her University’s Hip Hop dance team, Rhythmission. She is a graduating member of the second class of Soka University of America, a school based on Buddhist principles whose mission is to foster global citizens committed to living a contributive life. Her independent research is entitled: “Dance as a Vehicle for the Empowerment of Young Women: from the Silenced Body to the Reclamation of the Authentic Voice.” She developed the SGI Buddhist Youth Division in Colorado, as well as a Hip Hop dance‐based youth empowerment program called “Dancers for Peace.” She currently serves as the Rocky Mountain Zone Young Womenʹs Division leader for her SGI‐
USA Buddhist community through which she spiritually mentors over 250 young women throughout Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and S. Dakota. Today she is teaching Positive Hip Hop dance classes to girls 5th through 11th grades.
Nathaniel Moxley (www.theserviceboard.org) is a community activist living in Seattle, Washington and the Executive Director of The Service Board (TSB), a youth organization that provides high school aged youth with life‐changing experiences that build self‐knowledge, skills, courage, and determination. Through an innovative model of snowboarding, community service project, mentoring, and leadership development, The Service Board instills in its youth a deep sense of life purpose based on an ethic of public service and a conviction in their abilities to shape the future. TSB models the power of a supportive intergenerational culture and serves youth in need of its caring community. Starr Muranko (www.thismomentevents.net) is a professional dancer/choreographer/educator and Co‐Founder of This Moment Events. She is committed to creating inspiring opportunities that bring together people of all generations in celebration of culture, artistic expression and spiritual growth. As a professional artist she has been passionately training and performing throughout the Lower Mainland, San Francisco, West Africa and as far away as the Andes of Peru! She holds a BFA in Dance from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts and has recently been featured as a guest artist and speaker at the Beyond the Global Divide International Youth Summit in Holland. As former Director for the Foundation for Spiritual Democracy in San Francisco, CA Starr was instrumental in facilitating youth leadership through the International Youth Leadership Council and was selected to represent Canada at the State of the World Forum in New York City (2000). She has played a lead role in organizing international conferences throughout North America including the inspring Women of Vision and Passion Leadership Retreat 2007 and the successful Leading Spas of Canada Annual Conferences 2003‐2006. Mats‐Ola Ohlsson (www.norrbyvalle.se) is one of the founders of Norrbyvälle gård, a place for curative education and social therapy on a biol‐dynamical farm in Järna, Sweden. There he has been working since 1986 especially with young people with autism. That work has brought him to essential questions concerning how human beings connect with the world and with ones fellow human beings. This has also included facilitating young co‐workers into this work. An important part of this work has also been to support unemployed and long‐term ill people back to new strengthened self‐confidence through work and crafts. He has also been supporting developmental work in Russia and Georgia within the field of Waldorf education and Curative education since 1990. He is a co‐founder of SOFIA, a Swedish developmental aid organization working all over the world with an Anthroposophical basis. He is a board member of the Anthroposophical society in Sweden and in the last few years he has been an active Elder in the work of the Youth Section, part of the School of Spiritual Science within the General Anthroposophical society. Juan Pacheco (www.peacewarriors.net) (www.barriosunidos.net) Violence took many things away from Juan Pacheco. His best friend’s life was taken; he lost a full time scholarship; and spent time in jail. Pacheco transformed his life around though and is now attaining his Pre‐Med degree. Knowing that he had no one there to help him through life’s challenges gives him strength to advocate for our youth. He was a gang member in the past that will become a great physician/healer. Others can do the same if given a chance. Juan Pacheco currently volunteers as the Director for Barrios Unidos Virginia Chapter. Barrios Unidos is a youth violence prevention/intervention and community awareness organization. The uniqueness of Barrios Unidos lies in its transformational approach. Barrios Unidos offers hope by exposing youth to the power of resiliency through utilizing adults and older youth who have themselves experienced and overcome the challenges young people face. Barrios Unidos believes that drawing upon the resources of adults and older youth that have made it out of the ʺstreet lifeʺ, assists youth in choosing life‐affirming behavior, positive self‐esteem, constructive goals, supportive community, and cultural pride. Mr. Pacheco provides many motivational speeches and presentations, as well as running educational and recreational youth groups. He founded the Kids Club/Computer Lab program, in addition to organizing many community activities. Evon Peter (www.nativemovement.org), the chairman of Native Movement and former chief of the Neetsaii Gwichʹin from Arctic Village in northeastern Alaska, has served as the co‐chair of the Gwichʹin Council International and on the executive board of the Alaska Inter‐Tribal Council. Evon is an advocate of Indigenous Peoplesʹ rights, youth activism and a balanced world, and is active as a speaker, strategist, writer, and organizer. His experience includes work with United Nations and Arctic Council forums representing Indigenous and environmental interests. He is also featured in the 2005 award‐winning feature film ʺHomeland: Four Portraits of Native Action.ʺ He travels widely sharing his traditional knowledge, spiritual understanding and common sense as tools for helping to heal and transform humanity. Bill Plotkin (www.animas.org) has been a psychotherapist, research psychologist (studying non‐ordinary states of consciousness), rock musician, river runner, professor of psychology, and mountain‐bike racer. He is the founder and president of Animas Valley Institute. Since 1980, he has guided thousands of people through initiatory passages in nature. Currently an ecotherapist, depth psychologist, and wilderness guide, he leads a variety of experiential, nature‐based, individuation programs, including those for youth and for elders. Bill is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche and Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World. His doctorate in psychology is from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Benjamin Quinto (www.youthlink.org) is a youth advocate, movement strategist, and activARTist™. In 1996, at age 18, he authored a proposal for a United Nations Youth Assembly, which evolved into the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN). As its founder and executive director, he led GYAN to become one of the most expansive youth networks in the world, connecting thousands of organizations in 180 countries, and mobilizing millions of young people. Benjamin helped to launch and coordinate Global Youth Service Day, the largest annual celebration of young volunteers, Chat the Planet, a global two‐way youth television show broadcast in 17 countries, and the 2000 National Youth Conventions. He is also an author, consultant, producer, photographer, speaker, and frequent presenter at the United Nations. He resides in New York, speaks 5 languages, and has traveled to 29 countries. Luis J. Rodriguez (www.louisrodriguez.com) has emerged as one of the leading Chicano writers in the USA with thirteen nationally published books in memoir, fiction, nonfiction, children’s literature, and poetry. He is best known for the 1993 memoir of gang life, Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. Written as a cautionary tale for Luis’ then 15‐year‐old son Ramiro—who had joined a Chicago gang—the memoir is popular among youth and teachers. Luis is also known for helping start a number of prominent organizations—such as Chicago’s Guild Complex, one of the largest literary arts organizations in the Midwest, and Tia Chucha Press. He is one of the founders of Youth Struggling for Survival, a Chicago‐based not‐for‐profit community group working with gang and non‐
gang youth. Presently, Luis is on the Community Engagement Advisory Committee of LA City’s Ad Hoc Committee on Gang Violence & Youth Development. Luis has spent almost thirty years conducting workshops, readings, and talks in prisons, juvenile facilities, homeless shelters, migrant camps, universities, public and private schools, conferences, Native American reservations, and men’s retreats throughout the United States. He’s also traveled to Canada, Europe, Japan, Mexico, Central America, South America, and Puerto Rico doing similar work among disaffected populations. Luis has been part of the Mosaic Multicultural Foundation’s Men’s Conferences since 1994. At these conferences, the complex but vital issues of race, class, gender, and personal rage are addressed with dialogue, ritual, story, poetry, and art involving men of all walks of life, including those in urban street gangs. Arne Rubinstein (www.pathwaysfoundation.org.au) is a medical practitioner with involvement in researching and running Rites of Passage for young men in Australia since 1995. He is a co‐founder of the Pathways Foundation and sold his medical practice to set up a national organisation of which he is CEO. In 2007 they will run nearly 30 programs in 8 places around Australia, they are strongly supporting TRACKS in New Zealand to expand nationally, and are interested in growing this work internationally. Pathways Foundation has now started a women’s program and their vision is “to have an appropriate community based Rite of Passage available for every boy and girl in Australia.” They now have a strong emphasis on training and have had over 200 people through our leadership development programs. Allan Rudner is a man who has worked for over 20 years on “Who am I?” and “What is it to be a man?” His journey has taken him from graduating as a Biochemist, through being a senior executive in the pharmaceutical industry, emigrating from South Africa to Australia in the early ‘80s, hitting the wall personally and financially and descending into the black hole, then rising from the ashes slowly over time, and reinventing himself through his own rite‐of‐
passage. His path has taken him back to University to get his Masters degree in Cultural Psychology. Allan has worked as a Mentor in the Australian Juvenile Justice system, Trainer and counsellor for people in crisis including family violence, sexual assault and suicide. He is a co‐founder, senior leader and trustee of the Pathways Foundation, which designs and delivers Rites‐of‐Passage programs for boys and girls moving into adulthood. Through Allan’s experiences and reflections, his work has taken him even deeper into Rites‐of‐
Passage by designing, developing and this year for the first time delivering his Rites‐of‐Passage program, “Finding Your Wisdom”, for men moving from their middle years to Elderhood. He is passionate about seeing the beauty in people and reflecting their greatness back to them. He is a father of two young women and one son who has given him his first grand child.
Will Scott (www.thewildernesswithin.com) has been a student of the human‐nature relationship since childhood. For the past 6 years Will has balanced his work between teaching, wilderness guiding, event coordinating, and group facilitation. Since he graduated from college, Will has taught in the classroom as well as in the field with a variety of schools and organizations. Willʹs diverse history as a wilderness guide has found him leading trips both domestically and internationally. He has guided college‐level field study courses, adventure backpacking trips, and rites of passage ceremonies. Working with wilderness rites of passage has allowed Will to further his exploration of the interplay between the health of the individual, the planet, and all of humanity. In 2003 Will co‐founded The Wilderness Within, an organization offering wilderness experiences that invite participants to explore the heart of this issue both personally and globally. Recently, Will co‐founded the Us Institute; an experimental collective dedicated to the effects of wilderness immersion, community education, and radical leadership. In all of his endeavors Will is foremost a student of the human experience and the natural world, hoping to understand how best to live in a deep, meaningful, and regenerative way. Aqeela Sherrills (www.aqeelasherrills.com) has traveled the world brokering peace, but he is best known for creating the 1992 peace agreement between longtime Los Angeles gang rivals, the Bloods and the Crips. Sherrills’s inspiration came from the loss of 13 friends to gang violence. This encouraged him to lay the groundwork for peace in his neighborhood. Within 10 years he had worked on the Amer‐I‐Can Project with former football legend Jim Brown, and established the former Community Self Determination Institute (CSDI), an agency dedicated to the transformation of his community. Between 1999 and 2006, CSDI managed over $3 million in contracts with the city and county of Los Angeles and the state of California. Sherrills’s current focus is on what he terms the ‘Reverence Movement,’ a peace process that allows people to see the sacredness in one another. Sherrills believes the only true path to reconciliation begins from within. It’s a message he has made so accessible that he’s delivered it to communities around the world. Thus, he has advised government officials in Belfast and Serbia on the process of establishing non‐violent communities; he has addressed the Hague and the United States Congress on the importance of peace, reverence, and non‐violence; and he has brokered peace agreements between gangs in cities across the U.S. Puma Fredy Quispe Singona is founder of CUSI HUAYNA, an indigenous youth institution that empowers youth and protects traditional folklore and wisdom of the Inca Culture in Peru. Puma is an Andean Medicine Man in training, a Council Member of Indigenous and Non Indigenous Youth Alliance (INIYA) and is founder of WILLCA, a cultural and healing center for youth in Chinchero, Peru. He has facilitated at two of YES!’s World Youth Leadership Jams. Sharon “Shay” Sloan has worked as a leader in community organizing, youth empowerment/development and project management for the past 13 years. She began by organizing students in her high school to increase cross‐cultural awareness and environmental stewardship and has continued to expand and develop her skills in these areas. In addition to work on the local level, she has worked internationally, including with the United Nations International Children’s Conference on the environment, in Victoria, BC on an array of youth‐
driven urban agriculture initiatives, and in Mexico with the International Sea Turtle Society. After graduating with Honors from UCSC with a degree in Community Studies, she went on to pursue a profession as a counselor, working with at‐risk youth and their families in Santa Cruz County. After several years in the profession, she realized the limits of the model she was working in and left to co‐found the Us Institute, an ecopsychology collective dedicated to investigating the Wilderness Experience through extended time in the wilderness, council practice and skill sharing. In addition to her work as a leader, wilderness guide and counselor, she is also a skilled artist, producer and director, using her knowledge of theater, video and film, the written word, percussion, and other forms of self‐expression as tools for social change and personal development. She has also worked extensively in event production, from music and film festivals to community fundraisers and conferences. Additionally, for the past 6 years, she has worked with the Bioneers Conference to guide the vision of their youth program and is a founding member of the Bioneers Youth Advisory Council. She is currently working for Ocean Revolution as the Native Oceans Project Manager, bringing diverse indigenous communities together to address international oceans and sea turtle related issues. In all of her works, she thrives in an environment of collaboration and teamwork and is committed to generating a sense of community celebration. She is a Regent’s Scholar and is tri‐
lingual in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Bret Stephenson (www.adolescentmind.com) (www.labyrinthcenter.org) is the author of From Boys to Men: Spiritual Rites of Passage in an Indulgent Age, which looks at the loss of initiation and rites of passage related to modern teens. He has been effective at incorporating cross‐cultural and initiatory dynamics into his work with high‐risk adolescents. Bret has led the teen component at international youth conferences sponsored by Institute of Noetic Sciences, International Transpersonal Association, the United Nations World Peace Festival, and the World Childrenʹs Summit. He has worked with youth from more than 100 countries, which led him to study how older cultures dealt successfully with adolescent issues while not having to resort to modern ʺcuresʺ such as juvenile halls, boot camps, residential treatment centers or medications. Adge Tucker (www.tracks.net.nz) is the Operations Manager and Programs Coordinator of Tracks Rites of Passage in New Zealand, along with working as a youth development leader throughout his country. Since the age of 19 years, he has been passionately working with young people as a career in both England and New Zealand. He has trained extensively in youth work practice, has a British National Diploma in Youth Work and a BaHons degree in Community and Youth Studies from Exeter University. Adge describes the Tracks contemporary Rites of Passage model as one of the most potent and relevant approaches he has seen in terms of addressing the current needs of boys, young men, their families and communities. Its ability to educate and empower young men with the necessary tools and awareness to navigate the ‘Bridge of Adolescence’, redefine their relationships, become conscious of their spirit and move out into the world as confident, responsible young adults is unique. To see young men realising their potential and standing strong with a sense of purpose and direction, ready to contribute to society is extremely confirming and brings a sense of hope for our future. Adge also chairs the Regional Youth Workers Collective and has a seat on National Council, looking to raise the profile, standards, qualifications, resources and cohesion of this profession in NZ. His hope is for a global entity that can foster, protect and promote rites of passage work, in all its forms ~ a group that is mutually reinforcing, that cherishes the universality and celebrates the diversity, identifying our global journey, past and present to visualizing the path and challenges ahead into our future. Ruhi Tyson (www.elsewirich.org) is a bookbinder, Waldorf teacher and writer from Stockholm, Sweden. There is a story told of Nicolaus Cusanus (a contemporary of Gutenberg and at that time one of the Catholic Church’s most famous cardinals) that he once met a great philosopher called only ʺthe laymanʺ and finding him in the stairway to the cellar carving a wooden spoon he asked why such a great philosopher would concern himself with such simple work. The reply was ʺI am working formatively upon the whole spoonness/spoon‐
quality (ger. Löffelheit) of the earth.ʺ This is the central theme of my life really. It integrates, in transforming the earth, aspects of healing and development (both individual and social) that I am presently exploring within bookbinding (having completed my apprenticeship and now working on my masters‐work), education and social work. The main form of this is the educational initiative (now 2 years old) The Else Wirich Workshops named after Gutenberg’s mother. Eric Utne (www.serveyourplanet.org) is an entrepreneur, publisher, and educator. He was founding publisher and editor of the New Age Journal. In 1984, he founded Utne Reader, of which he was chair for many years. He was the 7th & 8th grade class teacher at CLWS from 2000‐2002. He has a B.E.D. (Environmental Design) from the University of Minnesota. He is the President of the Board of Trustees of Sunbridge College, a Masters Degree‐granting Waldorf teacher‐training college, based in Spring Valley, New York. In November 2006 he was elected to the Executive Committee of the Nobel Peace Prize Forum. Currently he is in the midst of launching the Earth Corps for Global Service (ECGS), an organization that aims to vastly increase the number of people engaged in service globally, serving as a kind of ʺPeace Corps for the whole Earth.ʺ Palma Vizzoni earned a B.S. in International Environmental Policy from Colby College in Waterville, Maine. During her undergraduate work, she spent an entire year abroad with the International Honors Program (IHP). IHP brought her to six countries where she studied with the people active in environmental issues of each place and also with leading professionals in their fields (Vandana Shiva, Helena Norberg‐hodge, James Lovelock, and Brian Goodwin). Learning outside the classroom and living in peopleʹs homes for that year is where her real education and cultural exposure began. Shortly after graduating, she lived in Tasmania, Australia which is one of the few places on Earth declared to have ʺWorld Heritageʺ sites. Housing the last of the tallest hardwood forests and the first‐ever elected Green Party senator, Tasmania is certainly a treasure. She was privileged to spend her time there with one of Tasʹs most outspoken artists and environmental peace activists, Peter Adams. Since then, she has dedicated her time to learning the traditional medicine of the Dagara people of West Africa with Dr. Malidoma Patrice Some. The Dagaraʹs cosmological consciousness around the balance of elements has gifted her with an even deeper ability to see the web of relationships that govern life. Consequently, she has had the opportunity over the past two years to advise and help in the drilling of water wells for the Dagara in Burkina Faso. In 2007 she completed a Masters degree at the Presidio School of Management. Her thesis was titled “In Search of Sacred Intelligence: Shamanic Sensibilities & the Evolution of Diversity in Business.” Marianne Weidlein (www.empowervision.com), BSBA, is a facilitator, teacher, mentor and author, with specialties in self‐mastery, peak performance, intentional manifestation and self‐employment. She brings 40 years of experience in business, human potential development and spiritual awakening to help people achieve fulfillment, success and freedom. She now serves in intergenerational collaborations with emerging leaders who are dedicated to developing their highest potential and serving humanity’s transformation. To this aim, she developed Passing the Torch ‐ an intergenerational collaboration to empower and educate emerging leaders, and connect the generations in co‐
creative action, mutual understanding and wisdom exchange. She wrote Empowering Vision For Dreamers, Visionaries & Other Entrepreneurs (1991) warm liquid life (1993) and an unpublished manuscript The Passage to Freedom based on her mentoring. In 1991, Marianne was a Colorado Entrepreneur of the Year Nominee, and is a proud mother and grandmother. Jonah Wittkamper is an entrepreneur and facilitator. He builds global networks. Currently living in Washington, DC, he manages technology for Distributive Networks, an Internet startup in the the mobile‐messaging industry that was recently ranked as one of the fastest growing technology firms in the USA and that developed the text‐messaging platform for Barack Obamaʹs HOPE campaign. Prior, he managed outreach for the Leverage Alliance, a global network of young, high‐level investors in social change. Early in his career he led an award winning student computing organization, founded an internet startup, and created a corporate social responsibility initiative in one of the worldʹs largest corporations. He has served as an advisor, board member, and co‐
founder of various organizations including WorldTrek, Pioneers of Change, Global Youth Connect, the Shift Foundation, the ManyOne Foundation, the L. A. Jonas Foundation, and the Artemisia Foundation. In 2000 he co‐founded the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) to strengthen youth participation in global decision‐making. After opening the South American office of GYAN in Brazil he led an effort to network young people from the World Economic Forum and the World Social Forum. During the process he began to consult and network young philanthropists including co‐founders of the Leverage Alliance. Lis Wittkamper was born in 1973 in São Paulo, Brazil of Japanese descent and moved to USA in August 2006. She major in Architecture and Urbanism and used to work for nine years as a program associate at the Latin America and the Caribbean regional office of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation working in the past years in the Northeast of Brazil by supporting building clusters of projects aiming at breaking the intergeneration cycle of poverty and by promoting the youth participation. Her most recent experience was at the Inter American Development Bank where she used to work as a program officer at the Japan Program which promotes building bridges between South East Asian and Latin American countries. Lis started working with youth while in the Boys and Girls Scouts Movement and since then she volunteer for several youth camps, programs, projects, youth forums and conferences always aiming at supporting the youth participation in decision making processes as well as by creating opportunities for their present and future. Some of those initiatives were The Kandersteg International Scout Center in Switzerland, The Culture of Peace of UNESCO in Chile, and the Youth Forum as part or the International Conference of Population & Development +5 in The Netherlands. Today Lis participate as a board member of The Artemisia Foundation and continues to be inspired by the intergeneration dialogue in communities and through initiatives around the world and is devoting her time as a full time mom of a three‐year‐old boy.