I have heard it said that we are headed for a global collective demise and that soon, very soon, the world as we know it will end. Friends have told me that we are finished as a planet, and as a civilization.
Really? Not on our watch, and not on the watch of millions around the world who are lifting this planet up in monumental ways.
Read the news and read (largely) doom, because it feeds off the effluvia of the damned, and the sewage of society. But while this type of inane chatter is occurring there is a groundswell taking place in every corner of the world with a mandate to build a better place for ourselves, and for our children. This groundswell intersects all faiths, gender and cultures.
Only because I have had the privilege of working with non profits and social enterprises doing work around the world do I know that organic farmers continue to develop hydroponics facilities on the rooftops of high rises in Brooklyn. That sanitation facilities are being built in the slums of Nairobi, that rice processing facilities were built in Mali during a civil war. That residential treatment facilities were being built for Nigerian school girls brutalized by the Boko Haram and then abandoned in shame by their families. That women entrepreneurs in India were being given an opportunity to extract themselves and their villages from poverty through developing a business in solar power.
And all of these enterprises were being funded by foundations, including corporate foundations like Coca Cola and Kellogg, through private family foundations and through venture capital.
Truth is, we don't live in a them/us world anymore. Those that do will eventually fade away. It is only through a collective act of good will that the greatest good is occurring, for all.
This is not a Utopian ideal of a distant future. It is happening now, right under the noses of a largely vitriolic press and the vapidity of mass consciousness.
Really? Not on our watch, and not on the watch of millions around the world who are lifting this planet up in monumental ways.
Read the news and read (largely) doom, because it feeds off the effluvia of the damned, and the sewage of society. But while this type of inane chatter is occurring there is a groundswell taking place in every corner of the world with a mandate to build a better place for ourselves, and for our children. This groundswell intersects all faiths, gender and cultures.
Only because I have had the privilege of working with non profits and social enterprises doing work around the world do I know that organic farmers continue to develop hydroponics facilities on the rooftops of high rises in Brooklyn. That sanitation facilities are being built in the slums of Nairobi, that rice processing facilities were built in Mali during a civil war. That residential treatment facilities were being built for Nigerian school girls brutalized by the Boko Haram and then abandoned in shame by their families. That women entrepreneurs in India were being given an opportunity to extract themselves and their villages from poverty through developing a business in solar power.
And all of these enterprises were being funded by foundations, including corporate foundations like Coca Cola and Kellogg, through private family foundations and through venture capital.
Truth is, we don't live in a them/us world anymore. Those that do will eventually fade away. It is only through a collective act of good will that the greatest good is occurring, for all.
This is not a Utopian ideal of a distant future. It is happening now, right under the noses of a largely vitriolic press and the vapidity of mass consciousness.