bicycle beauty & current happenings

by kate spade via simplygorgeous

I am in the market for a new bicycle. I wish it could be this one.

Over the past few weeks I have been busy planning for a conference that we are putting on this weekend for over 200 youth and 50 teachers from around the Pacific Northwest--with the aim of inspiring them to get involved in issues in their communities. Since last August, I have been working for PeaceJam Northwest, an organization that seeks to empower youth to work for social change through the inspiration of Nobel Peace Prize winners like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Aung Saan Su Kyi. 

This year, Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Guatemala will be joining us for our PeaceJam conference this weekend at Oregon State University. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 in recognition of her work on behalf of the Maya people of Guatemala and indigenous people everywhere. Throughout the 100 year history of the Nobel Peace Prize, only 12 women have been recognized with this award. (I was able to meet Rigoberta at a PeaceJam conference I attended in Memphis this past February, and she is one of the most graceful women I have ever been privileged to meet.)

Conference planning has been coming along well- my coworker and I joke that with all the logistics it is as if we have been planning the wedding of 200 high school students. We have been putting together service projects and workshops for the weekend that include the local food bank and folding peace cranes for a Japanese disaster relief project. A good amount of the kids that I presented a workshop on bullying to last month will be among the students coming. I am excited to see it all come together.

by Rino Bianchi

 from her Nobel acceptance speech, 1992-

I consider this Prize, not as a reward to me personally, but rather as one of the greatest conquests in the struggle for peace, Human Rights and the rights of the indigenous people, who, for 500 years, have been split, fragmented, as well as the victims of genocides, repression and discrimination.

That is why I dream of the day when the relationship between the indigenous peoples and other peoples is strengthened; when they can combine their potentialities and their capabilities and contribute to make life on this planet less unequal, a better distribution of the scientific and cultural treasures accumulated by Humanity, flourishing in peace and justice.

No less characteristic of a democracy is social justice. This demands a solution to the frightening statistics on infant mortality, of malnutrition, lack of education, wages insufficient to sustain life.