A Planetary Healing Mandala is an amazing free event being organized for Calgary and we are inviting you to be involved. It a gathering of people of all ethnicities and spiritual beliefs sharing a common vision of a peaceful, joy filled and energetic planet. With this realization we can move into the consciousness of responsibility for ourselves, our actions towards each other, and our individual and collective impact on the life, water, soil and air that nurture us.
Things to be Inspired by...
Reading List
There are so much wonderful materials to inspire and share.
Standing out amonst millions, these people are making and influencing change towards a healthy vibrant Earth. ARE YOU?
Wangari Maathai
Wangari Maathai is the founder of the Green Belt Movement, an environmentalist, a civil society and women's rights activist, and a parliamentarian. You can read about her life and her organization through her two books, Unbowed: A Memoir and The Green Belt Movement. You can also scan condensed versions of her life and achievements, including being awarded the2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
Since winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Wangari Maathai has become a spokesperson for a number of important initiatives.
Both before and since she won the Nobel Peace Prize, Wangari Maathai has spoken about, and been interviewed on, a range of subjects. You can read these articles, interviews, and statements, by visiting the themed sections listed at the bottom of this page, and in the menu bar on the side of each page.
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is both the head of state and the spiritual leader of Tibet. He was born on 6 July 1935, to a farming family, in a small hamlet located in Taktser, Amdo, northeastern Tibet. At the age of two the child, who was named Lhamo Dhondup at that time was recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso. The Dalai Lamas are believed to be manifestations of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and patron saint of Tibet. Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who have postponed their own nirvana and chosen to take rebirth in order to serve humanity.
Universal Recognition
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a man of peace. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet. He has consistently advocated policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression. He also became the first Nobel Laureate to be recognized for his concern for global environmental problems.
His Holiness has travelled to more than 62 countries spanning 6 continents. He has met with presidents, prime ministers and crowned rulers of major nations. He has held dialogues with the heads of different religions and many well-known scientists.
Since 1959 His Holiness has received over 84 awards, honorary doctorates, prizes, etc., in recognition of his message of peace, non-violence, inter-religious understanding, universal responsibility and compassion. His Holiness has also authored more than 72 books.
His Holiness describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk.
David Suzuki, Co-Founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, is an award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster. He is renowned for his radio and television programs that explain the complexities of the natural sciences in a compelling, easily understood way.
Dr. Suzuki is a geneticist. He graduated from Amherst College (Massachusetts) in 1958 with an Honours BA in Biology, followed by a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961. He held a research associateship in the Biology Division of Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Lab (1961 – 62), was an Assistant Professor in Genetics at the University of Alberta (1962 – 63), and since then has been a faculty member of the University of British Columbia. He is now Professor Emeritus at UBC
In 1972, he was awarded the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship for the outstanding research scientist in Canada under the age of 35 and held it for three years. He has won numerous academic awards and holds 24 honourary degrees in Canada, the U.S. and Australia. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada and is a Companion of the Order of Canada. Dr. Suzuki has written 48 books, including 19 for children. His 1976 textbook An Introduction to Genetic Analysis (with A.J.F. Griffiths), remains the most widely used genetics text book in the U.S. and has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Indonesian, Arabic, French and German.
Dr. Suzuki has received consistently high acclaim for his thirty years of award-winning work in broadcasting. In 1974 he developed and hosted the long running popular science program Quirks and Quarks on CBC Radio for four years. He has since presented two influential documentary CBC radio series on the environment, It’s a Matter of Survival and From Naked Ape to Superspecies. His national television career began with CBC in 1971 when he wrote and hosted Suzuki on Science. He was host of Science Magazine (1974 – 79) then created and hosted a number of television specials, and in 1979 became the host of the award-winning series, The Nature of Things with David Suzuki. He has won four Gemini Awards as best host of different Canadian television series. His eight part television series, A Planet for the Taking, won an award from the United Nations. His eight part BBC/PBS series, The Secret of Life, was praised internationally, as was his five part series The Brain for the Discovery Channel. On June 10, 2002 he received the John Drainie Award for broadcasting excellence.
Dr. Suzuki is also recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology. He is the recipient of UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for Science, the United Nations Environment Program Medal, UNEPs Global 500 and in 2009 won the Right Livelihood Award that is considered the alternate Nobel .
Severn Cullis-Suzuki has been active in environmental and social justice work since kindergarten. At age 9, after witnessing burning in the Brazilian Amazon on a trip with her family, she started the Environmental Children’s Organization with her grade 5 friends. ECO was committed to learning and teaching other kids about environmental issues. Eventually they were successful in raising enough money to appear at 1992’s Rio Earth Summit, when 12-year-old Severn delivered a powerful speech at a plenary session that gained worldwide attention. For this, she received the UN Environment Program’s Global 500 Award in 1993. Since then, Severn has spoken worldwide on social and ecological issues, on climate change, and intergenerational injustice.
Severn is proud of her work on the UN’s Earth Charter Commission, and participation on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s Special Advisory Panel for the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa. At this Summit Severn brought a pledge called the Recognition of Responsibility, a declaration from students in Canada and the US. The trip also was the subject of a documentary film that aired on CBC’s long-running documentary series The Nature of Things.
Severn uses many ways to get her message out. She hosted a children’s TV series called Suzuki’s Naturequest, and co-edited the book Notes from Canada’s Young Activists. She currently sits on BC’s Citizen’s Conservation Council on Climate Change, and the board of the David Suzuki Foundation. She has a Bachelor of Science in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale University, and recently, a Masters in Ethnobotany from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, studying with Kwakwaka’wakw elders on the West coast. She hopes her pursuit of traditional and scientific knowledge will help her mandate of promoting a culture of diversity, sustainability and joy.
Craig Kielburger
Craig Kielburger is the founder and chair of Free The Children, a unique international development and youth empowerment organization. Since its founding in 1995, Free The Children has become the world’s leading youth-driven charity, inspiring an entire generation to stand up and have their voices heard.
With the involvement of more than a thousand Youth in Action Groups, Free The Children has built more than 500 schools throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America, providing daily education to more than 50,000 children. Through its Adopt a Village development model, it has established more than 23,500 alternative income projects to assist women and their families in achieving sustainable incomes.
Craig is also the Co-founder and Director of Me to We Social Enterprises. The goal of Me to We is to encourage ethical living and social responsibility, while also helping Free The Children achieve financial sustainability. Me to We Social Enterprises includes international volunteer travel programs, a publishing house, a music label, leadership workshops, a speakers’ bureau and a clothing line. Last year alone, Me to We worked with more than half a million people and some of the best-known companies in the world to make social change as easy as buying an organic fair trade T-shirt.
Craig has a degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Toronto and is the youngest-ever student in the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA program. He has received four honorary doctorates for his work in the field of education and human rights. Now 26 years old, he has traveled to more than 50 countries, visiting underprivileged children and helping with humanitarian projects and development initiatives.
He is author of Free the Children and the co-author of national bestsellers Take Action! A Guide to Active Citizenship, Take More Action, the co-author with his brother Marc on the New York Times Best Seller Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World. Their next book, inspired by a conversation between the Kielburgers and the Dalai Lama, The World Needs Your Kid, will be available in September 2009.
Craig has been awarded many national and international awards for his work, including The Roosevelt Freedom Medal, The World Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child (often called the Children’s Nobel Prize) and he is one of the youngest recipients of The Order of Canada. Craig’s work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, 60 Minutes and The Today Show, and in People, Time and The Economist.
An environmental activist since her teens, Elizabeth May left her position as Executive Director of the Sierra Club of Canada to run successfully for leader of the Green Party of Canada in 2006. Elizabeth May, who is a lawyer and author, is media savvy and knows how to get attention for her causes. Although she failed to win a seat in Parliament when she ran in a by-election in London North in 2006, it was under her leadership that an Indpendent member of parliament joined the Green Party just before the 2008 election, giving the party its first MP. In the 2008 election, the Green Party did not win any seats.
