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Images and Voices of Hope Summit:
Media as an Agent of World Benefit
October 11-14, 2001
Haines Falls, NY
Over 70 people came together for the 2nd World Summit on Images and Voices
of Hope on October 11th in the Catskill Mountain retreat center of the Brahma
Kumaris. The character of this summit was especially charged because of the
events of September 11th and the significant role the media has played in
that event.
Participants arrived from all over the world - from Turkey, Malaysia,
South Africa, Argentina, the Philippeans, England, Europe, and the U.S. After
checking into their rooms and coming together for an evening welcome, they
went to work on the organizing question of the Summit: "What would it
look like if Media were an agent of World Benefit?"
The Summit took the form of a two and a half day dialogue looking deeply
into this subject of "Media as an Agent of World Benefit." Guided
by Dave Cooperrider of Case Western Reserve University and Marge Schiller of
Appreciative Inquiry Consulting, the group moved from one-on-one interviews
through small groups and into animated plenary conversations. We looked at
the potential of media to benefit the world through a range of initiatives.
By the end of the second day, people had clustered in groups around the
initiatives that they wanted to lead and support. These include the
following:
- Hope for the New Year led by Lese Dutton of The New Sun
and Kim Ridley, Editor of Hope Magazine. This initiative seeks to
strengthen the new media that are already in production and to focus on
the creation of special issues generated out of the events of 9-11-01.
Contact: Lese@newsun.com and Kimr@hopemag.com.
- Media for Peace as a Global Project led by Rosie Alegria
of Brazil and Nelly Rubio of Miami. This group will link a Brazilian based
initiative bringing together many organizations to support a "peace
media" with a new start-up partnership out of Miami. Contact: alegria@uol.com.br
and rubion@wfor.cbs.com.
- IV of Hope in Cities led by Wendy Bromley Bodden of WNET
in New York City. This group is working to create cohesion among the many
IV of Hope dialogues in the works around the world. Contact: Bromley@thirteen.org.
- Media Networks for IV of Hope led by Paul Andrews of the
San Francisco Bay Area. This group is putting together a global network of
journalists and social activists to expand the impact of positive news
stories. They will start with the stories coming out of Israel and
Palestine as a point of departure. Contact: pandrews@mbxinteractive.com.
- Academy for Alchemical Leadership & Appreciative Cultures
led by Stella Humphries. This group has a longer term focus of developing
leadership capacity to nurture appreciative cultures. Contact: stellah@ix.netcom.com.
- The Art Group led by Rosie Gordon-Wallace of Miami. This
group will be calling on artists to develop new images of peace. Contact: rgw@diasporavibe.com.
- Handsfuls of People led by Charlie Kouns. This group is
tackling the immediate issue of how to support media professionals and
journalists in addressing the stream of alarming stories and events that
are emerging in the world. Contact: cwk4@earthlink.net.
Several people who are leading existing initiatives made short
presentations to the group about the work in process, asking for thinking
partnership from those present. The room clustered into groups of 4 to mull
the questions and gave suggestions in plenary.
On Friday evening we looked at some of the films that are being generated
by the project and on Saturday night there was a reading by a local group
from Woodstock New York.
There are a number of conversations in the works for 2002 including Sao
Paulo, Buenos Aires, Uruguay, Santiago, Malaysia, Capetown, Toronto, London,
San Francisco. Updates for the planning and contact information for these
conversations will be maintained on the Website, www.ivofhope.org, under the
menu item of "global conversations". If you want to join one of the
ongoing task groups listed above, email the contact person for updates on how
you can link with the group.
Executive Summary
1 November 2000
PURPOSE: To engage people working in all types of media to create a
new and more expansive story of possibility for the world.
RATIONALE: Every day the US and other “media powers” distribute
millions of images and stories to living rooms in every country in the world.
The prevailing discourse conveyed by these messages is the story of “World as
Business Opportunity.” In this story every village is reduced to a
marketplace. Every person becomes merely a consumer or a laborer. And the
Earth becomes the source of the raw materials that drive the economic
machine. In this story those with less wealth and purchasing power become
less important. This story is not sustainable. Images and Voices of Hope is a
conversation initiative dedicated to engaging the media community in creating
a new and better story of the world.
The History of Images and Voices of Hope
This International Conversation Project is the co-creation of three
partners: one academic, one spiritual, and one social sector. The conveners
are
- The SIGMA (Social Innovations in Global Management) program at Case
Western Reserve University (CWRU). SIGMA studies examples of partnership
and cooperation in the world. IV of Hope uses the theory and methods of
Appreciative Inquiry, developed by Dr. David Cooperrider, chairman of SIGMA
and professor at CWRU. Danielle Zandee, a doctoral student at CWRU is the
research coordinator of this project.
- The Brahma Kumaris is a nonprofit organization established in India in
1937 that works for positive change at all levels of society in over 70
countries around the world. The Brahma Kumaris hold general consultative
status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
- The Visions of a Better World Foundation (VBWF) is taking the lead in
implementing Images and Voices of Hope. VBWF was launched in 1994 to give
permanent expression to the global dialogue started by the book, Visions of
a Better World, presented at the United Nations in 1993. VBWF’s purpose is
to engage all segments of society in transforming their visions of a better
world into action.
Since the project began in June of 1999, dialogues have taken place in New
York City, Sao Paulo, Boston, Miami, Providence, Seattle, Chicago, Santiago,
Tampa, and at the first summit in Upstate New York. There are many inquiries
from other cities: Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Capetown, Seoul, Orlando,
Denver, Dallas, Los Angeles and more.
Each dialogue has the distinct flavor of these very different communities,
and each has had its own local partners such as WLRN television in Miami, the
National Conference on Community and Justice in Chicago, and the Rhode Island
School of Design and The Humanity Foundation in Providence.
The results are beginning to show up in the various communities: at the
FCC ascertainment hearings in Miami, at youth journalism initiatives in
Santiago, at art exhibitions in Providence.
The Year Ahead
During the first year of IV of Hope the three convening partners
constructed the scaffolding to launch the conversation initiative. SIGMA
provided the conversation engine of Appreciative Inquiry and the thinking
partnership of David Cooperrider and doctoral student Danielle Zandee. The
Brahma Kumaris provided the administrative support of their UN office, the
broad support at their international centers, and the retreat center setting
for the summit. The Visions Board of Trustees provided the strategic guidance
and a minimal level of financial sustenance.
At the Summit in October of 2000, over 70 people in the core IV of Hope
network met to generate ideas for expanding and sustaining the international
conversation, dedicated to the belief that with the right kind of supporting
infrastructure, this living dialogue can bring about sweeping social change.
The proposed architecture for the year ahead is as follows:
- The Vital Center, to be overseen by the Board of Trustees of the
Visions of a Better World Foundation. A small core to keep conversation
participants connected to the whole. A key priority for funding, this
center contains the database of contact information, the central phone and
fax, and the editorial “port of entry” to the “Web of Hope” – an electronic
common that includes archives of images and stories, updates from each
conversational center, compendia of products and partners, etc.
- The Network of Conversations, to be coordinated by a circle of
coordinators -- from each conversation. This network of coordinators
stewards the “DNA” of an IV of Hope conversation, provides a template to
those wanting to open a new conversation, and shares stories and ideas for
sustaining conversations over time.
- The Research Project, to be coordinated by the SIGMA Program. The
research project continues to collect stories, metaphors, and other kinds
of feedback for research in two areas:
- What is the emerging new story of the world?
- What are the ways a living dialogue can affect social change?
- The Production and Distribution Unit, to be coordinated by Farrell
Reynolds of Conduit Communications, Daniel LaPorte of the Arlington
Institute, and Lucy Bartholomay of the Boston Globe. The goal of this unit
is to support the production and distribution of media that generate a new
story of possibility for the world.
- The Educational Initiative, to be coordinated by the Rhode Island
School of Design in the arts and by the Universidad Mayor in journalism and
communication. The goals of this initiative are
- To influence the curriculum at schools of art, journalism, and
communication
- To explore ways to introduce media literacy programs to youth
- To encourage youth to undertake IV of Hope conversations of their
own.
Our Vision for Transforming the World through a Living Dialogue: "Words
Create Worlds"
The idea that the world is socially constructed by each of us individually
and all of us collectively has by now been described by people from biology
to philosophy to social psychology. Wittgenstein tells us “Words create
worlds.” Our own key strategic thinking partner, cognitive biologist Humberto
Maturana, tells us, “Human beings create themselves and their world in
language.”
This project seeks to engage those whose vocation is the generation of
stories and images for the world: journalists, artists, publishers, authors,
story tellers, advertisers, publicists, musicians, gallery owners, dancers,
film makers, and so on to develop a new and more powerful story of
possibility for the world. Collectively we understand that a new story of the
world is emerging in many places:
- From communities of women such as the Realwoman project in California
- From racial and ethnic minorities determined to put an end to profiling
and stereotyping
- From those in healthcare who are shifting the discourse from one
absorbed with pathology to one dedicated to creating an epidemic of health;
- From those in education who prefer seeding learning communities to
“fixing the schools”
- From those in environmental movements such as The Natural Step who
understand that the Earth is the parent of the economy – and not the other
way around.
By convening conversations in communities all over the world, we seek to
shine a light on this emerging new story of the world and to seek out the
elements of a new world story that includes a vast horizon of possibilities
for all of the people of the Earth.
We believe that Images and Voices of Hope is first and foremost a web of
relationships, a network of conversations. As we engage in these appreciative
conversations, we seed a shift in awareness. With this new awareness we see
the world with new eyes. Our new vision of the world causes us to tell
different stories and to produce different images. Out of these new stories
of the world, we will produce a different world. This, we believe, is the
power of a living dialogue to ignite social change.
2000 Summit
Julia Grindon-Welch
bkun@bkwsu.com
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