"I support and endorse the mission of We, The World to make sure that individuals and organizations who share a commitment to sustainability can network effectively to achieve their goals."

• Student-UN Videoconference Series Building Peace and Security in the 21st Century: Each event of this series links schools, the United Nations and featured speakers which have included Dr. Jane Goodall, Congressman Dennis Kucinich and many others. Information is disseminated and discussed about conflict prevention through creating peaceful, sustainable societies.

Each videoconference has involved hundreds of students, faculty and others. Education Update (which reaches 200,000 educators) has made our Sept. videoconference the Cover Story of their 8th Anniversary issue! Utne Magazine website also ran a feature entitled "All About Solutions" about the launch of our Videoconference Program. Excerpts from the first videoconference were broadcast on the INN Report with a viewership of tens of thousands via the Dish Network.
 

• VISUAL VOICES TV Show is produced collaboratively by members of the Arts and Media Task Force of the The Foundation For Ethics And Meaning and Co-Sponsored by We, The World (See Visual Voices)

Examples of events and actions that we widely informed people about include:

• The American Spirit, Values And Power (WTW Co-Sponsored) Conference convened by the New York Open Center and the Continuing Education & Public Programs of CUNY Graduate Center. Speakers included: Jerry Mander, Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Baldemar Velasquez, Satish Kumar, Nina Utne, John Mohawk, Leslie Cagan, Carl Anthony, Sarah Van Gelder, Danny Schechter and many others.
• Nonviolent Communication Workshops (WTW Co-Sponsored) with International Peacemaker Marshall Rosenberg and other NVC leaders
• February 15th Peace March (we issued an extensive international event calendar) and other peace rallies/events
• The PlaNetwork Conference (WTW Co-Sponsored) in San Francisco: Networking a Sustainable Future. Speakers included: Hazel Henderson (Consultant on sustainable development, Board Member of Worldwatch Institute and author of Life Beyond Global Economic Warfare), Joe Firmage (Founder of US Web and ManyOne Networks), and Carol Hansen Grey (Executive Director of Women of Vision and Action), Wes Boyd (Co-founder of MoveOn.org), Leif Utne (Founder of Utne Online and the Utne Café), Jonah Wittkampter (Global Youth Action Network) and many others.
• Visual Voices TV Show Series (WTW Co-Sponsored): A new and unusual look at how voices in media, the arts and beyond are shaping our world.
• Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Peace Revival
• Nonviolent Peaceforce Meeting: Trained, international, unarmed, civilian peacekeeping force for conflict areas
• Interfaith Center Awards Dinner Honoring Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Harry Belafonte and Ossie Davis
• Global Entertainment And Media Summit (WTW Co-Sponsored)
• Focusing: A Way to Deep Inner Connection

Declare your Interdependence September 12, 2005 as part of: 11 Days of Global Unity

In proclaiming Interdependence Day, we are acknowledging the evident - that we are all connected, and that when one thread in the web of life is sundered, all are diminished. Where equity and mutual respect prevail, all benefit. Interdependence is a reality, a gift, and a responsibility.

We, The World, with many other non-profit co-sponsors and sponsored by ManyOne.net, has launched Interdependence Day September 1st as the start of Culture of Peace month. By launching it at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, the work and spirit of civil society at the Summit can continue each year as an annual tradition of global celebration, information and action. Let us know if your organization(s) would like to Sponsor or Co-sponsor our Interdependence Day celebration 2005.

We celebrate the connections that inexorably relate all life and the supporting environment in an interrelatedness of sustenance and sustainability. We celebrate the animals, insects, birds, fish, trees, waters, air and earth, who dance with the humans in a network of interdependence. This is a day of profound recognition of our debt to each other and our joy in our connection.

ART FOR CHILDREN'S SAKE
"The world's children would sing to you had they a voice.
We must be their voice until we can return
their collective and individual voices to them."
- Paul Weingarten.

We, The World is collaborating with artist Paul Weingarten and art buyer John Krysko to raise money for the relief of children in danger around the world. We are connecting artists with the organizations and individuals who are steadfastly addressing the conditions that rob children of their innocence: hunger, poverty, disease, forced labor/slavery, refugee crises, forced military duty.

On December 10, 2002, in conjunction with the Interfaith Center of New York's Winter Festival, We, The World officially launched this program and raised funds to provide relief for children in Ghana!

Paul's vision: "Exhibitions of works will commence and patrons will buy not pictures but lives. The world's children are our children. We are their only hope."

THE INTERNATIONAL TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION HEARINGS

Recognizing persistent pain as an indication of a deeper problem applies to whole countries as well as individuals. By listening to and acknowledging the pain of its members, a society can begin to heal itself. But only when the sources of the pain are eliminated will the wound disappear. For many societies, some sources of pain lie outside their country. This is why the process must be done on a global scale.

The International Truth and Reconciliation Hearings idea was inspired by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa (which in turn was influenced by programs begun in Latin America). People in South Africa who would normally have been imprisoned or executed were given amnesty in return for telling the truth about their actions during the apartheid era. Emotional outpourings were commonplace as victims and others also told their stories. Over time, many people on all sides began to understand, and to a certain extent feel closer to, one another.

Unlike South Africa, our Hearings will not be legal proceedings. Rather, they will be public forums for dialogue and understanding. The Hearings will allow members of historically clashing cultures to publicly tell their respective stories in a safe and supportive environment. UN/NGO supported, the Hearings will initially be focused on one country or region at a time, as long as no major conflict is currently taking place there. They will bring together representatives from cultures in that area as well as from those countries which had a colonial or other oppressive relationship with it.

The core values of We, The World such as compassion and inclusion will form an ever-present context within which history can be examined and stories can be told. History may reveal that it was primarily powerful individuals (rather than entire ethnic or religious groups) who were originally responsible for bringing cultures into conflict and initiating cycles of violence and retaliation. This could be new information for biased people who have assumed that it is the "innate characteristics" of most members of particular ethnic, religious or other groups (rather than distrust, insecurity and friction continuing from the original struggle) that causes conflict to persist.

By openly acknowledging the suffering that occurred, and its relationship to the current situation in a country, people from clashing cultures can begin to understand and empathize with each other. Of course, the participants, though from different backgrounds, would all be interested in achieving reconciliation as well as making the truth public. Angry militants who seek revenge and retaliation would not be involved except in very carefully controlled circumstances.

The Hearings will be televised on a regular basis and documentary films will be made of them. The TV and film production teams will as much as possible be composed of people from all sides of the particular clashing cultures or countries examined in each hearing.

The International Truth and Reconciliation Hearings will include and empower experts whose lives have been devoted to the relationship between the particular clashing cultures. Each one will become a forum to increase understanding, respect and connection and will derive the global support We, The World brings to all its programs.

WORLD COMMUNITIES INTERCHANGE

Using teleconferencing, and translators if necessary, this program will allow communities from several countries to share information and to provide mutual support in order to address similar local issues, while in the context of global interconnectedness. These "Town Hall" style meetings will provide community leaders, students, religious groups, professional groups, arts groups and other citizens the opportunity to compare notes with their counterparts from other cultures.

Arts presentations, joint performances, collaborative projects and cultural exchanges will enhance this program and help build community and solidarity around the world.

Community Interchanges will primarily occur as part of the Public International Events, using each event's theme or issue as a basis for activities and discussion.

ETHICAL IMPACT REPORTS

Developed by Michael Lerner and the Foundation for Ethics and Meaning, these reports will provide a means to measure the effects of particular corporations, industries, governments and other institutions. Reports will be based on the perspectives of all the stakeholders including: stockholders, employees, the communities affected, and consumers. By publicizing reports from regions around the world, using indexes similar to the Consumer Price Index, we can heighten the public's global consciousness and assess our progress toward having a world where each life matters.

We CAN
(We, The World's Change Agent Network)

Mahatma Gandhi said "We must become the change we seek in the world." We, The World would like to connect those who are following his call. We are proposing the creation of a million+ member pool of social change agents networked together for the common good! This will be a major resource, supporting efforts of social activists around the world and helping to grow essential progressive social movements.

As is the case with organizations in the Global Resources Network, We CAN members will also benefit from and contribute to the Public International Events. Our goal is to generate massive support for specific important social causes as we globalize the transformative experience of connecting with others to improve the world!

We have received excited enthusiastic responses to this strategy by leaders of:
The Jane Goodall Institute, The Global Security Institute, the Club of Budapest, the Earth Charter Movement, the Center for Partnership Studies, the Global Peoples Assembly, the Waterside Support Center, the Gesundheit Institute, Jubilennium, the Center for Visionary Leadership, the Middle Powers Initiative, V-Day 2001 at Madison Square Garden, the Tribal Link Foundation, the Calvert Social Investment Fund, Women of Vision and Action, the Foundation for Ethics and Meaning, the War and Peace Foundation, the Gandhi-King Season for Nonviolence, Pathways to Peace, United Youth International, the World Peace Prayer Society, The Interfaith Center of New York, the International Montessori Council, and many others.

• Imagine the Change
• Create the Change
• Celebrate the Change
• Be the Change!
  
• Support the Change!