Dear friends,
This year we passed our fifteen year mark and the work expands ever onward with your help. As conveners and connectors, GPIW and the Contemplative Alliance create gathering containers and the fertile ground for unexpected outcomes to unfold - and they do. We have much to be grateful for and thank you humbly for your participation and support. We ask you now to please consider a contribution to the Global Peace Initiative of Women for activities in 2018. A donation can be made on line
here
or if your gift is by check it can be sent to the
Global Peace Initiative of Women, 301 East 57
th
Street, 4
th
Floor, NY NY 10022.
We celebrate all the activities of this past year. With a small staff we collaborate with a vast global community of supporters and friends from around the world. This past year we put time and energy to bringing in more and more the voices of indigenous teachers. A four day gathering was held in Moab, Utah with Native American elders and contemplative practitioners. The gathering focused on the need for deeper listening to Native American wisdom about our relationship to the natural world. We also traveled to Charleston, South Carolina to hear from the African American community on challenges to social justice there, as well as to hold in remembrance the victims of the racially motivated shooting at the AME Mother Emanuel Church in June 2015. It was a learning conversation in which the preeminent civil rights advocate Rev. Nelson Rivers engaged, along with the Sophia Institute and the Social Justice, Racial Equity Collaborative of Charleston
.
A poignant film was created around this gathering and we share it with you today.
In 2017 we listened to emerging leaders eager to share their ways to live more harmoniously with the Earth. We are working with young ecologists from Latin and South America, Africa, Europe and soon Asia, on a series of gatherings called the
Inner Dimensions of Climate Change
. These meetings bring in a wider perspective to the ecological crisis and ask us as a human community to reflect on how to shift our mindset to foster substantive and profound societal change. These young leaders have benefited greatly from interaction with the spiritual elders in the GPIW network, many of who have done groundbreaking work in Earth restoration from the inner and outer planes. Our spirits have been lifted this past year through the many remarkable young people we have encountered and learning of their initiatives.
It was also a year in which we could ensure that the voice of faith leaders and spiritual traditions were present at the major United Nations conference on climate change in Bonn, Germany. We joined other organizations in offering a special Side Event at the Indigenous Peoples Pavilion, as well as organized a public event for the city of Bonn that drew a full house for an evening program called Honoring the Earth.
Your support and commitment allows our work to reach further, support more young people to participate and carry on the vision of living our highest human dignity, embodying the universal truth of love that guides our lives both inwardly and outwardly. See you in 2018!
A blessed holiday season to all.
In gratitude,
Dena, Marianne, Janelle, Kesang
GPIW New York team
