Global Dialogue: Transformational Leaders
David Arrivillaga – is the Executive Director of SHARE Guatemala. Originally from a semi-rural area of Guatemala, he studied agronomy and has worked for nearly 20 years in rural integrated development. He has a philosophy of supporting the people of the organization, evaluating constantly the impact of programs and assuring that resources are forthcoming. His effort has meant that SHARE Guatemala is uniquely receiving funds from the US government directly, without having them channeled through a US-based donor. His diligence working with a local Guatemalan board has extended the work throughout rural Guatemala.
SHARE de Guatemala - This integrated rural program is developed through participatory processes with families and communities in the rural areas, especially in the highlands. Serving approximately 60% indigenous communities, SHARE de Guatemala focuses on family health and sustainable agriculture. Mayan communities hold a vision of the world that includes humans as part of nature rather then external to nature. David Arrivellaga is a founder of SHARE de Guatemala, which has now started a Voluntour program with Via International, as well.
Dr. Ariyaratne , Sri Lankabhimanya Ahangamage Tudor Ariyaratne, is the founder and President of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka. Born November 5, 1931, he was a high school teacher at Nalanda College and is a devoted Buddhist. He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in 1969, the Gandhi Peace Prize from the government of India in 1996, the Niwano Peace Prize in 1992, the King Beaudoin Award and other international honors for his work in peace making and village development. In 2006, he received the Acharya Sushil Kumar International Peace Award for 2005, among first recipients of this award were Joan Tolengy and in 2004, his Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama. In 2007 he received the Sri Lankabhimanya, the highest National Honour of Sri Lanka. Ariyaratne, a strong believer in Gandhian principles of non-violence, rural development and self-sacrifice, has shaped the Sarvodaya Movement in ways that forged a significant link between secular principles of development and Buddhist ideals of selflessness and compassion.
Sarvodaya - This village development movement is active in more than 10,000 villages throughout Sri Lanka (2/3 of all the villages in the nation) and provides villages with a development process that is based on Buddhist spirituality. Founded 50 years ago by Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, a recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize, the vision is that of welfare for all through a process of “we build the road and the road builds us”. Visits to the movement in the mid-90’s resulted in involvement in Sarvodaya USA, a network of US-based individuals, linked by a list-serve, who support the premises of community action through participation and seek to develop similar activities in US communities. Sri Lanka ’s largest non-governmental organization, Sarvodaya plays an important role in the country’s ongoing recovery from the 2004 tsunami caused by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean.
Sarvodaya also aids people harmed by the military conflict between the Sri Lanka’s government and the separatist Tamil Tigers. The country’s violence makes Ariyaratne’s and Sarvodaya’s Buddhist-Gandhian philosophy and dedication to non-violence and the sustainable empowerment of people through self-help and collective support all the more essential.
Bhavana Dee – Bhavana Dee, an American woman who joined Auroville in 1971, has been working in the field of Auroville’s relation to the villages and in village development since 1983. Born in New York, she studied at Northwestern University and New York University, but prefers to say she attended "the university of the road," traveling in Europe and overland to India. She has served on Auroville's apex bodies, and is a resident-participant of the Integral Learning and Wellness Centre at Verite Community within Auroville, and a Vipassana meditator. She started the Auroville Village Action Group in 1983 to develop a neighborly relation with the villages in and around the Auroville area. The work has developed from good-natured but ignorant charity to a full-fledged development programme, including community organisation, women's empowerment, micro-finance and vocational training extending to a population of about 200,000. The Village Action Trust now includes nine semi-autonomous units working in the fields of young women's education, community cultural centers, vocational education, care for handicapped children, health care, women's empowerment and microfinance. She will draw on both her own and her colleagues’ experiences to explain their rural development work.
Auroville is an international community located in southeast India, founded in 1968 and commended by UNESCO to be India's experiment in Human Unity. At present about 2000 people from nearly 40 nations reside in Auroville committing their lives to creating “the city the earth needs”. Based on the vision of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Auroville anticipates some of the characteristics of a new age of humanity, working with appropriate and alternative technologies, sustainable food production, money-less economy, child-oriented education, concensus governance, and a spiritual (but not religious) approach to human existence. Auroville is a vehicle of this global evolutionary thrust and, hopefully, a platform for transformation. An ecological miracle, Auroville has planted over a million trees and, with the help of Mother Nature and the local population, re-created a forest out of a desert wasteland. Auroville Village Action focusses on the relation of Auroville to the surrounding Tamil villages, addressing poverty through training and micro-credit, empowering women and men for community development, and promoting an environmentally sensitive and people's participatory approach to regional planning.
Dr. Larry Emerson is a visiting professor and consultant for Native American Scholars and Collaborators at San Diego State University and lives in Shiprock, Navajo Nation, New Mexico. Professor Emerson has been an active lecturer and conference presenter and provided a wealth of professional services to urban foundations and Indigenous Nations. Professor Emerson plans to use the Postdoctoral Fellowship year to further his dissertation research and develop his dissertation into a book manuscript. Dr. Larry Emerson's dissertation work, entitled “‘Hozho Nahazdlii’: Towards a Practice of Diné Decolonization,” investigates and seeks to understand “the dialectical nature of colonialism and decolonization.”
Tse’ da Ka’an is a Dine (Navajo) community working to recover sustainable practices, develop indigenous language restoration programs,and tend to new forms of education.
Elisa Sabatini serves as the Executive Director for Via International (formerly Los Niños). She grew up in the US and during high school attended a school in Mexico. University studies took Elisa to Spain where she focused on learning the language and continued her interest in health themes. Primary health and an interest in nutrition connected to later studies in food systems and a focus in graduate work on agricultural economics. After running an import business in Hawaii and becoming interested in Asian influences, Elisa returned to the mainland and worked for the next fifteen years in Latin America. She was engaged in starting up non-profit initiatives in Mexico and Guatemala incorporating her studies into programs of preventative health and rural sustainable agriculture. These programs included her relationships with the Agency for International Development and the US Department of Agriculture to secure resources in support of integrated rural development and food security. Ms. Sabatini also received training in and designed several micro-enterprise loan initiatives. At World SHARE Elisa was the Regional Director for Latin America and coordinated participatory processes to create an autonomous SHARE organization in Guatemala as well as develop self-funding food distribution in Mexico and a loan program that became Compartamos. In 1995 she traveled to India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh where she discovered community development work strengthened by spiritual underpinnings. Over the next years, she continued her involvement with those who traveled with her and this resulted in the creation of Nature's Spirit, a community engaged in creating a model of sustainable practices. Ms. Sabatini has worked for ten years as the executive director of Los Ninos (now Via International), a community development organization working on the US/Mexico border to strengthen community capacity in the areas of nutrition and ecology, microcredit, leadership and voluntourism.
Via International is a community development organization and institute engaged in organizing communities and training “agents of change”. The programs include VolunTours™, offering U.S. students an opportunity to have transformative experiences through partnerships in Mexico, Guatemala and the Navajo Nation. Founded 35 years ago, the organization has a rich history of institutional development including a historical path where traditional charitable give-away activities were transformed into actions focused on empowering people to achieve their potential. Community Development program areas include family health, nutrition, micro-finance, sustainable agriculture, community organizing and development education.
Javier Vargas Mendoza is the international representative of the Eduardo Vargas Memorial Fund and organizer of the 2 nd Continental Congress for Community-Based Rehabilitation. As member of “Fondo de Raíces Ciudadanas” (Roots of Citizenship Fund) he works on issues of migration throughout the Americas and was also the President of La Liga Iberoamericana de Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil por la Superación de la Pobreza y la Exclusión Social, from 2002 to 2008, networking different thematic initiatives in 18 countries. Formerly the cofounder and first President of Vamos Foundation, he is also now co-founder and Board member of the Queretaro Community Foundation. He has been a prominent leader in his work for peace and social development for more than forty years, collaborating with numerous indigenous and civil organizations in Mexico and other countries. He is cofounder and member of several organizations such as “Enlace Comunicación y Capacitación” and “Convergencia de Organismos Civiles por la Democracia” a national network promoting civil rights. He has been a consultant for UNICEF, National Bank of Mexico (Human Resources Department) and the Council for Adult Education in Latin America (CEAAL). Additionally, he is a former member of the Maryknoll Mission Association. He has been a speaker and participant of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Buenos Aires and Cancun. He has participated as member of the National Consulting Board for the Interamerican Development Bank in Mexico and as a consultant of the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) and the “Fondo Nacional de Apoyo a Empresas Sociales” (National Fund for the Support of Social Enterprises). In the year 2000 he won the National Social Leadership Award, granted by Compartir. He speaks several language including two indigenous languages from Chiapas, Mexico.
Andy Morikawa – serves as executive director for the Community Foundation of the New River Valley developing assets for a rural, small town, river valley in Virginia's Appalachian region. He has served in the nonprofit sector for thirty years as a staff member and trustee including as President of World SHARE. He is aspiring to share current, lived experiences that have in common their orientation to nonprofit governance, grassroots community building, and the leadership of networked trustees. He serves as a trustee on several national and local boards. He sees working with nonprofit boards that seek to undertake governance revitalization through board self -assessment and development.
The Community Foundation of The New River Valley – To enhance the quality of life in the New River Valley of Virginia by: 1) Serving the charitable interests of donors, and providing safe, secure, professional management of their charitable dollars; 2) Making creative, visionary, and sensitive grants to worthy individuals and organizations; especially those that address new, evolving needs in the community; 3) Devoting special emphasis to programs that enrich the spirit and life of our community in the fields of social services, education, community and civic affairs, arts and culture, health, libraries and museums, religion, the conservation and preservation of natural, historical and cultural resources; 4) Acting as a catalyst and convenor for leadership and community development.
Kathy Vargas – Born in Venezuela but raised in the United States, Kathy has been living and working in Mexico since 1970. She began her work in Chiapas, working in indigenous communities. She and her husband Javier have raised four children. Kathy works in a number of projects in Queretaro. She is very active with the Queretaro Community Foundation, an organization working to help the poor in dignified and sustainable ways. In addition, Kathy is the President of the Board for the L’Arche community in Queretaro, part of a worldwide movement to recognize the rights and social contributions of people with developmental challenges. The L'Arche community in Queretaro provides community living for five developmentally challenged residents and a workshop that provides employment presently for ten others, producing wonderful whole wheat bread, beaded jewelry and raising rabbits and chickens for meat.
Kathy’s understanding of Mexican culture, combined with her compassion and organizational skills allow her work to have a deep impact on the lives of the poor.
Community Foundation of Queretaro– The Foundation runs programs in education, sustainable development and business social responsiblity. An important contribution has been an addictions prevention program in 82 high-risk public schools in 8 counties, serving approximately 19 thousand students between the ages of 8 and 13. They also carry out programs of civic education through recreational activities with children in marginalized neighborhoods, and are implementing a nationwide program in high schools called “Construye T” (“Build Yourself”), giving young adults a decisive voice in determining and creating the future they want. Sustainable development projects include diploma programs in conjunction with municipal, state and federal governments in “solidarity economies” and the establishment of a netwrok of small social businesses, improving product presentation, distribution and marketting. The network yearly sponsors an economic solidarity fair in which small producers have the opportunity to obtain greater visibility and sales. In the area of business social responsibility, the Foundation has worked for 8 years as part of an international network called “Red Puentes”. Its latest initiative is to push for legislative reform by exposing the tremendous heist involved in the Mexican government's turning over of workers' retirement funds to the private sector for administration (AFORES). The government has in fact abandoned its Constitutional obligation to provide systems of social security for the population and has procured windfall profits for the banks while the workers' bank statements for retirement funds reflect constant losses.
