“Be the change…”
admin November 19th, 2007
(Frances) We’re just above Nova Scotia, says the flight map on the seat-back facing me, so I’m nearly home after an exhilarating week in England.
An hour ago, I was totally exhausted, but then I started reading the book they handed me as I left last night’s extraordinary 3rd annual Be the Change gathering in London’s Central Hall, where the response to the message of Getting a Grip moved me deeply.
The book – also titled Be the Change - that’s picked me up on this long flight is simply a collection of the voices of people who’ve spoken at previous “Be the Change” events, each telling their story—from Taddy Blecher, who started a free university in South Africa (simply by inviting poor students to apply and taking it from there!), to Gill Hicks, whose legs were blown off by the London “tube” bomber, and who loves her new life working for the organization PeaceDirect to teach everyday people the skills of peacemaking all over the world.
I am not doing the book justice…just trust me! If you want to start bouncing off your seat, order Be the Change, and whenever you start to slide down, read another of its amazing first-person stories.
Central Hall was super-charged last night. I arrived to deliver the next-to-last speech, just before Vandana Shiva’s. The excitement of the young people in the hall thrilled us both. We we’re both members of the co-sponsoring organization, the World Future Council, earlier in the conference had shared its campaign to spread the reward-renewables model legislation that has proved itself in Germany, moving 12.6% of the country’s electricity to renewal sources in only 7 years!
That morning I’d had enjoyed a three-hour train journey with Vandana from a gathering at Schumacher College in Devon. She described for me her organization’s stop-the-farmer- suicide campaign in central India.
Vandana and me
