If you love to live your truth, tell your story, feel your pain, express your joy, take what you need, and give what you will – You will love Owning Pink. This is an amazing online community, that supports, offers guidance, inspiration and ideas. This is done through posts, workshops, and the Pink Posse forum. This is a safe place, free of facades. Owning Pink allows you to reclaim your mojo, and tap into your most authentic you. Owning Pink roars courage to me.
Lissa Rankin created this space for you. Here is some information about Lissa from her blog – Lissa Rankin is an OB/GYN physician, author of the forthcoming What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend (St. Martin’s Press, 2010) and Encaustic: A Guide To Creating Fine Art With Wax (Random House, 2010), a nationally-represented professional artist, a mother, and founder of Owning Pink, a website and series of workshops committed to building authentic community and empowering women to get their mojo back. She is also a dog walker, a spiritual seeker, a wife, a yogini, a chauffeur, a cook, and a music fanatic. First and foremost, she is a woman, and like many women, she once thought she had to put herself into a box and choose who to be. She now accepts that, while she is all these things, no single identity defines her. She is more than what she does. She strives to be authentic, in all aspects of her life, and she encourages others to do the same.
Lissa practices holistic women’s health at Clear Center of Health in Mill Valley, California. Her nationally-recognized abstract encaustic paintings and sculptures are represented by galleries in San Francisco, Santa Fe, Boston, Atlanta, Laguna Beach, Houston,and Bethesda. She currently resides in Northern California with her husband and fellow artist, Matt Klein, and their daughter, Siena.
Here are some links for you to connect with Lissa, Owning Pink and The Pink Posse:
The End Of Poverty is a new documentary release directed by the brilliant Philippe Diaz. Imagine listening to politicians, economists, and leading experts in the world, along with the voices of people living in poverty. This movie is the first of it’s kind.
The End of Poverty asks why today 20% of the planet’s population uses 80% of its resources, and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate? Today, global poverty has reached new levels because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies — in other words, wealthy countries exploiting the weaknesses of poor, developing countries.
The film premiered in NYC this past weekend at Village East Cinema, sold out some show times, and had better box office numbers than every other film playing at the Village East including Disney’s ‘A Christmas Carol’. Unfortunately because a lot of the Hollywood blockbuster’s are coming out this weekend, ‘The End of Poverty?’ will only be playing in New York for one week (ends on Thursday), so make sure to check it out and tell all your friends in NYC.
November 18th 2009 there will be a benefit preview screening in Los Angeles for Office of the Americas. A panel discussion with the director, Philippe Diaz, the founder of OOA Blase Bonpane, and philanthropist Aris Anagnos will follow the screening. Everyone will receive a free gift bag. Tickets are still on sale. Go here for more information: http://www.facebook.com
• The richest 1% of the world’s population owns 32 % of the wealth.
• Today more than one billion people live in the slums of the Southern hemisphere.
• Almost 1/3 of the world’s population has no access to affordable clean water.
• Almost 16,000 children die each day from hunger or hunger- related diseases.
• Cutting global poverty in half would cost $20 billion, less than 4% of the U.S. military budget.
Systems that create poverty have been in place since 1492 when the Spanish and the Portuguese conquered the Americas; indigenous people were killed in mass murders, mineral wealth was plundered, local economies were destroyed, and a plantation culture was established. Although the institution of slavery was abolished in the 19th century, it still exists around the world where at least 80 million people are forced to labor in terrible conditions for very little money. The filmmaker interviews poor workers who complain about being treated like slaves, abused and humiliated, and always forced to live with no security or hope for a better life.
The economic damages wrought by colonialists, with an assist from Christian missionaries, stemmed from a series of power plays that encouraged the private ownership of land, the destruction of the communal way of life, the promotion of individualism, and the stamping out of indigenous cultures. All of these developments solidified the enormous gap between the rich and the poor.
Capitalism with its emphasis on greed, profit, and political wheeling and dealing has further widened the abyss between the haves and the have-nots. Under the aegis of neoliberalism, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have subjugated poor nations — especially in Africa — with the burdens of international debt and economies based on raw-material exports. Two scary stories illustrate the structural violence of neoliberal polices. One is the privatization of the water supply under Bechtel (which was overturned by the angry response of the poor who could not afford it) and the injustices perpetrated on poor Africans who cannot pay for hospitals and schools.
The voices of those who have suffered set alongside the consensus of the experts bears witness to the deprivations heaped upon Southern peoples by the nations of the North who have accumulated more than 80% of the world’s resources for only 20% of the world’s population.
French filmmaker Philippe Diaz discusses his latest gem, The End of Poverty? about the systemic causes of poverty, what is terribly wrong with our system of global capitalism and its control of Western foreign policy. Interview by Jim Dingeman.
Subscribe now to the Living In Courage Newsletter and you'll get a free download of my ebook!
Endorsements
“Debra Oakland has clearly written Living in Courage from the heart. This is a book that guides people to summon the courage to face life's biggest challenges. You will find wonderful nuggets that you can apply to your life now.”
~ David Riklan, Founder of SelfGrowth.com,
the #1 Self Improvement Website on the Internet
www.SelfGrowth.com
