It starts with Us - Howlround
Part of developing an empowered public voice is being able to take time away to listen deeply to your own inner thoughts. A group of young women I work with did just that as they prepared for a public performance in support of climate change awareness and action. Sitting on the rocky side of a hill outside our retreat cabin in the mountains, one of them—sixteen-year-old Leela Stoede—wrote a response to the climate change play she was rehearsing, It Starts with Me:
It starts with me because even though my life is utterly ordinary, it’s different from any other story told. It starts with me, a life that has not yet been lived. It starts with me because I’ve been surrounded by more love than ever believed possible and want to share it. It starts with me because I’ve been raised in a culture different from my own, a culture that became my own.
WORKING WITH MAIA IMPACT, MAY 2019
In May, Chelsea went back to Sololá, Guatemala to lead the second of three workshops hosted by our partner MAIA Impact. Over the course of three days, 26 teachers, mentors and community leaders created original songs and plays proposing policy changes they would like to see in their communities. They also learned how to lead this creative process themselves in their own communities. It all culminated in an hour long sharing with the 8th grader MAIA students who told us:
“It was inspiring to see all of these women using their voices without shame, because it makes me feel like I can too.”
LA COMUNIDAD EN UNIDAD, MAY 2019
On Spanish Heritage Day Beth Osnes helped coordinate an “ethical spectacle” where hundreds of Latinx students came together to physicalize unity within diversity at the Balch Fieldhouse at the University of Colorado Boulder.
VISUALIZING DRAWDOWN SOLUTIONS
Beth Osnes works with youth from Young Women’s Voices for Climate to theatrically render Paul Hawken’s Drawdown solutions, and how performing these solutions in partnership with the National Park Service is important for climate science and environmental stewardship.