This past Saturday, May 14, we celebrated our one year anniversary! It is so hard to believe that a year has already gone by since we first opened our doors!
We had lots of delicious goodies for the big day! Our friend Kathleen made us some amazing brownies, Kelly and her daughter Kenzie made wonderful cupcakes
And our friends from the Veggie Grill generously donated a delicious vegan carrot cake!
Even our 4 pillars were in the birthday spirit!
We had a lot of amazing FREE classes in honor of our birthday. Here are some great highlights from the classes that we held…
Lots of fun with Alejandro at our New Earth Drumming class!
Manuel Gomez was also kind enough to read us some amazing poetry…
We made some beautiful bracelets with Girl Socuts!
We made some beautiful mandalas and sand paintings…
Kids became monkeys in our Smiling Monkey Yoga classes…
We learned how to cultivate the possibility of compassion in our Possibility Thinking class…
And we had story time with Cynthia Callard…
Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated our first birthday with us and made it a huge success. We are so grateful to all of our friends and affiliates who have supported us in our journey! You are making good happen, and we are so thankful that each of you have been brought into our lives!
What an amazing and inspiring week it has been! Last weekend we had our working groups, which were followed on Wednesday by the Living Peace Series with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama! Here are some highlights from the events.
Working Groups for Compassion and Global Leadership
On Saturday, April 30, 2011 we held working groups at CLP with youth between the ages of 14 – 24. They gathered together to work on projects and awareness raising initiatives that promote compassion and global leadership in their lives, their communities and the world.
A few days later, our working group participants were invited to attend a speaking event with His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, called PTTOW. At this event, His Holiness watched this video:
We are so thrilled with the outcomes from the working groups. Here are a few of the service projects and initiatives that they will be working on…
High Tech High Media Arts’ 4 Africa Club will be executing a local week-long awareness campaign about issues in Africa and how individuals can help. They plan to include: an organized 5k walk that will help them gather donations and supplies for youth in Africa, documentary screenings, a benefit concert, and a letter writing campaign.
Peace Jam plans to research the issue of access to and scarcity of clean water throughout the world from local and international perspectives. They are also going to organize a beach clean-up; raise awareness about water in local schools, neighborhoods and through social networks.
The Interfaith Youth Council will host a county-wide interfaith youth forum (which will be planned, run and facilitated by high school teens) that will encourage interfaith understanding, respect, and civility. They hope to increase attendance at the event this year from 120 (in 2010) to 200, and build on the 12 faiths previously represented by including Baha’i and Hindu youth as well.
Students for Integrative Medicine plan to pair volunteers with bedfast individuals to record the bedfast individuals’ stories. Volunteers will be trained in compassionate listening and will visit patients in a 5-session program designed to give the participants time to build rapport, share stories, and crucially, to say “goodbye.”
We are so thrilled to work will all of these organizations and assist them in their projects as they grow and evolve!
The Living Peace Series featuring His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama
On May 4, 2011 His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama returned to UC Irvine as a part of the Living Peace Series to engage students and the community in a discussion about compassion, happiness, interfaith harmony and global leadership.
He spoke about how the goal of education should be to “develop sensible, compassionate leaders who are realistic and warmhearted.” He also stressed the importance of respect for all religions, and nonbelievers as well, which elicited cheers from the audience.
The event opened with songs from Tibetan singer, Yungchen Lhamo
Followed by an introduction by UCI Chancellor Drake, where he explained the partnership between UCI and The Center for Living Peace and also introduced the Dalai Lama scholars (including our very own Programs Manager, Rebecca Hendrickson!)
Then His Holiness stepped onto the stage with Thubten Jinpa, His Holiness’s English translator, and the fun began!
The Dalai Lama wowed the crowd with his compassion and sense of humor– when asked about the secret to happiness, he replied “If there is some secret factor for happiness, I must keep it.” He also encouraged people to “pay more attention to [the] young and provide maximum love and compassion to [their] children.” He explained that ”if we make some effort now, in the later part of the century we can produce very sensible compassionate leaders.”
… Like our wonderful Kelly Smith!
If you missed the speaking event, you can watch it on our Livestream page!
PTTOW!
Immediately following the speaking event at the Bren Center, His Holiness met with our working group participants at PTTOW!.
PTTOW! (Plan to Take On the Word) is a conference that brings together the nation’s top marketers, from companies such as Microsoft, Red Bull, Mastercard, Electronics Arts, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, Quiksilver, Pepsi, and many others. The Dalai Lama spoke about the power of youth and technology to catalyze global change, promote ethical leadership and spread compassion. Here is a video from the PTTOW event:
A special thank youto: Apples & Oranges for filming our working groups and Living Peace Series events, Alex Abercrombie for her beautiful photography, Philip Schneider and Lisa Rueff from Jacmel Children, PTTOW!’s Roman Tsunder and eXcel Youth Zone’s Bryan Banville for presenting at our working groups. And of course, all of our participants! YOU help us make these events possible!
“A compassionate mind thinks more about others, that makes it very easy to communicate.”
And our friends from the Veggie Grill generously donated a delicious vegan carrot cake!
Lots of fun with Alejandro at our New Earth Drumming class!
