Here is the latest from my world of announcements and events. I’ve been sending out my personalized e-mails since 1996. Let me know what you think!
From: Lorna Lardizabal Dietz
Date: Apr 3, 2007 12:47 AM
Subject: THE FILIPINO CALENDAR: EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS updates from the San Francisco Bay Area, includes “Carry the Vision” (April 21 nonviolence conference in San Jose) press release
To:
Hello, media and networking friends:
There are a lot of events going on in our part of the West Coast. They’re all at www.RadiantView.com ; click on THE FILIPINO CALENDAR: EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS.
– The “Carry the Vision” Community NonViolence Conference & Youth Leadership Summit this Saturday, April 21, 2007 at Evergreen Valley College, San Jose, CA. is ready to bring all peacemakers in one venue. We know that Yolanda King will be one of the honored guests & speakers. If you are interested in interviewing any of the featured speakers, please contact Bea Baechle (see information below).
– The Filipinas Magazine Achievement Awards’ preparations for its 10th anniversary of the awards is in full swing! The event will be held on Sunday, June 3, 2007 at 4:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the South San Francisco Conference Center. It starts with a Barrio Fiesta Reception (lots of food and networking opportunities!) — and at 6:00 p.m., everyone moves to the next hall for the Awards event. For tickets (they’re $30 each), contact Francis Zamora at [email protected] or call (650) 985-2530. Sponsorship and advertising opportunities are still available — but do hurry! Contact me at [email protected] if you’re interested. Check out the online edition at www.FilipinasMag.com . As always, I can take care of your subscriptions, too!
– The 2007 San Jose Punjabi Mela will be held on Sunday, June 24, 2007 at the Evergreen Valley College campus grounds from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. This will be the 2nd year that I’m volunteering with the San Jose Punjabi Mela Committee. This year’s Chairperson is Dr. Kulwant Gill. I’m also looking for sponsorships and booth vendors. If your organization wants to reach out to the influential and affluential Indo-American population of Silicon Valley, please e-mail me at [email protected]. Updates can be found at www.myspace.com/SanJosePunjabiMela.
– On September 6-8, 2007, the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (www.NaFFAA.org ), convenes its 5th Global Filipino Networking Convention in Sydney, Australia with the cooperative umbrella of two Australian Filipino groups, Global Filipinos Australia and FILCCA – New South Wales. Look at the September 6, 2007 entry for details. NaFFAA’s National Chair, Alma Kern (who came with Executive Director, Doy Heredia) was in the SF Bay Area last Saturday, March 31, as one of the women honored by the Fil-Am Coalition. Alma announced the dates for NaFFAA’s 8th National Empowerment Conference at the Westin Hotel Seattle, WA: Sept. 26-28, 2008. Remember, the 5th global is in 2007 and the 8th Empowerment Conference is in 2008. AND our Northern California NaFFAA Region 8 Summit will be held on Friday, August 10, 2007. Details later.
– The “Day of Valor” will be held on April 7, 2007. Philippine Ambassador Gaa will be the special guest of honor. Let’s honor our Filipino American WWII Veterans!
– If you want to network with the young Filipino professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area, check out their networking event this April 4 in San Francisco.
– There’s good news for credit-challenged debtors! If you want to host your own FICO workshop with credit empowerment coach, Hazel Valera, please e-mail me at [email protected] . Check out the April 3 announcement.
– New York is the venue for Filipina Women’s Network’s “Vagina Monologues” and “Usaping Puki.” As of press time, there are still tickets available for the April 14 performance of “Usaping Puki.”
– Congratulations to Maya Ruiz, president of the Young Filipino Professional Association, for her dynamic career move as Business Development Director of Paragon Strategies in the Financial District, San Francisco! Check out their professional development seminars in the April 11 and April 18 entries.
– The Festival Season has officially begun! Check out the entries… Let’s celebrate May, the Asian Pacific American Heritage Celebration Month, in the most fulfilling ways we can think of!
– There’s a new Indonesian monthly, glossy magazine whose editorial offices are headquartered in San Francisco. It’s KABARI NEWS MAGAZINE. Interested contributors and advertisers can e-mail [email protected] or call (415) 242-8100. Please mention that I referred you.
– And please, if you haven’t given me any updates on your event, please remember to send me the text version, ok?
Have a wonderful spring season!!!
Lorna
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DIETZ DATES & UPDATES: To check out San Francisco Bay Area’s (and beyond!) events & activities of the Filipino American community and announcements from our Asian Pacific American communities, go to www.RadiantView.com. Read the introduction on THE FILIPINO CALENDAR: Events & Announcements so you can maximize your experience with the calendar. The entries are my personal choices. If the window doesn’t “pop” out when you click on your desired entry, hold down the CTRL key while you click.
You can use this FREE calendar as a planning tool, a networking opportunity, a reminder, or a plain FYI. As a courtesy, please say “thank you” to these friends (like me and my source) for the information by mentioning their names when you contact the organizers. That’s all I ask!
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Bea Baechle < [email protected]>
Date: Mar 31, 2007 10:51 AM
Subject: Carry the Vision press release
To: Lorna Lardizabal Dietz < [email protected]>
Hi Lorna,
Here’s the first press release & the article I submitted to the Peace Times. Pattie also sent me a few photos if you need them. I’ll try to get more information about which of Cesar Chavez’s relatives may be attending.
Thanks for your help!
Bea
Bea Baechle
The Write Focus, Inc.
3566 Cour de Jeune
San Jose , CA 95148-4306
408.230-3402 (cell)
News Release
Office of Vice Mayor Dave Cortese
For Immediate Release Contact Bea Baechle
March 27, 2007 (408) 528-8000
Yolanda King to share principles of nonviolence April 21
SAN JOSE, CA—Yolanda King, eldest daughter of the legendary civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will be one of the keynote speakers at the annual Carry the Vision Community Nonviolence Conference at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose on Saturday, April 21.
Founder and CEO of Higher Ground Productions, Yolanda King has been in the midst of the quest for human rights and peace all of her life. With a goal to educate, empower and entertain, she hopes to “inspire individuals to passionately create peace in their own lives, thereby encouraging the same within their families, communities and across the globe.”
Joining King as the afternoon keynote speaker will be Azim Khamisa, author of Azim’s Bardo – From Murder to Forgiveness – A Father’s Journey. Khamisa will share the story of how through forgiveness he transformed the grief of losing his son into powerful social action.
Now in its fifth year, the daylong conference on nonviolence honors the legacies of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez and demonstrates the power of nonviolence to transform lives.
The conference is sponsored by Vice Mayor Dave Cortese’s office, the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, City Year, Evergreen Valley College, and the San Jose Sikh Gurdwara. With an anticipated attendance of more than 800 people, the conference is intended to provide practical ways to inspire participants to choose nonviolent methods to resolve conflicts and deal with issues in their everyday lives.
“We are living in unprecedented times. Quantum leaps in science are changing the way we see the world, while technology is changing the way we live in it,” said Rev. Ellen Grace O’Brian of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment.
“Yet through all this progress, our faculties of understanding and wisdom are lagging behind,” she added. “We are in need of a radical technology—a spiritual ‘technology of the heart’— if we are to answer the crucial moral and humanitarian questions that we face and meet the challenges that confront us at this unique time in history.”
Youth Leadership Summit
A Youth Leadership Summit will take place in the heart of this year’s Community Nonviolence Conference, where a diverse group of youth (17-25) will explore their vision of the future and discover how the principles and practices of nonviolence can be applied to create a visionary model for 21st century leadership in the community and the world.
The Youth Leadership Summit coincides with City Year’s National Youth Service Day, where approximately 400 youth will work on a variety of service projects in District 8 of San Jose after participating in the conference’s morning procession.
Selected Youth Leadership Summit delegates will also attend the once-in-a-lifetime pre-conference Season for Nonviolence 10th Anniversary Living Legends of Nonviolence National Conference on Friday, April 20.
Other highlights
Workshops and panel discussions comprised of local community leaders will focus on nonviolence principles in the areas of family, community or the world. Each person attending will have an opportunity to make a commitment to a “simple but profound act” that they agree to carry out as a way to promote nonviolence.
This event is part of A Season for Nonviolence, an annual 64-day grassroots effort from Jan. 30 to April 4 designed to educate and inspire people all over the world about the teachings of nonviolence. For more information on the Season, visit the Association for Global New Thought Website.
Cost of the conference is $25 in advance, $30 at the door for adults and $10 for students, which includes lunch donated by the San Jose Sikh community. Onsite daycare will also be available through the YMCA for ages 5 – 12. For more information or to register online, visit the Website www.carrythevision.org .
To set up an interview with the keynote speakers on the day of the conference, contact Bea Baechle, (408) 528-8000, prior to April 21.
For additional information, visit the following Websites:
Yolanda King and Higher Ground Productions, click here.
Azim Khamisa and the foundation he created in honor of his son, click here.
Carry the Vision Community Conference Partners:
The Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, click here .
San Jose Vice Mayor Dave Cortese, click here.
City Year of San Jose, click here.
Evergreen Valley College, click here.
The San Jose Sikh Gurdwara Community, click here .
Season for Nonviolence 10th Anniversary Gandhi King Chavez Peace Train and Living Legends of Nonviolence National Conference, c lick here.
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Applying the Principles of Nonviolence in Our Lives
You can find people everywhere who want to help create a better world—people deeply concerned about widespread suffering, environmental destruction, escalating materialism and the loss of our sense of community. There is a deep and growing hunger for a wiser and more loving society.
Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez modeled the vision to create such a society. They claimed the power for social change lies within individual consciousness—that if we really want to create a wise and loving world, we must first become wise and loving ourselves. As Gandhi put it, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
With the vision of a society governed by love and the common good, we have a powerful antidote to the violence, distrust and division of today’s politics of fear.
To demonstrate that nonviolence is a powerful way to heal, transform and empower our lives and communities, Gandhi’s grandson Arun co-founded an international grassroots movement called A Season for Nonviolence.
The 64-day Season was kicked off at the United Nations in 1998 as a way to educate people about the principles and practices of nonviolence and inspire them to take action. It runs from Jan. 30 to April 4, the memorial anniversaries of Gandhi and King.
Principles of nonviolence
The following principles of nonviolence encompass the teachings of Gandhi, King and Chavez:
§ Nonviolence means to honor the inherent worth of every human being. In nonviolence, we naturally seek to understand each other, build friendship and community.
§ Nonviolence means believing that our lives are linked together—that what we do impacts the lives of everyone we encounter, that we are responsible to and for one another and that we can trust one another and work toward the common good.
§ Nonviolence means dedicating ourselves to the fundamental rights of every human being—justice, equity and equality.
§ Nonviolence is courageously choosing to practice compassion with our adversaries. We oppose injustice, not people.
Nonviolence means recognizing love as the power of the human spirit to triumph over injustice, inequity and suffering—a true hero’s journey of personal-social change.
In practicing the relational principles of nonviolence we seek to recover and renew ourselves, our families and our politics—so violence and secrecy no longer shape our behavior. We realize that our lives, and those of our children, depend on our evolution.
Learning to be nonviolent is a new way of living, requiring a healing process that begins with the individual and ripples out into the larger world. As we heal our own relations we are demonstrating that people, organizations and governments can move the world proactively toward peace and wisdom.
Six Steps for Nonviolent Social Change
Today, as we seek concrete ways to apply these principles of nonviolence for social and interpersonal change, a good starting point is to look at King’s Six Steps for Nonviolent Social Change. According to The King Center, these steps are based on Dr. King’s nonviolent campaigns and teachings, which emphasize love in action.
His philosophy of nonviolent direct action, and his strategies for rational and nondestructive social change, galvanized the conscience of this nation and reordered its priorities. The following steps for social and interpersonal change are still applicable today.
1. Information Gathering. To understand and articulate an issue, problem or injustice facing a person, community or institution requires research. You must investigate and gather all vital information from all sides of the argument or issue to increase your understanding of the problem. You must become an expert on your opponent’s position.
2. Education. It’s essential to inform others, including your opposition, about your issue. This minimizes misunderstandings and gains you support and sympathy.
3. Personal Commitment. Check and affirm your faith in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence each day. Eliminate hidden motives and prepare yourself to accept suffering, if necessary, in your work for justice.
4. Negotiations. Using grace, humor and intelligence, confront the other party with a list of injustices and a plan for addressing and resolving these injustices. Look for what is positive in every action and statement the opposition makes. Do not seek to humiliate the opponent, but call forth the good in the opponent. Look for ways in which the opponent can also win.
5. Direct Action. These are actions taken to morally force the opponent to work with you in resolving the injustices. Direct action imposes a “creative tension” into the conflict. Direct action is most effective when it illustrates the injustice it seeks to correct. There are hundreds of direct action tactics, which include boycotting products, participating in marches and rallies, writing letters, gathering support through petition campaigns and voting for the candidates who support your cause.
6. Reconciliation. Nonviolence seeks friendship and understanding with the opponent.
Nonviolence does not seek to defeat the opponent. Nonviolence is directed against flawed systems, oppressive policies and unjust acts, not against people.
“If we want to overcome violence in society, then we must focus on alternatives and educate ourselves about nonviolence,” said Rev. Ellen Grace O’Brian of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment in San Jose.
“We can do it, it is possible, but we must educate ourselves and practice it to realize it,” she added. “This is what Gandhi, King and Chavez did. They were all ordinary people whose lives were transformed by their active engagement in nonviolence education.”
Prior to his death, Cesar Chavez clarified that it’s no easy task. “Nonviolence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak … Nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.”
Sources: The King Center, www.thekingcenter.org , and the Association for Global New Thought, www.agnt.org.
Potential pull quotes for the feature
“You must be the change you want to see in the world”. – Mahatma Gandhi
“Truth is my religion and nonviolence (love) it’s only realization”. – M. K. Gandhi
“At the center of nonviolence is the principle of love”. – Dr. Martin Luther King
“Nonviolence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak … Nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.” Cesar Chavez
“When any person suffers for someone in greater need, that person is a human.” – Cesar Chavez
Sidebar
Join hundreds of people focusing on nonviolence April 21
Carry the Vision Community Nonviolence Conference and Youth Leadership Summit
There’s something incredibly transformative about joining hundreds of adults and youth focused on the intention of taking a personal step to cultivate an environment of nonviolence in their families, communities and world.
You can take part in that transformation at the Carry the Vision Community Nonviolence Conference and Youth Leadership Summit at Evergreen Valley College , 3095 Yerba Buena Rd, San Jose, on April 21, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Keynote speaker Yolanda King, eldest daughter of the legendary civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., will set the tone for the day. Founder and CEO of Higher Ground Productions, King has been in the midst of the quest for human rights and peace all of her life. With a goal to educate, empower and entertain, she hopes to “inspire individuals to passionately create peace in their own lives, thereby encouraging the same within their families, communities and across the globe.”
Joining King as the afternoon keynote speaker will be Azim Khamisa, author of Azim’s Bardo – From Murder to Forgiveness – A Father’s Journey . Khamisa will share the story of how through forgiveness he transformed the grief of losing his son into powerful social action.
Now in its fifth year, the daylong conference on nonviolence honors the legacies of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez and demonstrates the power of nonviolence to transform lives.
The conference is sponsored by Vice Mayor Dave Cortese’s office, the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, City Year, Evergreen Valley College, and the San Jose Sikh Gurdwara. With an anticipated attendance of more than 800 people, the conference is intended to provide practical ways to inspire participants to choose nonviolent methods to resolve conflicts and deal with issues in their everyday lives.
“We are living in unprecedented times. Quantum leaps in science are changing the way we see the world, while technology is changing the way we live in it,” said Rev. Ellen Grace O’Brian of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment.
“Yet through all this progress, our faculties of understanding and wisdom are lagging behind,” she added. “We are in need of a radical technology—a spiritual ‘technology of the heart’— if we are to answer the crucial moral and humanitarian questions that we face and meet the challenges that confront us at this unique time in history.”
New this year is a Youth Leadership Summit, where a diverse group of youth (17-25) will explore their vision of the future and discover how the principles and practices of nonviolence can be applied to create a visionary model for 21st century leadership in the community and the world.
The Youth Leadership Summit coincides with City Year’s National Youth Service Day, where approximately 400 youth will work on a variety of service projects in San Jose’s District 8 after participating in the conference’s morning procession.
Between keynote speakers, workshops and panel discussions comprised of local community leaders will focus on nonviolence principles in the areas of family, community or the world. Each person attending will have an opportunity to make a commitment to a “simple but profound act” that they agree to carry out as a way to promote nonviolence.
Cost of the conference is $25 in advance, $30 at the door for adults and $10 for students, which includes lunch donated by the San Jose Sikh community. Onsite daycare will also be available through the YMCA for ages 5 – 12.
For more information or to register online, visit the Website www.carrythevision.org.
Captions
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Clergy from all faiths will participate in a procession of unity at the Carry the Vision Community Nonviolence Conference on April 21 at Evergreen Valley College.
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Members of the Youth Leadership Summit (ages 17-25) will join more than 800 participants focusing on the principles of nonviolence in their families, community and the world at the Carry the Vision Community Nonviolence Conference on April 21 at Evergreen Valley College.
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In the afternoon session, conference participants will gather in small groups where individuals will commit to a simple and profound act they can accomplish to promote the principles of nonviolence.
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