Features

Going Global

Today's seeds of change seem to be sprouting from our friends and neighbors, the dedicated citizens among us who are committed to making the world a better place. We bring you seven of these global philanthropists, who are providing everything from microloans in Vietnam to sustainable farming techniques in South America, each of them finding tangible ways to improve humanity the old- fashioned way: one step—and one person—at a time.

Cross-cultural  classrooms

GAYLON DUKE AND ZENIA VICTOR, THE BALI ART PROJECT

Retired teachers Gaylon Duke, 69, and Zenia Victor, 71, are addicted to travel. For most of their adult lives, they averaged about six months a year on the road, zigzagging the globe on the cheap. They'd give up their lease and sell all their furniture and ship out for newly opened destinations like Vietnam and Laos, intentionally planning their trip before tourist hotels sprang up and package deals attracted the swarming masses. "Each time we'd come home, we'd start over," explains Victor. No wonder, then, that when it finally came time to settle down, the couple put their wanderlust to good use and created the Bali Art Project, a local nonprofit designed to introduce high school students to the joys of global travel. "We've traveled all of our lives," explains Duke, "but we started to notice that fewer and fewer young Americans are putting their backpacks on and exploring the world."

Founded in 2000 with inheritance money from Victor's late father, the Bali Art Project aims to change that—a handful of students at a time. Each June, the pair takes eight Santa Fe-area high school juniors to the Indonesian island for a month; the students come from a wide range of back- grounds, and the only prerequisites are curiosity, financial need, and flexibility of spirit. "We look for kids who wouldn't otherwise have this opportunity," she explains, of the 30-plus applicants they screen each year. "And we also want ones who can suck it up and thrive in new situations." From their base in Ubud, the island's cultural capital, the students immerse themselves in Balinese life, studying painting, dance, and a traditional percussion instrument called gamelan, with local teachers, as well as language, history, and etiquette. But the most profound learning comes from a mind-opening perspective that you can get only from spending an extended time abroad. "When they come home, they see America through new eyes," Victor says, adding that many alums have graduated to more ambitious, sometimes altruistic travel, like working at Cambodian orphanages and volunteering in India after the tsunami. "They'll never think inside the box again."

It's an epiphany worth spreading. The Bali Art Project has expanded in recent years to include a similar monthlong adventure for adults, whose $3,200 pro- gram fee includes a $500 donation toward the kids' trip (which costs about $2,000 per student—most of which Victor and Duke generate through fundraising). "I think everybody should live abroad at least once to get a real feel for a different place," says Victor wishfully. "In the end, it doesn't much matter which country." Info: http://baliartproject.org -- Katie Arnold


V is for visionary

CECILE LIPWORTH, V-DAY

Cecile Lipworth is a slight woman, with a lilting voice matched by a mild demeanor. At first glance, the 40-year-old mom seems every bit the Santa Fe parent—smart and cosmopolitan, and committed to creating a better community for her five-year-old daughter, Tia. But as the international campaign director for V-Day, a movement committedto ending violence against women and girls around the globe, Lipworth's definition of community is slightly broader than usual: for her, it's the whole world.

The nonprofit group, which grewfrom an off-Broadway play(founder Eve Ensler's feminist stories, The Vagina Monologues) has in the past decade evolved into a global communities campaign that funds and assists major projects to combat the rape, trafficking, and abuse of women on five continents. Although Ensler still lives in NewYork City, Santa Fe is nowan unoffi- cial headquarters. "From the very begin- ning, V-Day has had a stronghold here," says Ensler, who visits at least twice a year.

In June, for instance, locals including Val Kilmer, Valerie Plame, and longtime supporters Jane Fonda and Ali MacGraw took to the St. Francis Auditorium stage, performing readings from A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant, and aPrayer—writings compiled and edited by Ensler, in sup- port of the movement. More commonly, the organization relies on grassroots productions of The Vagina Monologues, both to empower women in issues relating to their bodies and to raise money for community groups that deal with all forms of violence towards women. Staged everywhere from Reykjavík to Islamabad, these productions are the heart and soul of V-Day. Additionally, Lipworth and her colleagues assist women with locally generated projects, such as safe houses and girls' schools, in places like Haiti, Bosnia, the Philippines, and Kenya. Now, as V-Day approaches its 10th anniversary (to be celebrated in NewOrleans in April), the nonprofit group is truly worldwide.

This month, V-Day launches its newest campaign: a partnership with UNICEF to assist the women of the Congo. "It's a complete genocide of women there," Lipworth says of the high rate of women's murders. "Girls, from age six and up, are being raped and abused ad nauseum, day in and day out." But, she stresses, her work is not about atrocity. "I'm South African," she explains, "and I've always felt that women in Africa are the backbone of the continent." To help the overwhelming number of survivors, the campaign plans to build "what we're calling the City of Joy," Lipworth says. "It's a place where women who have lost absolutely everything can come, be educated, and become leaders."

And as a leader, Lipworth credits her work at V-Day with helping her to see the world as a smaller place, where everyone is interconnected. Even the group's motto, Until the Violence Stops, hinges on that idea. But can it truly endviolence against women? "It sounds sort of lofty," she con- cedes, "but women in this country spend nearly $40 billion a year fixing their bodies. If they spent that money and time think- ing about howto change the world, they could do that. It's hard not to see the simplicity of it if you just look at it that way." Info: http://vday.org -- Marin Sardy


Turning enemies into friends

RACHEL KAUFMAN AND DOTTIE INDYKE, CREATIVITY FOR PEACE

From an outsider's view, the summer camp in Glorieta looks like any other: a verdant 40-acre plot of land cupped between mesas; arroyos spilling over with lissome cottonwoods. Vibrant art projects from years past—including stone obelisks wrapped in glass-tile mosaics and flat river rocks flamboyantly painted—dot the fields; prayer flags flap with each gust of wind.

But the lessons learned at the Creativity for Peace camp are altogether another story. Each summer, two groups of 15 Israeli and Palestinian teenage girls come togetherfor three weeks to engage in dialogue, art projects, team-building activities, and, perhaps most important, fun, to break down each girl's perceptions of one another as "the enemy."

Founded in 2003 by psychotherapist Rachel Kaufman, the nonprofit gives the girls opportunities they do not have at home: to live a feww eeks away from violence, and to have a safe place where they can openly express to each other their emotions and stories, many of which include tales of the loss of friends or family members as a result of the conflicts between Israel and Palestine.

"It's easy to make the other person the demon, because both have seen the suffering that has been inflicted by the other side," says Dottie Indyke, president and acting executive director. "But then, when they're in a room together, they realize the experience of their pain is so similar to the other person's pain. Then it becomes about what they have in common."

Kaufman's hope is to spark within each girl a realization: "This is what it would be like if there was no war. We would just be sitting here together, sharing lunch. Somewhere that registers with them," says the 65-year-old peace activist. The friendships don't end once camp is over. After the girls return home, they reunite within a month, and continue to interact throughout the year, not just with girls from their camp, but also with those who have participated in previous sessions.

The project has begun spiraling outward on its own. "The mothers are nowbegging us, 'Please, we need a camp, too,'" says Anael Harpaz, director of the program in Israel. "They see such a big change in their children, and they want to support them." Info: http://creativityforpeace.com -- Liz Napieralski


Making every dollar count

MARV FREEDMAN, THE VIETNAM PROJECT

Few nonprofits can accurately report that 99.9 percent of the money they raise is spent directly on their programs. But for MarvFreedman, the 62-year-old cofounder of The Vietnam Project, isn't that the whole point of a nonprofit? "We get money and we help people," he says. "Everything else is superfluous."

Freedman, a former marine, did an eight-month tour in Vietnam in 1965. After returning to the country 12 years ago, he came back to Santa Fe so inspired to raise money for an incubator at a local hospital that his friend, writer Janie Oakes, wrote him a check. That led to their cofounding The Vietnam Project. Since then, the duo has added six high- powered Santa Feans, from radiologist Raphiel Benjamin to attorney Janet Chow, to their board. "The Vietnamese are a real easy people to fall in love with," says Freedman. Literally. Freedman is nowmarried to Kim Phuong Nguyen, a Vietnamese woman who, because of her connections and knowledge of local customs, has helped streamline the organization even further.

For four months at a time, Freedman and Nguyen travel the Mekong Delta, usually by motorcycle, stopping in villages to visit with the local town council, which refers the couple to the neediest people in the area. Instead of giving money, Freedman and Nguyen directly assess the situation. If they decide they can help, they do one of six things: fund the startup of a small income-producing business; buy school supplies for children who can't afford them; buy rice for people who don't have enough to eat; buy and distribute water-storage containers to help through the dry season; build houses for those needing shelter; or provide heart surgery for children who would die without it. (Heart surgeries weren't initially part of the plan, but Freedman was told about three kids who would die unless they were treated. "You can't turn away when some- thing like that is in front of you," he says, and at $3,000 per successful surgery, the addition has been worth it.)

"We make a point of never giving cash," says Freedman. "We buy everything. We don't use third parties, so there's nothing between us and the recipients." Yet, as in most developing countries, the need goes far beyond the funds. Inevitably he'll reach a point during his biannual trips where he's frustrated, tired, and wondering what the hell he's doing over there. "But then some little kid will give me a smile and the frustration melts away," he says. Plus, "it's nice to be fortunate enough to be able to help your fellow human beings, and it's easy to do." Info: http://vietnamproject.org -- Stephanie Pearson


Growing for the greater good

ALI SHARIF, PERMACULTURA AMERICA LATINA

Like any human-rights visionary, Ali Sharif believes that everyone "deserves a rich, full life in a beauti- ful, safe, and supportive environment." And like most human-rights visionaries, Sharif has been beaten up, shot at, and thrown in jail for acting on his beliefs. But living on that razor's edge of struggle and adventure has always been the M.O. for the founder of Permacultura America Latina, a Santa Fe-based nonprofit that supports grassroots sustainable develop- ment initiatives and low-impact economic practices from Guatemala to Brazil.

Growing up in Iran, Sharif had an uncanny knack for "getting on the wrong side of all kinds of situations," he says. His propensity for trouble led him to ultimately flee Iran and immigrate to the United States, where he met Australian Bill Mollison, the founder of the permaculture movement, which is based on the belief that culture can be permanent only if it is backed by sustainable forms of agriculture. "Mollison put into words a lot of things I had been wanting to do all my life," says Sharif, now54. "I realized that I could become part of the solution regardless of the circumstances."

In 1989, armed with his newideology, Sharif made his way to Ecuador. In the Andes he started a bilingual school and a series of educational programs centered around a permaculture farm model. In the Amazon he began working with the Huaorani, the tribe best known for skew- ering a priest while trying to fight off American oil interests. The early days may have been rough, but Sharif has earned serious cred in the "permie" world for running a highly effective, well-connected, low-overhead organization. For him, the formula is simple: "All you need is a few million dollars, some tractors, a couple of people who knowwhat they're doing, and you can save millions of dollars" he says.

The United Nations likes his thinking. In 1995 they invited Sharif to Brazil. Four years later, he completed the Instituto Permacultura do Cerrado, a demonstration site for sustainable building and the campus for the Mollison School for Sustainable Studies, which attracts students from all over the world. Today Sharif spends most of his time in Manaus, a gateway city to the Amazon, where he oversees an urban farm with a satellite education center in the jungle. From Manaus he also keeps tabs on PAL's similar programs in Guatemala, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Peru. "I guess I'm a workaholic. This is what I do all of the time," Sharif says, although he does return to Santa Fe twice a year to confer with fellowboard members Vint Lawrence and Amy Brown, both based here. "My board pressures me to stay in the States for six or seven months to fundraise, but I just can't do that," he says. There's simply too much work to be done elsewhere. Info: http://permacultura.org -- S.P.