I got some good news the other day that I wanted to share. Each year our local weekly, the East Bay Express, does a Best of the Easy Bay issue where they name the best restaurants, movie theaters, record stores, etc. in the area.This year, they named me the 2007 Best Podcaster:Blogger Most Dedicated to Social Change. The Readers' Choice was the Daily Kos, its founder, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, or "Kos", lives in Berkeley.
This past weekend I was on a panel at the Stanford Women's Leadership Conference called, Solutionary Women: How Can I Create Social Change? I asked four other women, who I interviewed for the Big Vision Podcast, to be on the panel: Alli Chagi-Starr of Art in Action, Ilyse Hogue of MoveOn.org, Melinda Kramer of Women's Earth Alliance and Reem Rahim of Numi Tea. I asked each of them to talk about the work they do, why they do the work they do, and their advice for other women who want to work for social change.
The morning of the panel I woke up and realized that I would have to answer my own questions, since I was on the panel too. Whoops! I'd never really thought about it--why I do the work I do.
I suppose it is partly from my family upbringing. Both of my parents have been involved in social change work, in fact, next weekend my dad, Tom Aageson, is receiving the Allen Stamm Humanitarian of the Year from the United Way of Santa Fe County. And I have always been drawn to work with some kind of service aspect. A quote by Rabindranath Tagore that I really resonate with is:
"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."My goal with Have Fun * Do Good, the Big Vision Podcast and all of the other blogs and podcasts I am involved with is to share and highlight stories that give people hope, and inspire them to take action for positive change--including me!
In Mariane Pearl's book, A Mighty Heart: The Inside Story of the Al Qaeda Kidnapping of Danny Pearl (which I highly recommend), she says, "If hope is our most powerful weapon, fear is the greatest threat the terrorists wield against us. Fear paralyzes you, and I cannot afford that."
We live in a time where there is a lot to fear, but we also live in a time where we cannot afford to be paralyzed. It is a time when we all must share stories that give each other hope and inspire us to take action for positive change.
Why do you work for social change?
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