Dr. Kusumita P. Pedersen is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at St. Francis College and Chair of the Interfaith Center of New York. She is also a member of the Climate Action Task Force (CATF) of the Parliament of the World's Religions and of the Climate Working Group of the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations. She is co-author of Global Ethics in Practice: Historical Backgrounds, Current Issues and Future Prospects (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and co-editor of Faith for Earth: A Call to Action (UN Environment Programme and Parliament of the World’s Religions, 2020).

 

Kusumita mentions Father Thomas Berry in the podcast as a geologian (as mentioned by Father Thomas himself) studying the human-earth relation, but we didn't have time to further elaborate about him, so please check this link for some further information. She also mentions the Temple of Understanding in this podcast.

 

Kusumita also refers in this podcast to a recent research done by Pew Research Center on youth and their parents and religion in the US, you can follow the link here.

 

Kusumita has compiled and edited librettos for two works by Philip Glass: Symphony No. 5: Bardo, Requiem and Nirmānakāya (1999) and The Passion of Ramakrishna (2006).  She has been a student of Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) since 1971 and her book Love and Transformation: The Philosophy of Sri Chinmoy is forthcoming from Lexington Books. 

 

Don't forget to check our Spotify Playlist #WalkTalkListen consisting of songs chosen by our podcast guests. Please let me/us know via our email incubationlab@cwsglobal.org what you think about this particular episode and the previous ones. We would love to hear from you. 

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org (and find out more about our app that enables you to walk and do good at the same time!

An extra long podcast episode with President and CEO, Seungah Jeong of the company MPOWERD to make this Women's History Month extra special. Seungah has spent her career shaping global brands and driving them toward success.  She’s a pro at managing teams, leading retail partnerships and building things from scratch, especially when it comes to small business. A company co-founder in her own right, Seungah brings to MPOWERD two decades of consumer goods experience, balancing a keen eye for design with a sharp business acumen. With a background in philosophy and environmental studies, she’s passionate about the potential companies have to create positive impact. In her spare time, Seungah's an avid reader, runner and kickboxer – and she's even been known to bust a move!

 

Real Leaders, a digital and print magazine has been recognizing the business leaders creating a positive social and environmental impact for over a decade. In celebration of Women’s History Month, they highlighted 100 women who are leading us towards a brighter future and Seungah is on their list! A lot of reasons to make this last episode of the Women's History Month an extra long one! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did making it.

 

You can follow MPOWERD on facebook, instagram and twitter.

 

Don't forget to check our Spotify Playlist #WalkTalkListen consisting of songs chosen by our podcast guests. Please let me/us know via our email incubationlab@cwsglobal.org what you think about this particular episode and the previous ones. We would love to hear from you.

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org (and find out more about our app that enables you to walk and do good at the same time!).

Gissou Nia is a senior fellow with Middle East Programs at the Atlantic Council. She currently leads an effort to build a strategic litigation program on the Middle East and North Africa.

 

Nia is a human rights lawyer and non-profit leader. She serves as board chair of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center where she is helping develop and oversee the group’s human rights advocacy and legal programs, which seek to promote accountability, respect for human rights and the rule of law in Iran. She previously served as the Executive Director for the group, and as the Deputy Director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

 

Nia started her career in The Hague, where she worked on war crimes and crimes against humanity trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court. She lectures and publishes widely on human rights developments in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the rule of law in post-conflict and transitional societies.

 

Although not mentioned in this episode, Gissou Nia picked the following two songs for our Spotify Playlist #WalkTalkListen: Awake of Tycho and illuminant of Trilucid & Esque. 

 

Please let me/us know via our email incubationlab@cwsglobal.org what you think about this particular episode and the previous ones. We would love to hear from you.

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org

Singer-songwriter and humanitarian Maya Azucena and she is known for making music that uplifts the soul. Among several awards for her music and humanitarian outreach, Azucena garnered a Grammy Certificate for contributing her 4-octave range and soul-stylings to a feature performance with Stephen Marley on Best Reggae Album of the Year, “Mind Control.” Brooklyn-native Maya is an avid independent touring artist and songwriter performing globally. Maya has devoted a significant amount of her career to human rights participation. In 2006, Maya sang at the "Save Darfur: Rally to Stop Genocide" on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in solidarity with Barack Obama, Paul Rusesabagina, George Clooney, Elie Wiesel and numerous other performers, activists, and celebrities. More recently, she performed as a part of Marcus Miller's concert for Japanese tsunami relief. She sang alongside bassist Marcus Miller, keyboardist Robert Glasper, and rapper Q-Tip. She wrote two songs for the IFC documentary Lockdown USA, which examines the 1972 Rockefeller Drug Laws. Maya provided music for Emmy-Winning UN documentarian Lisa Russel's latest film Not Yet Rain, regarding the advancement of Women's health laws and reproductive rights in Ethiopia. She also performed two years in a row at the Susan G Komen Race for the Cure in New York City's Central Park. The race is a massive fundraiser for breast cancer research. Maya produced Hope Night, a concert event devoted to domestic abuse awareness. The event brought together several nonprofit organizations and speakers, including Governor ’’David Paterson’’. In 2008 Maya and her band did a five-week US State Department-sponsored tour of Burma, China, Philippines and Sri-Lanka as part of The Rhythm Road/American Music Abroad Program, performing concerts and workshops while appearing national press in an effort to create cultural exchange. Since then, in 2009, Maya did a similar tour for cultural exchange in Honduras and El Salvador, and will be returning to Honduras for another program.You can find more info on her website: mayaazucena.com

 

At the end of the podcast, Maya is asking the to let us know if our podcast episode resonates with the listeners and I can't agree with her more. Please let me/us know via email incubationlab@cwsglobal.org what you think about this particular episode and the previous ones. We would love to hear from you.

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org

Step Vaessen is a Senior International Correspondent of Al Jazeera English who is back in her home country The Netherlands since a year now. Previously she reported on Asia for more than 20 years and was one of the most senior international journalists covering the region. After Asia she went for a couple of years to Moscow. She has been working for Al Jazeera since 2006 and before she worked for NOS-TV. She witnessed first hand most of the major news events in Asia: the fall of president Soeharto in 1998, the violent aftermath of the referendum for independence in East Timor, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, the protests against Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama and major natural disasters in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and numerous religious and ethnic conflicts. She covered stories in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea. She made several documentaries for 101 East: Indonesia's killing fields about anti-communist massacres in 1965, Indonesia's Rock governor about the rise of president Joko Widodo and a film for the Correspondent series: Trail of Murder, Indonesia's bloody retreat from East Timor, which was nominated Best Documentary at the Asian TV awards in Singapore. For Talk to Al Jazeera she did several interviews with Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo and Jakarta's governor Basuki Tjahaya Purnama. She published a book (in Dutch), Jihad with Sambal, and won an Academy Award in 2005 for her reports on the Indian Ocean tsunami. Step and I know each other from Indonesia as we were both in that country during the 2004 Tsunami. During our conversation Step refers to the recent riots that occurred in the Netherlands, this is a link to the story. You can follow Step via twitter and instagram.

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org

Alicia Fall is the founder of Her Many Voices Foundation (HMVF), a small organization that does big things in the world. The mission of the foundation is to ignite the Artivist (Artist/Activist) in all people, in order to move their passions to purpose, for the betterment of women, children and our Mother Earth. They aim to achieve their vision by uniting humanity through the arts. The "Her"  in Her Many Voices makes reference to Mother Earth and the "Many Voices," to all of her children, which makes us all sisters and brothers. Comprised of artists, activists and global community members, Alicia and her team believe that women and children are the primary shapers of the future of our global community and we believe that providing vulnerable populations with education and resources to elevate themselves will uplift the community as a whole.

 

In the conversation, Alica refers to Earth Day, April 22nd as a special event will be happening to celebrate Indigenous Wisdom.  You can follow the Foundation on Facebook and Twitter. This episode contains an Alicia Fall's original song called "Many Blessings".

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org

Rachel Parent (born 1999) is a Toronto-based activist for issues related to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in foods, and especially government regulation in regard to food labeling. She is the founder of the non-profit Kids Right To Know. Rachel's interest in genetically modified foods began when she was 11 years old.She was required to research material for a school project and chose the subject of GMOs, when she found it troubling that Canada did not require food manufacturers to put labels on genetically modified foods. She refers in the podcast to a ten-minute interview on the Lang and O'Leary Exchange to debate her position that GMO labeling should be mandatory and that GMOs should be independently tested (she was 14 years old at that time!). At the end she also mentions another organization she has established focusing more on the arts and earth: Gen-Earth.org. If you want to even know more about Rachel after this podcast, listen to The Beatles and Paolo Nutini. :)

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org

David Hales served as President of the College of the Atlantic, Chair and President of Second Nature, the managing organization of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, and as Director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. He led environmental policy and sustainability programs for the US Agency for International Development. As a diplomat, he has represented the USA in numerous negotiations on climate change, urban affairs and policy, and biodiversity. He served in the Carter administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior. He was the first American to serve as Chair of the World Heritage Convention. At present he serves on the board of trustees of the Parliament of World's Religions and is the chair of the board of trustees of The Future Generations University. He recently played an instrumental role in the publication of a new edition of the book Faith for Earth: A Call for Action made available by the Parliament of World's Religions and UNEP. We talked about David's dance with truth and meaning while listening to the song Monster of the band Steppenwolf.

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org

Eunice Kamaara is a professor of Religion at Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya, and International Affiliate of Indiana University Purdue University, Indianapolis (US). She holds MPhil in Religion, MSc. in International Health Research Ethics, and PhD in African Christian Ethics. Her three-in-one public role involves teaching/training, research, and community service. She trains on Advanced Research Methodology including Research Ethics and Integrity; Transformative Teaching and Learning; Gender Mainstreaming; Higher Education Management; Quality Management; Project Planning and Development including Monitoring and Evaluation; Adolescent Sexual/Reproductive Health; and HIV Prevention and Intervention. She conducts trans/multi-disciplinary and community participatory research on gender, character values, and holistic health, and has over 100 publications.  Eunice is passionate about translating research findings into practical development through policy influence and community uptake. She is President of the Eldoret Based Gender and Development Network (EldoGaDNet), a community participatory self-development agent. She enjoys mentoring adolescents and youth.  She has served on the  board of Church World Service. Her public role overlaps with her private role as mother, daughter, wife, sister, aunt, neighbor, among others. She is Presbyterian by birth, Roman Catholic by marriage, and Christian by choice. Eunice is a Top 30 WHO Africa health innovator: https://www.afro.who.int/news/who-innovation-challenge-announce-30-finalists-africa-health-forum-cabo-verde The book mentioned in this podcast is: Humankind . A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org.

Sister Sharon Eubank is the first counselor in the general presidency of the Relief Society, the Church’s organization for its six million female members ages 18 and over. She is also the President of Latter-day Saint Charities, the humanitarian organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sharon was scheduled to accompany Maurice during his 100 mile 2020 campaign but this had to be canceled as a result of the pandemic. Episode 25 will give you some idea what these two would have discussed if they would have walked together and it is much more than only about the wonderful collaboration of LDS Charities and CWS or about the Toy store Sharon once owned. Sharon is very hopeful for our future and our youth in particular and believes strongly in the power of service via platforms like Just Serve, CROP Hunger Walks or Best Gift. 

 

Please like/follow our Walk Talk Listen podcast and follow @mauricebloem on twitter and instagram.  Or check us out on our website 100mile.org