Rick Benzel

Rick Benzel is a professional writer, editor, and publishing consultant in Los Angeles.  His career spans several decades of work with major American publishing companies as well as working independently with leading edge authors and thinkers.  He has been the editor of hundreds of books, including the bestselling creativity book, The Artist’s Way, and ghost written numerous books about business, leadership, and social change.  He is a strong advocate for projects about how to build a better world.  He is passionate about mentoring creative activists who want assistance in strategically developing their ideas for publication, or support in their writing about issues with the power to transform people’s thinking.

Rick is honored to be a Mentor in the Creative Activists program because his entire career based on working with creative people to foster their ideas and develop books and online materials that can help humanity create a better world.  He is fascinated by new ideas and finding ways to transmit knowledge and creative thinking that can improve lives and provide greater hope and prosperity for humankind.  The Creative Activists program is a potential goldmine for just such creative people who will contribute to our social transformation.

Buyayear.org represents just that – the chance to buy a year of life.  The chance for one human being to celebrate a birthday, to feel the rain on their face, to hear music, to see their children grown another year.

For an HIV positive individual in Africa, a year of medicine, a year of life, costs $300.

Medicine is the entry point – but the chance to help in incremental amounts exists on all levels – a year of seeds, a year of school tuition, a year of water.  The premise is simple – the needs are endless.  But not insurmountable.

With direct assistance to Kihefo, buyayear.org provides an accessible solution to provide immediate aid for malnourished children and people of all ages suffering from diseases such as malaria and AIDS – with one click.

Through kickstarter type initiatives, micro-gifting, and micro-lending, direct aid will reach Uganda, while at the same time building a following of like-minded individuals.

In addition to donations – buyayear.org sets forth to enhance local industry and create sustainable revenue through creation of a distribution channel for goods created by the people of KIHEFO.

Buyayear.org will make use of all forms of traditional and new media – to tell the story of kihefo – and build a community with a collective power to highlight cuases and in small ways, change the world around us.

Ann Haggart

Project Name: Buyayear.org
Project Type: Media

Issue:
Positive Wealth Redistribution

Mission:
To create a template of wealth redistribution that functions sustainably and takes advantage of all forms of media

Website:
buyayear.org

KIHEFO

CVF Involvement:

Creative Visions Foundation (CVF) provides Buyayear.org with all membership benefits.

Friday, February 10, 2012, 6-8pm

The Dan Eldon Gallery for Emerging Artists and Creative Visions Foundation are proud to present an exhibition of works by photographer, MARISSA ROTH. A celebrated photojournalist and documentary photographer, Roth is currently developing her 28-year photography project, “One Person Crying: Women and War”, into an extensive traveling exhibition that will be debuting at the Museum of Tolerance in the fall.

Click HERE for more information

To see more of Marissa’s work visit: marissarothphotography.com

Label owner, DJ, producer, and fashion executive, Steve Aoki has always made it a point to take a proactive stance when it comes to social and humanitarian issues.

Each year a new crisis arises, and there is always a need for humanitarian relief around the world.  Steve Aoki will use his global influence to raise money for relief organizations dealing with these issues through money raised at his own touring events, memorabilia auctions and partnerships with like minded artists.  Traditionally Steve has been involved in various social organizations, including as a spokesperson for Peta2 as well as a supporter of Music for Relief.  Moving forward, he will take these issues into his own hands and directly support those affecting change when crises arise.

Steve Aoki

Project Name: Steve Aoki Fund
Project Type: Music

Issue:
Humanitarian Crises

Mission:
To lend financial aid to humanitarian crises throughout the world as they arise, via the career of DJ/producer Steve Aoki and like-minded arists.

Website:
Steve Aoki

CVF Involvement:

Creative Visions Foundation (CVF) provides Steve Aoki Fund with all membership benefits.

CAP Alumna, Maureen Healy introduces here new book, Growing Happy Kids: How to Foster Inner Confidence, Success and Happiness, scheduled for release in April of 2012.

Founder of Growing Happy Kids, a worldwide organization focused upon fostering happiness in children, Maureen authored a “Peace Curriculum” for preschoolers, which The Simha Foundation now distributes worldwide.

Having created a program for Tibetan refugee children in Asia as well as having built child-centered programs around the United States, Healy has made a positive impact on children around the world for years.

Most unique about Maureen is her approach in integrating spiritual wisdom and western science to cause happiness in children.  Such insight is also conveyed in her intelligent yet witty writing, speaking, and teaching style.

And with nearly 20 years of experience, Healy happily shares her expertise in children’s emotional health and parenting.  Her formal academic credentials include a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and Masters of Business Administration from Clark University as well as a Masters level of completion in child clinical psychology from Fielding Graduate University.  Complimented by in-depth studies in Tibetan Buddhism in Asia and the United States.

Maureen has helped countless parents and teachers around the world raise happier kids.  Her work has launched programs in England, Africa, and around the United States.

Million Mamas Movement is a grass roots global initiative to inform, empower, and engage mothers and others to bring peace to the world through evolutionary conflict resolution programs and inspiring policies that emphasize women’s and children’s rights.  The Million Mamas March is the launch of this movement.

After almost a decade of teaching compassionate parenting practices, being a mother, hearing parents express their deepest concern for their children’s futures, and observing the growing collective desire for greater peace and justice around the world, Wendy was called to create a global movement of peace.  Wendy was further inspired by Julia Ward Howe’s 1870 Mother’s Day proclamation to end the ravages of war and to expand on the declaration of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, who said that “western women will save the world.”  Wendy believes that mothers and others will transform the world as they unify, activate, and galvanize their innate desire to see women and children thrive through powerful creative and inspired activism.

Million Mamas intends to create a documentary of the Making of the Million Mamas March in an effort to bring greater peace to the world, to create evolutionary conflict resolution programs, and to inform, empower, and engage mothers and others to cultivate more joy and freedom on the planet through getting involved.

Wendy Silvers

Project Name: Million Mamas Movement
Project Type: Documentary

Issue:
Women’s & Children’s Rights

Mission:
To inform, empower, and engage mothers and others to bring peace to the world through evolutionary conflict resolution programs and inspiring policies that emphasize women’s and children’s rights.

Website:
Million Mamas Movement

CVF Involvement:

Creative Visions Foundation (CVF) provides Million Mamas Movement with all membership benefits and fiscal agency.

For a one-time donation, click the “Donate” button below.

To set up automatic, recurring monthly donations, please use the “Subscribe” button.

Option 1 : $25.00USD – monthly Option 2 : $50.00USD – monthly Option 3 : $100.00USD – monthly Option 4 : $250.00USD – monthly Option 5 : $500.00USD – monthly Option 6 : $1,000.00USD – monthly

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Soiya Gecaga is producing a documentary to feature the impact of We the Change, her foundation which runs a pre-school for orphans and vulnerable children in Mathare Slum, Kenya.

We the Change has created its own innovative holistic intervention which provides the following 5 crucial components to nursery school care in a slum: Nutrition, Healthcare, Education, Counseling, and Play/Yoga.

In the future it aims to roll out and replicate this holistic model to other marginalised communities around the world.

The Foundation is also designing and implementing a longitudinal academic study in collaboration with Kenyatta University in Nairobi.

Soiya Gecaga

Project Name: We the Change Foundation
Project Type: Documentary Film and Website

Issue:
Education and Youth

Mission:
To inspire people to “be the change” they want to see in the world.

In order to implement its mission, “We the Change” Foundation is seeking to raise money for the development of a pre-school for orphans and vulnerable children in Mathare Slum, Kenya and to make this school a center for excellence in Early Childhood Education and Care.

Website:
We the Change Foundation

CVF Involvement: 

CVF provides fiscal sponsorship, business services and creative consulting for the project.  In addition, CVF produced a promo video for We the Change and hosted an awareness building event at the Dan Eldon Center in Malibu, CA.

For a one-time donation, click the “Donate” button below.

To set up automatic, recurring monthly donations, please use the “Subscribe” button.

Option 1 : $25.00USD – monthly Option 2 : $50.00USD – monthly Option 3 : $100.00USD – monthly Option 4 : $250.00USD – monthly Option 5 : $500.00USD – monthly Option 6 : $1,000.00USD – monthly

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Plooteau: The Purple World is an online creative play space and sanctuary that allows for children aged 6-11 to express their creative selves, navigate their emotional landscapes, develop mindfulness and resilience, and deepen their empathy for both themselves and those around them, locally and globally.

Danielle Beinstein is a graduate of NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she concentrated on Humanities and Narrative Histories.  Most recently, she was the researcher on the first two seasons of “In the House with Bart and Guber,” a nationally broadcast media news show, yet her passion remains in empathy education.  Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Danielle worked at Scholastic, Inc. and Kids with Cameras, the non-profit satellite of the Academy Award-winning documentary, Born Into Brothels.  She is currently a Master’s Candidate in Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica, a creative writing tutor at 826LA Venice, and a Creative Activist Mentor at Creative Visions Foundation.

As children learn to integrate their experiences, express their individuality, creativity, and authentic selves, they’ll deepen their empathy for both themselves and those around them.  As Plooteau is a participatory experience, they’ll also develop the seeds of self-awareness and initiative, tools necessary in our increasingly interdisciplinary and self-actualized society.  The more we understand ourselves, the better we are able to understand others.

Danielle Beinstein

Project Name: Plooteau: The Purple World
Project Type: Media

Issue:
Empathy Education

Mission:
To allow children to express their creative selves, navigate their emotional landscapes, develop mindfulness and resilience, and deepen their empathy for both themselves and those around them, locally and globally.

Website:
Plooteau: The Purple World

CVF Involvement:

Creative Visions Foundation (CVF) provides Plooteau: The Purple World with all membership benefits.

For a one-time donation, click the “Donate” button below.

To set up automatic, recurring monthly donations, please use the “Subscribe” button.

Option 1 : $25.00USD – monthly Option 2 : $50.00USD – monthly Option 3 : $100.00USD – monthly Option 4 : $250.00USD – monthly Option 5 : $500.00USD – monthly Option 6 : $1,000.00USD – monthly

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