Human Rights Week

Today we marked the conclusion of Human Rights Week. We posted this message for everyone who participated:
$5 a day challenge:
We are proud of everyone who took this challenge. It is very moving to to see the introspection and profound sentiments that many of you have experienced. But, we have something to say to those who feel that they failed the challenge before it began. You did not fail. You conquered the real challenge. Change begins with the knowledge that we need to change. That meant the real challenge for us was to acknowledge the 1.4 billion poor people living a humble existence in poverty, acknowledge our real cost of living (the "Fabulous Life" of success) we take for granted everyday, discover that we do care about them, realize that we cannot walk in their shoes, and take ownership of the fact the we have chosen to take positive action in our lives on this issue going forward. Each of us carries a seed of change that will make us positive forces in the future of global society. Remember, everyone counts. Even you.

Brave new world

Today we added a new blog to those we follow to diversify and enrich our community, and because we like them. The University of Venus (UV) was co-founded by a faculty member we know at Northeastern University. What does UV have to do with the title of this post, you ask. It is clear from their principles and mission statement that the founders took a brave step forward into this new world we commonly call the global village. We, meaning all of us who have taken an active role in and acknowledge the international, transnational, multinational, multicultural, and interconnected life (to mention only a few of the characteristic of tngv) of world citizenship that we live today. The concept of world citizenship is at the very core of what tngv is about. According to the mission statement UV seeks to channel the genx women of academia into a global medium for positive social activity. It goes on to present some sincere and obviously heart-felt observations about current society and the realities of academia in America today. They are brutally honest about what they represent as women and academics. UV represents a fresh voice in the global community as they build powerful and positive new "global social networks." We welcome UV to tngv as the first organization of academia in the blogosphere to gain our seal of approval.

Terremoto en Chile.

The recent earthquake in Chile has special meaning to us here at tngv because of the personal and academic ties I have there. In the summer of 2008 while on a graduate seminar I interned with the Nonprofit Enterprise Self-sustainability Team (NESsT) http://www.nesst.org. While there I visited many parts of Chile and met with people from a number of the regions. On a special note, the image on this blog page is from my visit. The people of Chile are working hard to embrace globalization. Most of the people in the worst hit areas have little money to recover and need all the help they can get. The 8.8 quake left a number of after shocks including one that measured 5 in Santiago. This will be a major topic at tngv. The following information is from an email I received from them today.

NESsT is organizing a joint fundraising event and silent auction at Puro Chile in New York this Thursday evening, March 4th, to benefit the Levantando Chile Fund in conjunction with Puro Chile Corp, and The Permanent Mission of Chile to the United Nations. Heraldo Muñoz, The Chilean Ambassador to the UN, will speak and welcome guests.

You can see more information about the fund and committee at: www.levantandochile.org The website also includes information on making donations to the fund through the US and Chile.

Winter Olympics Vancouver

I have always liked the Olympic games. They are one of the conerstones of tngv.

Now that the Vancouver Winter Olympics are over tngv looks forward to the next games in London (2012) and Sochi (2014). We love the games. These recent games were awesome. But, in this age of globalization there was a dearth of representation considering how many nations did not make it to the grand stage, or even compete for that matter, The lack of diversity of the athletes in the running for medals is a sad commentary on how far the international community has gone to make the premier venue for international relations truly representative of all nations. The IOC needs to do more to bring the diversity of our global community into the field of competition. The international community needs to do more to support an IOC goal to promote and support more great athletes from every nation. We are all fortunate to have inherited one of the oldest institutions of humanity, the Olympic Games, created for the purpose of memorializing our common bond as humans, paying deference to the value of diplomacy, creating a mechanism for halting state conflict, and demonstrating to all societies that we must always work to cooperate and participate as world citizens.

The New Global Village

The new global village (tngv)means different things to everyone. To me it means that the things I learned studying globalization and international affairs as a graduate student are real. This blog is where I plan to interact with tngv more constructively than is normally possible for most people in the current global society. This blog is where I will analyse and theorize about tngv. I plan to entertain strategies that may impact tngv. Most importantly, this blog is where I plan to bring the experiences and discoveries of tngv into the mainstream.