What would a generation growing up with sufficiency in our consciousness & lives look like? What does it mean for a culture to recognize that we have all of the solutions & resources needed to turn the tide of history?

You are invited to an engaging discussion with Joshua Gorman, Co-Coordinator of Generation Waking Up, a global campaign to ignite a generation of young people to bring forth a thriving, just, sustainable world. Come learn how Millennials are waking up, standing up, and taking action with allies of every generation, in such a way that humanity’s probable future shifts toward a meme of sufficiency.

You can register for this free call here.

Joshua Gorman is the Co-Coordinator for Generation Waking Up and is accountable for the Thrive Leadership Program and the WakeUp Program as well as development and partnerships. Joshua designed a major called “Global Youth and Social Change” at George Mason University. He serves on the Board of Directors for the Global Youth Action Network/TakingITGlobal-US and supports youth-led projects around the world. In 2008, he co-founded Global Passageways, a network of individuals and organizations working in the fields of youth & community development, contemporary rites of passage, intergenerational mentoring & collaboration, and cultural renewal. He is a lifelong student of human development and transformational education with a focus on providing young people the experiences, knowledge, and skills they need to thrive in the twenty-first century. Currently he is at work completing a book titled Generation Waking Up: How A New Generation Of Young People Is Coming Of Age And Changing Our World.

11am EST,

10am CST,

8am PST,

4pm UK,

TED awards annual prizes to selected individuals. Jose Abreu founded “the system” in 1975 to help poor Venezuelan kids learn to play an instrument. From that dream, he has created one of the great orchestra’s in the world. Once you have heard his story, you may want to purchase a CD of this wonderful orchestra and help support its continuance and that of the program. A truly inspiring visionary whose dream came true and as a result his country is an inspiration to children and young musicians around the world. Bravo!

From Ode Magazine

Bestselling author Dave Eggers believes helping young people learn to express themselves can make all the difference in the world.

Marco Visscher | June/July 2009 issue

Dave Eggers

Photo: McSweeney’s

Halfway through our interview, Dave Eggers jumps up from the sofa, flips open his laptop, which is buried under a pile of magazines and newspapers, and retrieves an email from Valentino Achak Deng, the Sudanese refugee whose harrowing experiences during his country’s civil war and bizarre entry into the U.S. were chronicled by Eggers in What Is the What. The proceeds from that book, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2006, go to Deng’s foundation , which is helping reconstruct Sudan. The email contains photos showing what has been done so far with the money: pictures of a recently opened school building in Marial Bai, Deng’s native village. “Isn’t it beautiful?” Eggers says.

Call it “trickle-down eggersnomics”—ever since his immensely successful 2000 debut, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers has used his royalties to help others. He devoted some of that money to 826 Valencia, which helps children in poor neighborhoods of San Francisco with their writing skills and homework. Meanwhile, he runs McSweeney’s, a publishing house that offers a platform for unknown writers and brings out a series of books in which those on the margins of society—such as prisoners and undocumented immigrants—get the chance to tell their stories. Eggers is using his Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Prize—a $100,000 award given by the TED arts and ideas conference that grants the recipient “one wish to change the world”—to inspire people to put time and energy into helping inner city kids in public schools. “You do what you can,” Eggers says.

Cover of a book on Giving Kids

The very rich and the very famous capture the headlines for their charitable giving. But another group of avid philanthropists is also leaving its mark. Young people from grade school on are engaged as never before in making a direct difference in the world. They are donating via the Internet to favorite projects overseas, creating their own nonprofits to pursue social causes, and becoming grantmakers on foundation boards to foster change in their home communities. Some youths have gained that awareness from volunteer activities. Many have seen celebrities take up worthy causes. Others have traveled with their families and encountered the challenges many children face in other countries. This article from the Christian Science Monitor shares more