Du Soleil indicated in the CBS story that while collecting bras might seem like an unusual cause, it’s a real need for women in tough circumstances that often doesn’t get filled. “When you’re from a low-income family and a decent bra starts at maybe $20, it is not a priority,” he says in the CBS story.

While the name of the group, Support 1000, was invented out of du Soleil’s intention to collect 1,000 bras, CBS indicates that he has in fact collected and distributed nearly 3,000 new and barely used bras so far. He has worked with a variety of organizations including local Chicago group Southwest Chicago PADS (Public Action to Deliver Shelter).

He indicates that there was a time when he was concerned that people might find the project odd, but he got over it – women’s dignity was more important.

The work of Support 1000 has previously been written about in a wide range of different media outlets, including a feature story in the Chicago Tribune.

‘Whatever I ask, she’s always right’

Jenny Wilson, 30, secondary school teacher, and Samuel Cole, 29, primary school teacher, will marry today Every Saturday, Jenny and Sam volunteer to work with street kids in Nairobi slums. Sam plays games with them and Jenny teaches to read and write.

They have lived together since January when Jenny arrived in Kenya. In October she gave up her job at a London primary school. She and Sam had dated since the previous May. “It has been a whirlwind romance,” Jenny says.

It began with a six-hour phone call. Jenny and Sam met through the Landmark Forum, a three-day course with follow-up sessions that encourages participants to take life-changing decisions.

“It makes you see that you always have a choice,” says Jenny. “Landmark education actively encourages you to take chances on people and to go with your gut feeling,” explains Sam.

“Jenny’s very intelligent. I was looking for someone who was able to listen to my ideas. She lets me be who I am. I tried really hard to meet somebody, through dating websites but I couldn’t find anyone interested in development work or in going overseas.” Jenny, he adds, is “always right. Whatever I ask her she always know the answers.”

Within two hours of Jenny’s arrival in Nairobi Sam had driven her to a rubbish dump. “It really was like a warzone. There was smoke coming off the rubbish and we saw children eating food off the dump,” says Jenny.

The next day, Sam proposed. They went to the top of the Kenyatta conference tower and then to a restaurant where the staff brought out a pink cake, with ice swirls that spelt in Swahili the words “I love you very much.”

They marry at All Saints’ Dogsmerfield, Hampshire, with the reception in Casa dei Cesari, an Italian restaurant whose owner lived in Nairobi.

In the interview, Tahir relates that he was inspired to start planting trees when he returned to Ethiopia after a long time away and discovered that the dense forests near his home town had been almost completely destroyed, along with the wildlife that lived there. He also witnessed many young people on the streets without jobs or hope.

Tahir wanted to both begin a reforestation project and help the youth of his area at the same time. In addition to its environmental benefits, the organization has provided jobs for almost 500 people, training unskilled workers, and brought Christians and Muslims together.

He relates that the hardest challenge involved in reforestation was getting permission to plant on the land from the community and local government. By starting with a couple of acres and producing results, he gained trust and approval to plant on more land.

Tahir sees the work of the Greenland Development Foundation spreading throughout Africa, through cooperation with governments and the emergence of new leaders to take it to new places (which the GDF is training).

See stories on Landmark Education News for more details about Gahir and the work of the GDF.

Wright tells interviewer Joan Brunwasser that started in family law hoping to make a difference but quickly discovered that any kind of litigation, even done respectfully, tended to have a traumatic negative impact on children and families. She came across restorative justice and holistic law, which offered a multidisciplinary approach to to tackling the needs of family law clients.

Wright soon became known as a cutting edge provider of such services, working with families as they learned to look beyond a desire for vengeance and the expression of anger through the legal system, as Wright learned from them how to make a difference with various complex needs and wants they were dealing with in their lives.

To read this compelling interview in full, check out the link to Oped News above, and look at this compelling video from Wright’s website, www.cuttingedgelaw.com:

Cunningham notes that recent public opinion data relates that the biggest thing mothers want for Mother’s Day is not a fancy gift, but simply appreciation and respect for what they do. With that in mind, he suggests three main things for a great Mother’s Day:

1) Acknowledge the mother for something very specific – a specific time when she stood up for you or did something for you when no one else did or when she really demonstrated being a great mother.

2) Do something – an event or outing – just for her. It could be as down to earth as a cup of coffee or it could be as elaborate as a vacation, but either way, take the time to be with her and talk to her in a setting that she appreciates.

3) Let her know that she succeeded in her job as a mother. Let her know that your life has turned out well, and give her some credit for your successes. Through all the ups and downs of life, your life works, and she is a bit part of that.

In particular, he wrote at length about the idea from the Landmark Forum that each of us invents a personal narrative or story about our life to give us meaning and through which we interpret events. Greco spoke also of the writings of Dan McAdams, author of ‘The Stories We Live By’, quoting him as saying:

“A life story is a personal myth that an individual begins working on in late adolescence and young adulthood in order to provide his or her life with unity or purpose and in order to articulate a meaningful niche in the psychosocial world.”

Greco notes that since all stories are life myths, there is an excellent chance they don’t exactly match reality. He points to the value of living in the moment as the key to living a story that provides real satisfaction – getting involved in day to day tasks to such a degree that we are unaware of the passage of time. In this way we can fulfill on a worthwhile story or myth.

Greco’s complete essay is found at UniformMarket News.

http://www.davidcunningham.presskit247.com/EDocs/Site484/David_Cunningham_KOMO_02_24_10.mov

If you have trouble with the link, here is the transcript of the interview.

Interviewer: Are you unemployed because of this economy? Or maybe you’re just tired of your current career. There are ways to create a dream job that you will love. And joining me today is David Cunningham. He’s a performance coach for Landmark Education, an international training and development company. Welcome, David.

David Cunningham: Thank you.

Interviewer: Now, how do people find themselves in career choices that, I suppose, you can describe as they’re in default now, they’re stuck there, how do people find themselves there?

David Cunningham: Well, most people just have the job that was available or they have the job that they followed somebody’s footsteps, but it’s not the job of their dreams. And it’s really important that people know they can really have the job of their dreams.

Interviewer: So, how do you get unstuck from that, because it can be a vicious cycle?

David Cunningham: Well, the first thing you have to do is you have to paint a picture, a really clear picture of the job you want. You sit down with a piece of paper, open a file, and write out, really, what’s the job that you really want, what’s a clear picture of it? And let go of those decisions like, “I can’t have it,” or, “It’s out of reach,” or, “It’s impossible.” It takes about 45 minutes, people could do it today, paint a clear picture.

Interviewer: You tell people to borrow some other brains, what do you mean by that?

David Cunningham: Well, we’re surrounded by people, it’s our greatest resource, so people have different ideas. People know emerging markets we don’t know about. People know contacts we don’t have. I know one young man who is a second-generation plumber and he wanted to be an international consultant. He put it out there, and he now showed me his passport – he’s been travelin’ around the world doin’ that.

Interviewer: Oh, my goodness.

David Cunningham: The more you put it out there, the more doors open for you.

Interviewer: When you tell people to practice new ways of being, what do you mean by that?

David Cunningham: People think that there’s ways they can’t be, like they think, “Well, I’m just timid,” or, “I’m just shy.” They don’t know that you can always practice those ways of being. Think of somebody you emulate, maybe even a hero, see how they are. If you practice it five times a day for five days, you can be that way, too.

Interviewer: So, how do we practice it? How do we find that new perspective? What can we do?

David Cunningham: Well, that’s the important part. Just watch somebody else, see the way of being you wanna try, and then in the normal course of your way, even with the clerk at a store or with your wife, with anybody, just practice being the way, practice being outgoing, practice being friendly. And again, if you practice it five times a day for five days, you’ll be that way.

Interviewer: And you have to take the initiative just to break out of that rut.

David Cunningham: Just get started. The bottom line is this, the difference between having dreams and realizing them is being willing to think and act in new ways. And at the end of the day, you either have your dream job or you had to go to work, and this is about having your dream job.

Interviewer: What is a breakthrough moment?

David Cunningham: A breakthrough moment is when something happens that goes beyond what would be an improvement, an incremental improvement. It’s when there’s a quantum leap in your performance. What allows for a quantum leap in your performance is a new perspective in finding a new pathway.

Interviewer: So, when you’re – a lot of people are unemployed right now. Given that state, you can find, I mean, it’s a clean slate, you can start fresh and go towards the path that you really want to. But what if you are already employed, you have a job that you don’t really like, what’s the litmus test that tells you you’re in the wrong field, you’re doin’ the wrong thing?

David Cunningham: Well, if you’re bored, if you’re complaining, and if it doesn’t –

- and if it doesn’t’ match that picture, right. And if you’re not enjoying the people you work with, that’s a real key, too.

Interviewer: You’ve talked to so many people – what are the big things that really hold us back from doing that?

David Cunningham: Our own decisions that we made literally from childhood experiences. Like, we think we have limits, like, “I can’t do that,” “I’m not good at that,” or, “That’s not possible for me.” And it’s really important to know that, yeah, there’s life events that had us decide those things, but that’s really not the truth; it really is possible for us to have the job of our dreams.

Interviewer: It’s so good to know that.

David Cunningham: Yeah.

Interviewer: David, thank you so much for being here, and thank you for those very helpful tips.

David Cunningham: Thank you, Mary.

The story notes that Natasha Botello, who is a University of Texas graduate, actually created a whole organization devoted to getting rid of the stigma surrounding mental illness, and that the ‘Unmask Yourself’ event was a result of that program. The May 1 event will be co-hosted by the Capital Area Mental Health Center, whose executive director, Elaine St. Marie, said the organization was thrilled to be part of the fundraiser/awareness event, which she described as a great cause.

Botello and others note that people suffering from mental illness aren’t considered a well-known cause, a place for people to make a difference, which she hopes to change.

The May 1 event is Botello’s project in the Landmark Education SELP program. Here is the link to the North Texas Daily article by Nicole Landry.

In the article, columnist Susan Alexander notes the 10+% unemployment in the United States and that the challenging economic conditions mean a lot of stress on individuals and familes.

He then cites Cunningham’s ideas on listing out the basic facts of what’s actually happened in one’s situation, then listing out what interpretation one is adding to the fact, and finally creating a sensible plan of action. Read the article yourself in this column of The Knoxville News.