Incredible people, incredible stories

This morning stared out with the plenary session with all of the world forum delegates. There were so many highlights in this 2 hours span of time. We saw some Taiko drummers that were absolutely incredible...it was amazing to watch how carefully and gracefully they executed every single move. I did not realize though how the speaker that morning was going to move me to tears. It was very unexpected since I don't tend to get emotional during a person's speech.

Sakena Yacoobi is from Afghanistan and speaks on poverty and children from Afghanistan. She encounters traumatized children in refugee camps that have not water and often have rodents and spiders where the children are sleeping. The basic needs of the children are not even being met. She works on empowering women through education on how to care for their children, she says it is not uncommon for mother's of 15 children to only have 4 that are still alive. She said through simple health education about why they should not drink dirty water and how to wash. Sakena works hard on teaching women leadership skills, health and empowerement. Naturally there is a trickle down effect that benefits the children. When women get stronger so does the family. There is no electricity in many of these areas. Sakena also spoke of the 160,000 people that also are addicted to opium. She said the rate of depression is very high. "we must work toward a long term goal to break the cycle and we do that through early education."

Another really fun thing going on here-Lakeshore Materials brought a project for all the delegates...blank white books with a ton of supplies for us to decorate and make a memory book to take home. Mark the founder and president of Lakeshore was in Hawaii with his wife to carry out this project. Some people are using their books as a place for the people they meet to leave a message. I love mine and am keeping it to make a scrap book to share.

Another thing that is being shared is that we were urged to bring a children's book for a book exchange program. I can not wait to find out what books I end up with. I shared two of my all time favorites-Miss Tizzy and The Three Questions. I hope that whomever ends up with them will see why I chose those two books!

Sara and I attended the Welcome reception , while exhausted we found it quite fun sitting with some aussies! They kept the table alive for sure!