Last year Ode launched its first annual Intelligent Optimists Issue where we featured people who are not famous yet but should be because of the work they are doing to bring positive change to their communities, their countries, and the world. As part of this special issue, we would like to hear your nominations, too: tales of ordinary people who do extraordinary things. Just tell us who your nominee is and write a few lines explaining why this person is special and why their work is important. Nominate your favorite Intelligent Optimist!
"Janaia and Robyn, Peak Moment TV"
These gals video people making strides to bring about the Green Evolution. They also bring programs and speakers who warn about the consequences of doing nothing. Read more...
Katie is the founder of Minga, a teen-run nonprofit dedicated to ending the child sex trade through the education and empowerment of youth.
Based in Boston, Massachusetts, Minga has raised over $70,000 and has reached hundreds of thousands of people through speeches, workshops, conferences, and the media. Currently, Minga clubs are starting up at schools and in communities around the world in a unified effort to end the exploitation of children by involving youth everywhere in the movement. Read more...
As President of the Atlantic Counties Utilities Authority, Rick Dovey (center in photo) has moved this waste management service provider far beyond their traditional role while staying true to their mission of enhancing the quality of life through the protection of waters and lands from pollution.
Under his stewardship, the ACUA constructed the first coastal wind farm in the US with 5 1.5 turbines producing clean, renewable power equavalent to 11,964 barrels of oil! And at the opening celebration he gathered canned goods for our local food bank! Read more...
Martha started a nonprofit to create Living Earth Television (LETV), a global public television vehicle in order to foster better understanding between peoples as a path of peace and compassion. Martha has developed a good relationship with documentary producers and TV stations in China - and plans to launch LETV by translating some wonderful, compassionate nonfiction stories made by Chinese film makers in China - to be broadcast on public television stations in the US and on Link TV.
Martha put together her vision while in China weeks after the 9/11 attacks when she realized that the neighbors around the world must get to know each other. Documentaries often focus on the unusual and bizarre differences, but Martha finds films that focus on universal themes and how humans are so similar. Read more...
Doc Holly helps thousands and my story is but one. This unforgiving, rugged, wretched road I chose for myself would have become my lifelong journey. If I hadn’t met Holly. I almost missed her.
I wrote my first business plan at 12 and opened my first business at 23. I went to college to get a degree, but ended up getting pregnant instead. Luckily, in the early 80’s, when I was a student, no computers were tracking prerequisites and I slipped into a 400 level marketing course in my third semester. I was done. I "got" it. I knew what I was going to be. Read more...
“Paul is inspirational, totally dedicated, hard-working and committed ... I will have no hesitation in crossing seas and continents again to work with him.”
Those words - from a volunteer who worked with Paul Miedema - are just how people feel when they work with this extraordinary man. A white South African, Paul turned his anti-apartheid activism into a business model that benefits all segments of South African society. He combines responsible tourism with ethical volunteering and a core belief that the new South Africa will thrive only if there is real understanding of the history and culture of all peoples there. Through respectful township tours in his home area of the Eastern Cape, Paul’s Calabash Tours helps get the “unheard” black historical voice heard - debunking the myths that many tourists believe about township people and poverty in general. Visitors not only see the reality of these townships and people, but also understand the richness of their traditional cultures, still vibrant despite Apartheid. Over the last 4 years he helped some 12,000 tourists gain a better understanding of South Africa’s townships, with an estimated R1,5 million yield to township business. Read more...
Arlene Goldbard is a writer on the intersection of culture, politics, and spirituality. She is this county’s number one advocate for and theorist of the field of Community Cultural Development (CCD). As she has articulated, CCD “describes a range of initiatives undertaken by artists in collaboration with other community members to express identity, concerns and aspirations through the arts and communication media, while building the capacity for social action and contributing to social change.” Her recent book, New Creative Community: The Art of Cultural Development, is the seminal textbook for the field (New Village Press, 2006). Arlene’s clear articulation of the principles and values underlying this work enables a vast number of individuals and organizations to bring about positive social change in their communities.
Arlene Goldbard is the epitome of an Intelligent Optimist. Intelligent because of her membership in “The Auto Club:” her nickname for the extended family of autodidacts, people who have pursued their own educations on their own initiative, without benefit of college degrees. Optimist because of her outlook on life: she believes life is not a struggle filled with arbitrary punishments, but rather, that each experience represents a movement toward growth, toward becoming more fully oneself. Her mantra is, “Share stories fearlessly. The art of social transformation is unstoppable.” Read more...
Dr. Peter Hotez has dedicated his life to raising the profile of - and developing vaccines for - the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that impact over one billion of the poorest people around the world. NTDs like hookworm, elephantiasis, and onchocerciasis are debilitating, disabling, stigmatizing, and even deadly, but as their name suggests, they have long been overlooked by the public health and international communities and overshadowed by other diseases.
Dr. Hotez saw the need for integration of the existing, vertical efforts to treat specific NTDs. In collaboration with colleagues around the world, Dr. Hotez helped launch the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases at the 2006 Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, designed to fight the seven most common NTDs together to maximize impact and reduce inefficiencies. Read more...
Who rides the roads with a garden in his truck? Baby it’s the Gestalt Man. Who stows the hoes and vows never to mow? Baby it’s the Gestalt Man.
Voted one of the top 25 people most likely to change the South, Gestalt Gardener Felder Rushing will make us laugh so hard we cry, and assures us that if we can grow mold in a coffee cup, we can garden. Be it a pocket terrarium in a translucent film canister, a window box, a massive lawn or his own truck-bed-garden, Intelligent Optimist Felder Rushing shares bottom-line how to succeed in gardening without really trying. He maintains his Radio Garden in just 15 minutes a week, and has no need for chemicals because of the healthy mix of edible and traditional landscape plants in a rich tapestry described by his own mama as a kaleidoscope having a stroke. Read more...
Intelligent Optimist Larry Jarrett was born and raised in rural Union County, Mississippi. A maverick independent small businessman, he has helped promote sustainable forestry practices, including nature based tourism, non-timber forest products and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification.
As an Audubon Board member, he helped launch the Audubon Naturalist Program at Strawberry Plains Audubon Center in Holly Springs, Mississippi. After graduating from the program he went on to get a Master's degree in Environmental Studies with a focus on Sustainability from Prescott College, which opened the door for his current position as a Greenways Coordinator for Desoto County, Mississippi. His crowning glory, however, is the Natural Resources Initiative(NRI) (www.nrims.org) volunteer networking group he launched in 2001, bringing together a wide range of community and government organizations, all with a like-minded goal to stimulate effective new programs in sustainable growth. Read more...
You must be a registered user to nominate an Intelligent Optimist. If you are already registered click here to login or Click here for our fast, free registration.