Personal Vision

My personal vision is to be able to move through the world learning, encouraging, exchanging, educating and bridging differences through playing music and dancing in all my communities around the world. One of the most efficient ways to connect with people from around the globe is accomplish through music, which moves people both literally and figuratively.

World Connection, the non-profit I founded in 1998, has had projects in the areas of health, women’s micro-economic development, environmental awareness and neighborhood cleanup competitions. Music has always been a part of the awareness building process. I would now like to increase Music’s role and focus more on playing. In addition to the sheer joy of playing music with others, music is key in connecting with people in a most enjoyable and healing way.

I would like to use these media to educate and pass along information relating to health, small business development, education and language skills, and other topics that are important to the local community. We, as part of a worldwide community, need to refocus our energies and resources on collaborative and cooperative efforts. Education is key in the process and is especially important for girls. In order to elevate the standard of living for those living in poverty, education from an early age must be first and foremost in our minds and actions. We need to redefine what “education” actually means. In today’s very unstable and uncertain world, one of the most important skills that we can teach our children is to learn how to flexible. The more skills we can pass along to our children, the more they have in their bag of tools to support themselves and cope with the situations that life presents us.

I envision a future performing and using the ability to access various populations to promote learning and sharing of practical information that can have a direct effect on individuals, families and communities. Wherever I go, I will continue try to establish connections with the people I meet. Barriers seem to disintegrate when the music plays and the rhythm moves us so we cannot but move our bodies accordingly.

What motivates me to apply to become a Voices of Our Correspondent is that many people have asked me to write about my various experiences and perspectives. It is time that I overcome the block of writing a blog or other online articles that I have experienced up until the present time. In addition, it is time for me to reach out to the greater community and partner with other like-visioned women who would like to positively change their communities.

The encouragement that the World Pulse team and community offers, along with the weekly writing assignments as part of the application process, has already helped encourage me towards writing for the online community. The mentoring would help specifically for the up and coming Cameroon bass project whereby I am looking to study and document women’s role in bass playing and the creation of bass rhythms. The program will overlap with the time that I plan on being in Cameroon. I believe that whatever documentation I end up with will be better informed and more accurately portrayed because of guidance from World Pulse mentors and community members.

I am looking to connect with other women with whom I can have open, direct, honest and productive exchanges and working relationships in helping to determine options and strategies to enhance their projects and organizations. I am always looking to join with like-visioned women to share other possible creative solutions to the challenges that face us.

Learning about World Pulse and the Voices of Our Future application was serendipidous and timely and seems to fit into the program that I have set out for myself in the following months. I believe that World Pulse will help me overcome those barriers to getting out information to our sisters and brothers. Ultimately I hope that my experiences will inspire each of us to dare to be different by being true to oneself and one’s path.