As I write this post I am deeply moved by the inspirational voices I am hearing from the Women in the World Summit 2012. I am encouraged to hear that young women and girls are standing up against mainstream media and finding their authentic voices through social media sites where they share ideas and trust  their instincts. I am thrilled to follow and support an Afghan grass roots organization called Young Women for Change and to see the remarkable progress their leader Noorjahan Akbar has made. YWC  has developed a  new Internet Cafe in Kabul just for women and created a place to be safe , to learn and to be connected to the global community. I am personally proud to have met Gloria Steinem and walked the Golden Gate Bridge in support of peace for all women in just a single week!

Traveling Postcards is growing  to be a part of a global effort to empower women and girls by continuing to provide a creative path to voice and leadership.  This spring we have already participated in the 3rd annual Soroptimist International ‘ She’s All That’ Conference  for middle school girls with our Bigger than Myself workshop. This is a very popular workshop and I was proud to meet a younger sister of a girl who was one of my very first participants! Soon we will be planning workshops with Cinnamongirl, an organization that is committed to empower and inspire girls of color to reach their highest personal and professional goals. We are still very much committed to bringing voice and compassionate support to Afghan women as well as awareness to the issue of violence against women in every country, including the US.

We have also had two wonderful interviews published this month and I am happy to share them with you here.

Interviews:  Arts and Healing Network   and     Have Fun Do Good

I am looking forward to traveling to Peru over the summer and to bringing  Traveling Postcards to the small town of Ollantaytambo! I have met a wonderful woman who will help facilitate for us and who is working on her own project to help rebuild a small community devastated from flooding over two years ago. Paca Vilcanota Community

We all deserve the freedom and the right to take action for what we believe in. I am happy that Traveling Postcards can help to share our stories and provide a creative path to empowerment and the sharing of our hearts.

I look forward  to sharing our progress with you and as always, excited to know what you care about.

Caroline Lovell

I am still  feeling the genuine friendship that the women from the Farsi-Adult Day Health Care at the Mt Diablo Center shared both on their cards and with me.   Their postcards along with many others from the US and Canada traveled to Afghanistan over the summer and each card was filled with wisdom and caring to cross borders and connect hearts. We are focusing on the rights of Afghan women and girls and hope to continue to reach women living in Afghan shelters and in jails and offer an opportunity to share their voices on a Traveling Postcard. Our work with Trust In Education continues to inspire us and we are working hard to raise money and support our after school art classes!

We have also just received dozens of postcards from Afghanistan thanks to Zohra Aziz  who lovingly carried the cards bound for the US back to California in her suitcase. Take a look at her amazing work as she is building the first school for girls in Farza!

More cards were made in Haiti over the spring and again I saw such willingness to reach out share the best of ourselves despite harsh living conditions and lack of  resources. We received creative and heartfelt cards from Haitian girls who believe in their strengths , in each other and in their sisters in California. Please take a look at the wonderful anthology our partner Meridian Health Foundation created in partnership with the United Nations Foundation and Full Circle Learning.

Finally,  the courage I have witnessed of  women who are fighting domestic violence and reinventing their lives  from a place of pure faith and strong spirit have made me proud and stronger. I am grateful that we had an opportunity to be creative together.  I watched as true wisdom emerged and compassion was found not only for women experiencing similar situations but for ourselves. They taught me to appreciate the everyday moments you have with family and to count on your inner strength when all else seems to have slipped away. Please take a look at the Gallery of Voices Exhibition

Traveling Postcards continues to believe that art holds a very important key to unlocking true potential. Join us as we turn towards celebrating the deep connections we share and look forward to creating new opportunities to unlock the wisdom in our hearts and watch as our gifts are set free in the world.

May you your winter be blessed with light and forgiveness.

Caroline

This Fall I have been working with STAND , an organization committed to ending violence against women and to promoting healthy families. I am privileged to meet with a group of women every month who are surviving and rebuilding their lives and who are sharing their open hearts on the cards they make. Their postcards will travel to other women both locally and internationally who are in similar situations and who will recognize that nobody needs to feel alone in their pain.

We have two new High School Clubs this year, one in California and one in Florida! I am so proud of the two juniors who are organizing and running their clubs and expect to have more pictures and stories from them soon.

I am also finishing my Master’s degree in Transformative Art this June and have begun to work on my final thesis. I hope to thoroughly research and prove that art is a  powerful tool in promoting healing and personal connection to humanitarian issues that are still plaguing so many people, particularly women today. I know that art belongs at the aid table, right alongside economic opportunities, political representation, and better health care and we must always be careful not to lose sight of taking care of our hearts.

Finally, I will leave you with a poem written by a young girl in Haiti this Spring. This poem is from the wonderful work of the Meridian Foundation and their  Haiti through our Eyes project.

Caroline Lovell

It is my hope that through Traveling Postcards women will find their voice and stand together with small gestures from their hearts and hands, and offer healing and empowerment to women all over the world. Thank you Lisa for your bravery and for your commitment to serving women through such a profound and personal story.

“You asked if I would share my story with others because you thought my story might help them. Yes, I am happy to serve others in that way.

As I mentioned to you during our conversation, I had been looking for some type of community service to get involved in for some time now. However I was having difficulty figuring out what to do. For some reason, I thought I had to do something huge and it had to have a major impact on my community or the world. This thought then made me think that what had to be done was too big, too overwhelming for me to do, and that I would just be paralyzed with fear and abandon the idea. Thus, I never got involved in anything at all.

I’m not sure how I found Traveling Postcards online but suffice it to say, I believe it’s God’s will. The quotation by Mother Teresa that you have posted on your home page “In this life we cannot do great things; we can only do small things with great love.” resonated with me. In fact it was an “Aha moment” for me. What a powerful realization! Doing something very small with great love and how great the impact of that small deed could be.

Despite the fact that I really wanted to make the postcard, it took me some time to actually make one. My self-doubt, perfectionism, fear of not being good enough prevented me from making the card. I thought for weeks about the card…what it should look like, how I would decorate it, what it should say. I thought about all the supplies that I would get to make the card. I kept looking at the cards you had posted on the website to get ideas. The more I looked at those cards , the more discouraged I got and thought any card that I made would not be as beautiful or wouldn’t have a good enough message.

Then one day, at my ladies book club meeting, we got to discussing how we wished we could help other women around the world and the subject about the women in the Congo and the atrocities they were experiencing came up. Everyone kept on saying what can we do? So I mentioned Traveling Postcards to my group. I shared with them that each one of them could make a postcard with a message of love, hope and encouragement to be sent to the City of Joy which was being built for the women of the Congo. My sharing this really touched a couple of my friends who emailed me the next morning telling me how my passionate share the evening before was inspiring and that they appreciated it. These messages of love and support from my friends somehow gave me the courage to make my first postcard. I just used whatever I could find around the house and made it. The poem I wrote was something I had written when I first thought about making the postcard. It came straight from my heart full of great love.

When I looked at the postcard I made , I started to criticize myself and started the whole process of obsessing about how it wasn’t good enough. I knew that if I didn’t mail it right away, I would end up ripping it up. So before I could change my mind, I sent it off to you. Mailing that first postcard to you was one of the most difficult things I had to do. A few days later , I went on your website and saw my postcard and the note I sent with it posted on your blog. Wow! That was an amazing moment for me. I t made me cry. My postcard looked so lovely and the message on it very touching. It made me feel so good about myself.

You asked me why I made the card, what compelled me to make it despite my fears, my lack of self worth, my perfectionism. I made it because I wanted to be of service. That desire superseded my fears. I realized that even if it was something very small, even if it was for only one person, I wanted to be of service. Something I forgot to tell you about is that the words of encouragement from my girlfriends also catalyzed my intention into action. Kind loving words are so powerful.

The most amazing thing about making the postcard is that I gained so much by serving another. I felt empowered. I gained self-worth. I created something beautiful for someone and put a lot of love into it. Hopefully it would diminish some of her pain and give her hope knowing another cared about her. I learned an important lesson when I put that card in the mail. I learned to trust and let go. I had to trust that the card was going to be good enough and had to let go of my fears. “

In other exciting news, Traveling Postcards will begin to work with the STAND! Against Domestic Violence community in Northern California. We will be teaching and sharing our workshop with the resilient women living in the transitional housing facility and collecting their voices to share with other women around the world who have experienced domestic violence. Each woman will make two cards; one to give to a woman in a local shelter, and one to send to a global sister who will know she is supported and valued from around the world.

And finally, another local project brings Traveling Postcards to the Marin County Libraries this summer! Fellow artist Victoria Gonzales will facilitate card making workshops under the theme” Novel Destinations“. The Postcards will be sent to an orphanage in Mexico that the CorteMadera Library supports. Victoria and the libraries will provide all the art supplies and books you need to discover the power of your voice through art. We will keep you posted with her progress and will post more details about the orphanage over the summer. Please see the Marin County Free Library website for locations and times.

Have a wonderful summer and please continue to write or call with new ideas and “novel destinations” for Traveling Postcards!