This interview was three years past due.

I met Eric Niragira in 2010, while backpacking through Burundi. After an introduction from a mutual friend, we met over dinner in a small restaurant in Bujumbura. I listened to Eric share his story and decided I had to try to do something to help him share his story. I arranged for us to meet the following day to do an audio interview, but when I woke up the next morning sick with food poisoning, I couldn’t make it.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago when I was visiting New York City and found out via Facebook that Eric was in visiting. He was at the United Nation’s Headquarters to work with colleagues from around the world to advocate for victim assistance in the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty – something in itself was under-reported throughout the tiny news coverage of the Arms Trade Treaty.

By the end of the conference, the Arms Trade Treaty was passed — with some recognition of the need for victim assistance. The preamble recognizes ”that civilians, particularly women and children, account for the vast majority of those affected by armed conflict and armed violence” and “the challenges faced by victims of armed conflict and their need for adequate care, rehabilitation and social and economic inclusion” but I feel cynical in my beliefs that the support may only be on paper.

To continue to change the realities on the ground for many of the victims of armed violence and conflict, we need to continue to support organizations like CEDAC (Eric’s NGO) and help people like Eric Niragira carry out their inspiring work.

Stories are important.

Storytellers momentarily manifest a world filled with the artifacts of their experience, open for listeners to explore. As listeners, we enter these stories in exchange for our empathy —our effort to understand, to give compassion, or solidarity— because only through story can we experience the world beyond our own perspective.

Stories are the primary bond that holds us together. Shared experiences are treasured differently than occurrences experienced alone and storytelling welcomes listeners to enter, and forever take with them, an experience to make their own.

Tell me your stories.

I want your stories to feel, learn, love, and know you.

Listen to the first stories of this project below.

In 1979, a 16-year-old boy made a choice to rebuild a forest. And after 34 years of hard work, Jadav ‘Molai’ Payeng has certainly proved his conviction – and created a humbling monument to the power of a dream turned into action.

Walking on a sandbar after a flood, young Jadav found many dead snakes after a flood.

From Times of India— “The snakes died in the heat, without any tree cover. I sat down and wept over their lifeless forms. It was carnage . I alerted the forest department and asked them if they could grow trees there. They said nothing would grow there. Instead, they asked me to try growing bamboo. It was painful, but I did it.”

Jadav worked for five years in a successful local conservation project to plant 200 hectares of bamboo. Once the project was over, all the other workers left except for Jadav. He decided to stay and continue rebuilding the forest.*

Jadav started planting other trees and transported local red ants to the sandbar knowing that they were vital to the rebuild an ecosystem. And as the ecosystem grew, the forest become home to migratory birds, one-horned rhino, royal bengal tiger, and even elephant — all of which moved there naturally as prey attracted predators.

But poaching and demand for wood threaten the inhabitants of “Molai’s Forest,” and he seeks help to protect the +1,000 acre forest he’s fought so hard to build. And once local government starts protecting the forest he has created, he hopes to move on to create other forests.*

This story may be best characterized by “If one man can build a forest, it’s amazing to think what we can achieve if we work together.” *

Constant change drives us forward, but we have a great remarkable ability of hanging onto what we know and refusing to let go. Sometimes all it takes is opening up your mind to one alternative. From there, we can see there are other ways to  see things. Other ways to frame our world.

ReFrame is an online tool to help you see beyond what you know to new possibilities, solutions, or perspectives. Simple, clean, and thought provoking. Even if you still do not agree with the final result, it walks you through other perspectives that can allow for middle ground in polarized arguments.

I’ve included their step-by-step methodology below. Try it out!

How does traveling by foot for seven years sound to you?

Paul Salopek is retracing the expansion of humans across the globe, walking 21,000 miles to document the story at “a human pace” (3 miles/hour). I’m so jealous and happy to follow along with the updates. Check out the project website http://www.outofedenwalk.com/

Some of my favorite media bits are below.

An audio recording of the a typical exchange of greetings

Paul’s kit while walking :

His cameleer’s: a jile (Afar knife), iron-tipped ax, spare shire (Afar sarong), windbreaker, two cakes of soap, “Scissors” brand matches, ball of tobacco, spare turban/wrap, water bottle.

Another cameleer’s: spare shire, water bottle, snuff in plastic women’s cosmetics jar, spare turban/wrap.

In thanks to the fine members of the “hudson adventure society” for letting me join them for a day of exploring local quarries and forests, I want to remind everyone a good rule of thumb:

ADVENTURE EVERY WEEK.

If not every week, every day.

With practice, I think it’s even possible to never stop exploring.

This is a classic (2007!) video that is always relevant. If you haven’t seen it — get on it!

And the best thing about Annie Leonard, is she kept producing more videos and more at storyofstuff.org!

Holocaust on a Conveyor Belt – Assembly Line of Death From the film SAMSARA

“It’s impossible to deny the humanity in a face. We are all human, we all have hearts and emotions and eyes that speak to them. Whether we’re gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, black, white, latino, asian. You get the picture.”

visit selfevidentproject.com

Our minds are wired to find associations, patterns, and connections between the things we observe, ourselves, and our environment. This is a simple, powerful, dangerous, and beautiful thing.

I shot these photos years ago, but thought I would bring them back to life.