Deborah santana

Women’s eNews event

admin — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:25:06 +0000

Deborah was honored as one of “Seven Who Catalyze Culture”at the Gala Benefit Dinner Honoring 21 Leaders for 21st Century 2012 in New York City on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012. Eve Ensler, Founder & Artistic Director V-Day, introduced Deborah as co-producer of the award-winning documentary, “Girls of Daraja,” and founder of Do a Little, a nonprofit donor-advised fund that serves the needs of women in health, education and happiness. It was a powerful night of stories about advocates for women who are affecting positive change around the world.

Women’s eNews has an online readership of about 100,000 readers a day. They were honored to receive About.com’s 2012 Readers’ Choice Award for Favorite Women’s Rights Blog or Website – http://womensenews.org/. Founder & Editor in Chief, Rita Henley Jensen started the news site ten years ago to cover women’s issues and change women’s lives.

Photos by Barbara Rick

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Life Moments for Women: 100+ Extraordinary Women Share Turning Points in Their Lives

Meshelle — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:18:38 +0000

Life Moments for Women: 100+ Extraordinary Women Share Turning Points in Their Lives, is treasury of life-altering experiences offering a rare glimpse into the hearts and minds of 108 notable California women. Each of these extraordinary women shares one special moment that changed her in a significant way and will inspire readers with new ideas about life, leadership, integrity, strength and courage.

The contributors to this book are as diverse as California yet share the belief that women can change the world, one moment at a time

Life Moments for Women is a collaboration by award-winning entrepreneur, philanthropist and women’s advocate Patty DeDominic, and Maureen Ford, entrepreneur-educator and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award winner. Their dream was to create a compendium of women’s stories to open minds to new possibilities, and create awareness of the powerful roles women play in shaping society. This amazing book is the result.

The authors plan to use the book to raise $1,000,000 for the Women’s Foundation of California by donating the profits from the sales of Life Moments for Women to this remarkable organization that funds 1,200 community-based non-profit organizations throughout California.

This unique book is available with four different covers, each featuring a different group of women featured in it. The stories of all the women are included in every book.

ISBN-13: 978-1-883423-27-8, 324 Pages,7″ x 8.5″ Paperback, $25.00

About the authors, Patty DeDominic and Maureen Ford

Click Here To order books

Deborah Santana’s Special Guest Blog About SWAN Day Kenya

Meshelle — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:14:09 +0000

As part of our ongoing efforts to build more connections among SWAN organizers worldwide, WomenArts arranged for U.S. author/activist Deborah Santana to meet with the SWAN Day Kenya organizers in Nairobi.

She has written a special guest blog for us about her meeting with Kenyan poets, actors, visual artists, musicians, sculptors, and film and television producers. Fourteen women and two men sat together around a table with her, sipping sweet chai while discussing the arts in Kenya and the lack of opportunities for women artists.

Santana writes: “These women are activists, mothers, sisters, and givers of themselves so that the blessings of their souls, through their art, can right the imbalance of the world. They send images and music into the universe of yearning.”
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Dear Daraja friends and supporters,

Meshelle — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 18:22:22 +0000

I leave for Kenya in two weeks to visit the Daraja Academy. It has been two years since I stepped onto the rich red soil of the secondary school campus and much has changed. The first girls I met, whose faces you saw in the Girls of Daraja film, are now seniors. There were 26 girls on campus in 2010; now there will be 104. I have not yet seen the newest dorm, the expanded garden, the medals each girl was given by the Bay to Breakers race organizers for their Lap-A-Thon and connection with Kenyan race winner, Lineth Chepkurui. Some of the girls I met now wear eyeglasses; the girls have set goals to be trustworthy, faithful, honest, respectful, self-controlled and mindful.

This time when I reach Daraja Academy, I will take a poetry project to work on with the girls. Documentary filmmaker Barbara Rick and her husband, Jim Anderson, will meet me on campus to shoot a new film about the school, and I will carry gifts and good wishes from many of you to share.

Being a part of Daraja Academy has fulfilled a goal I set when I created my non-profit, Do A Little in 2008. I sought connection with a community that serves women and girls in the areas of health, education, and happiness. I wanted to meet and become friends with people who were passionate about changing the lives of others because it fills their hearts with joy and purpose, and gives deeper meaning to life.

On July 14, 2012, I will hold my annual fundraiser to continue to support a free education for the girls at Daraja Academy. I will premiere the new documentary film we produce, and we will Skype with girls on campus! Please save the date to join me at the David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way Berkeley, CA 94704. We will enjoy great food, music, and each other’s company as we celebrate and support Daraja Academy once again.

I carry you in my heart,

Let’s Occupy with Our Love and Our Light

Meshelle — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:55:53 +0000

We occupy this planet with our energies, our bodies, our thoughts, and our actions. I have a personal consciousness, and with every sentient being, there is a collective consciousness. We are all interconnected.

What does it mean to occupy anything? Webster’s defines occupy: to engage the attention or energies of ; or a : to take up (a place or extent in space) occupied> or b : to take or fill (an extent in time) occupies all of my free time>

How do I want to reside here? What is my purpose? The Occupy Movement is a powerful reaction to what my friend calls “capitalism gone awry.” Because people are standing up, or sitting down, for what they believe, we are seeing police brutality, and the rights of citizens to gather and exercise free speech being taken away.

As one who marched against the war in Vietnam, and marched for peace, I am grateful for the Occupy Movement. It is a vehicle for group consciousness to express the serious need for change.

In his support of the OM, spoken word poet, Drew Dellinger said we are a “planet-wide tribe” and “how can we ask for anything less than the future?” He said it is “time for the people to peacefully fight back.”

We are all occupied with the daily struggles and joys of life. We question how we will survive in this contentious climate of economic lack. Ultimately, the quest is to discover truth, and for many the journey is to find inner and outer peace. This encompasses finances, wellness, purpose, and passion – to live a bounteous life. In Drew’s video, a woman carries a sign painted: occupy my heart. This is certainly where my truth and the direction to my future lie.

J Krishnamurti said, “In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself.”

Please watch the D5 Video on my Books, Audio & Video page: http://www.deborahsantana.com/books-audio-video/

Let’s occupy with our love and our light. – Drew Dellinger

Writing is about observing

admin — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:46:17 +0000

At a writing retreat with Natalie Goldberg, my duties were: Monday, snuff candles; Tuesday afternoon, sweep porch; Thursday morning, sweep zendo. I was in Taos, New Mexico to write, yet the teacher, a longtime student of Zen Buddhism, was also teaching her students to be present in each moment, to notice the dust gathering in corners of the room, and to participate in small actions that would create a healthy community.

Natalie knew that writing is about observing. Artistic expression is a reflection of our eyes taking in the landscape of life and transferring it to a poem, canvas, sculpture, or song. I love the small moments of awakening that occur when I am still. This morning’s sunrise with a fire-orange mound peeking above the distant mountain range, was a radiant blaze in the sky. Sitting at my shrine, I was part of the miracle of morning. No matter what humanity thinks we understand about life, no matter how brilliant our minds, we cannot change the time of a sunrise, or the quarters of the moon. We cannot stop the winds of tornadoes, or the waters of a hurricane. We are glowing embers of the sun’s burning light, sprinkles of dust on the land.

“People when they walk on the land leave their breath wherever they go. So wherever we walk, that particular spot on earth never forgets us, and when we go back, we know that the people who have lived there are in some way still there, and that we can actually partake of their breath and their spirit.”

– Rina Swentzell of the Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico

Meet the Divine in Your Life

Meshelle — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:42:06 +0000

“If you want to meet the divine in your life, you have to expose your heart.” I copied Aqeela Sherrills’ words in my journal five years ago and they speak to me just as profoundly today. I want to meet the essence of God, to live above the materialism of this world; I want to embrace the sacred. I also want to open myself to humanity, to be a participant in every aspect of life – the physical, the emotional and the intellectual, to be in my body in an ever-evolving way.
Exposing my heart means that I will be fully who I am, not hiding my defects, but reaching out with my authentic self, aware of my place in the circle of all beings, and adding my consciousness to life’s flow. I want to keep an open mind so that when the thoughts of others shine a light on the path, I can drop my defenses and accept their wisdom.
What I have learned through the experience of loss is that liberation of spirit comes by letting go of fear and accepting what is. From that place of awakening, I can grow stronger, feel more alive, and be filled with infinite possibility.
When I read that Aqeela Sherrills’ son, Terrell, was shot to death in 2004 and he began talking to people about forgiveness and reconciliation, I paid more attention to the power of his quote. He did not choose revenge or self-pity, but the path of traveling the world in an effort to stop violence and create peace. He is searching to find common ground in a spirit of reverence and compassion, an understanding that our primary mission is the restoration of the vitality of the human spirit.
May we join this movement with awareness and love.

International Women's Day

Meshelle — Mon, 16 May 2011 21:42:20 +0000

March 8th, 2011 marks the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day. Everyone can celebrate the amazing women who have shaped us, who have cared for our world, and who work with compassion and power for our future.
I have many sheroes of international fame and of local renown. To celebrate this significant day, I would like to highlight one woman whose life has inspired mine.
Wangari Maathai — Kenyan environmental and democracy activist who, in 1994, became the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977 because she was inspired by and for the common good. She embodied inspiration, persistence, patience and commitment to work on issues of forestation and reforestation in Kenya. Over the past century, forests in Kenya have diminished from 30% to 1.7% of land cover. This impacts water catchment and threatens farms.
As a mother, biological scientist, political activist, feminist, and environmentalist, she saw the need to carry out a tree planting campaign as a way to save the land. Planting seeds of hope would provide a greener, cleaner world, while improving livelihoods of women and families. By the time Wangari Maathai accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, the Green Belt Movement had mobilized the planting of over 40 million trees. Not an easy path to this successful end, Maathai was threatened by men, beaten by her husband because she was “too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn, and too hard to control,” and was even jailed for treason because she dared to challenge the political regime.
What I most love about Maathai’s life is that she continued her personal mission to serve humanity by using her intelligence and great dedication to truth, without any need of attention or fame. She persevered. She worked in hundreds of communities with a spirit of oneness.
Here is her website: http://www.greenbeltmovement.org/w.php?id=59
Please visit a website for International Women’s Day. Here is a link to one: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/about.asp

Belva Davis and Deborah Santana in Conversation

admin — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 02:31:31 +0000

Journalist Belva Davis on her memoir, “Never in My Wildest Dreams; A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism” in conversation with author/philanthropist Deborah Santana at Strand Bookstore in NYC on February 23, 2011. With Farai Chideya and Christina Foxley.

Philanthropic Women Helping Women

admin — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 21:52:09 +0000

March is Women’s History Month, which seems like the perfect time to highlight leading women who put their money behind women’s causes. With 61% of wealth now in the hands of women, and the majority of the world’s poor being women, it makes sense that wealthy women are giving powerfully.
According to a study, Women Give 2010 by the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, not only are women giving more than at any point in history, women at almost all income levels are more likely to give than men and give more money on average than men.

http://www.financial-planning.com/photo_gallery/fp/1_36/photo/-2672384-1.html