#2 SAWA Member Profile: Daphne Nederhorst, Founder and Executive Director

Be the change you want to see in the world.- Mahatma Gandhi

Daphne Nederhorst is someone who lives by these words. Driven by a passion to change the world, to inspire, and to empower, she embodies the positive energy that she longs to see more of in the world. The first time I met Daphne she welcomed me with a warm hug and after being with her for only a few minutes I saw immediately that she was full of life, energy, and compassion.

Daphne is an extremely driven individual and a natural leader. Throughout her life Daphne has never been afraid to challenge authority and speak up against injustice and inequality. She founded SAWA in 2004, but the concept of SAWA has its roots in her childhood experiences in Tanzania where she lived until she was 6. There she was deeply affected by the strength of the local people who creatively faced the challenges of living in extreme poverty. She wanted to be able to inspire change in the world through telling their stories.

Daphne is truly a global citizen, traveling to California at 16 to study Film, getting a degree in Development Studies and Environmental Management in England, completing a Masters degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Calgary, returning to Tanzania to research how to bring water to poor urban communities, and then going on to work in over 35 countries all over the world with various non profit organizations, aid agencies, and international organizations (including the World Bank and the World Health Organization).

It was after returning from visiting an orphanage in Colombia in 2004 that she thought of using the internet as an empowering new media to tell the stories of hope she had come across. She had a strong desire to form a space where such stories could be shared in order for support to be directed back to the local heroes she had met. With the help of dozens of volunteers, from all over the world, she was able to follow her life's passion to change the world, and form SAWA.

Daphne's vision for SAWA is that it will grow to be become an internationally recognized site where heroes can come and express their stories, and people around the world can come and learn how they can get involved. This is just the beginning, but with your help, SAWA will impact and empower people all over the world for positive change.

Daphne is someone who shows us, with her creative energy and steadfast ideals, how to make this world a better place - the same way local heroes all over the world are showing us how to have hope, be strong, and change the world for the better.

(You can learn more about Daphne's accomplishments on SAWA's main website).

www.sawaglobal.com/howwestarted.htm

#1 SAWA Global- a new media to change the world

At SAWA we believe in the power of media as a tool to empower and inspire. Unfortunately, the mainstream media offers us a constant diet of indulgent pessimism, misleading us to believe we are out of reasons for hope. There is no denying that our world is faced with many challenges, but many of our global challenges are being tackled creatively by individuals with local solutions. SAWA focuses on sharing local solutions to the following global problems: How to 1. Reduce extreme poverty, 2. Protect and empower children, 3. Promote gender equality, 4. Halt the spread of HIV and other diseases, 5. Promote environmental sustainability, 6. Promote conflict resolution, and 7. Build global partnerships

The truth is, that all over the world, from Colombia to Kenya, from Cambodia to Rwanda, there are real individuals working within their communities to face these challenges and come up with real and lasting solutions. We should draw hope and inspiration from these individuals, sharing their stories to reinforce that not only is change possible, but it is happening. We, the public, need leaders and role models to drive our hopes and expectations about the future. These role models are out there, and we are here to find and tell their stories.

At SAWA we want to build a space where you, and I, and people all over the world can come to share positive ideas and creative solutions to our shared global problems.

One of my favourite Chinese proverbs is : The first step to better times is to imagine them. Let us imagine the future together.

Lending hope to the continued evolution of our species are our language and communication abilities. Jane Goodall points out that this gives us the unique ability to evolve culturally […] With language we can discuss the past, the present, and the future [and together] build collective wisdom.

(Redwire Magazine, November 2005).