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We met with M.C. Mehta the morning we caught a flight to Chennai. M.C. Mehta is a remarkable individual whose life and work has impacted millions in India and around the world. He has fought more cases against the Indian supreme courts than any environmental lawyer in the world. It is because of his work that Delhi has the largest green fuel based transport system in the world with buses and rickshaws running on CNG and other clean-burning fuels. He forced the closure of hundreds of factories around India whose pollution was destroying local ecosystems and national monuments like the Taj Mahal. He fought for the rights of all Indians to have clean drinking water and argued that learning to care for the environment should be part of all children's compulsory education. You can watch some clips from our interview with him here.

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We arrived at Cuenca's largest cathedral on the main plaza before 9 a.m. where we were going to film mass with Alberto Luna, the former Archbishop of Cuenca. Having never attended a mass before I wasn't sure what to expect but tried to be inconspicuous standing behind the camera about 100 feet from the alter. The mass lasted for about thirty minutes with Denise darting in and out of the pews getting shots and close ups of the Archbishop.

After the mass we waited until Alberto Luna was ready and then set up for the interview in the cathedral near the altar with him seated on a pew. Alberto Luna was until his recent retirement the Archbishop of Cuenca, one of the largest cities in Southern Ecuador. He still holds mass daily in the cathedral and his services are always packed (today's was no exception), a sign of his popularity with the people here. In addition to being a much loved and respected figure, Alberto Luna is also controversial because of his stance on the importance of working with the poor and issues with the church’s support of class structure.

After the interview, we kindly thanked Alberto Luna for his time and spent a few more hours filming b-roll in and around the church. Tomorrow we leave Cuenca and head for the jungle, a full days journey by plane and ca ...Read more

Nothing like two hours sleep, a plane ride and three hours on a bad dirt road to start the day! I'm making it sound worse than it is...it was a beautiful drive!

 Our plane arrived in Cuenca at 7:30 a.m. and we were soon on the road to Saraguro with our guide Marcella and driver Gustavo. It's a two to three hour drive to Saraguro, the district where we would meet Don Alberto Taxo in his small village of Membrilla. The more I see of the countryside in Ecuador the more I am struck by its beauty and diversity. The landscape and vegetation change so quickly as you climb higher in the mountains where the land becomes dry and the population sparse. After climbing to 13,000 feet we began to descend toward the town of Saraguro, and made our way along the very bumpy, winding road to Membrilla.



Membrilla is a small village of around one hundred families set on the slopes of high mountains of Saraguro. As we drove through the village we passed people working in the fields, sitting on front steps listening to music and women washing clothes by the roadside. The indigenous Quicha people of this area all wear black, mourning the death of Atahualpa, the Incan king who was killed by Francisco Pizarro five hundred years ago. The women wear long skirts and the men short pants cut off below the knee. It was quiet and peaceful here and the pace felt even slower than in Agua Longo, the village of Maria Juana. We pulled up in front of a simple house with a young boy covered in mud rinsing himself with a bucket of water in the front garden. 



Our guide went in to announce our arrival and returned to tell us that Don Alberto was out with his young daughter but would be back soon. We were invited in and offered some jugo de naranjilla (juice of a local fruit) and directed to a couple of small rooms where we could rest. An hour or so later, refreshed from our journey, we emerged to find Don Alberto Taxo and his young daughter walking down the steps towards us. Don Alberto is a striking figure, handsome with long hair and a white beard and a look of deep peace and contentment on his face. He welcomed us to his home and invited us to come and have some lunch that his wife had prepared for us. Don Alberto and his family are vegetarian, which is very rare here, and they grow the majority of the food they eat themselves. His wife had prepared a delicious lunch of traditional soup, potatoes, cheese, corn and bread, all of which were delicious. As we ate we talked to Don Alberto about the project and why we had come to interview him. Don listened intently occasionally nodding and asking a question or clarification. He said he found our project very interesting and that he was very happy to participate and share with us, and we found a nice spot in the field next to his house and set up for the interview.

Don Alberto has five children of his own, and many other adopted, who by this time were all checking out the cameras and running around making mischief. After a while they settled down and gathered around Denise, Marcella (our guide and translator) and me to watch their father. Don Alberto began by explaining to us his role as a shaman was to be of service to those in need and carry on the traditions and wisdom of his ancestors. He said that now his ancestors were asking him to help fulfill a five hundred year old prophecy of the eagle and the condor. Don Alberto explained that the Eagle is the symbol for North America and the technological powers and skills it has mastered and that the condor is the symbol of South America and the understanding and respect it has for Pachamama (mother earth). At this time in the history of humanity the eagle and the condor must unite and share the knowledge that each society and culture has in order for the world to survive. He stressed repeatedly that neither culture is superior to the other -- the relationship is one of mutual need. Don Alberto also stressed that as a result of the way the earth was being treated, Pachamama was angry and was going to react until humanity understands that they cannot continue to treat her as something separate. When I asked what was this reaction was going to be, Don Alberto said that the reaction has already begun, with the many natural disasters that the planet has experienced in the last few years. He warned that these disasters were just a taste of what was to come. He went on to say that humanity has been chasing the wrong dream for so long that it has forgotten why it is here, and that major changes were needed force it to wake up from the dream of consumerism and greed. When I inquired further about what these changes would be Don Alberto responded by saying that the centers of power would be destroyed so that a new set of systems could emerge that were no longer dominated by the greed that has contaminated the planet. With all his children running around the field and his two-year-old daughter in his arms (she had climbed into his lap half way through the interview) I asked him what his hopes and fears were for his children during this time of transition. With a smile he responded how grateful he was that his children would be able to witness such a great transformation and perhaps live in a different kind of world that had a new dream, a dream of oneness.



After the interview, Don Alberto walked with us around his home in the fields and up the winding roads through the village. We were walking and talking and filming him as he stopped to say hello to neighbors in this quiet mountain town. As we approached the village school we heard people shouting at us, 'Invaders, invaders!' and looking into the schoolyard, we saw a group of men (Don Alberto later told us they were the school teachers) drinking beer and shouting at us to stop filming. The schoolyard was next to the village center and it wasn't long before a crowd had gathered around us (Don Alberto, Denise, Marcella, and myself) telling us to go away and stop stealing their culture. Initially Marcella responded to the group of men gathered around us explaining that we were here with Don Alberto and we were not stealing their culture and were not filming anyone beside him. They did not believe this and before long things started to get out of hand, at which point Don Alberto stepped in and explained to the village men why we were here and that we were his guests here to film him and not anyone else in the village. The village men were furious that he had not consulted the community leaders about bringing outsiders into their community, saying that all outsiders bring is trouble, they take and take and take and then they come back and offer aid and assistance, but only on their terms. For five hundred years we have suffered at the hands of the white man and his ways, they said, why should we trust these people, they will only steal and harm us like everyone before them. Don Alberto listened to the men, responding to each of their concerns and issues in turn, for forty minutes. I think it was important for us to witness how much resentment and anger is still present among the indigenous people of Ecuador (and elsewhere around the world) for the way they have been treated these past five centuries. I can understand why these wounds are so deep and raw. They had no reason to believe we would be any different from the other foreign people and 'projects' that had come before us.

Don Alberto was obviously saddened by this exchange and as we walked back he said, 'The wounds are so deep. It is so hard for them to let go and move on, but we have to move on or else nothing will change.' 

We spent the next few hours with Don Alberto and his family as they shared food, stories, music and good company with us.

It was after 8 p.m. when we left for drive back to Cuenca. It was a long and bumpy ride back and we were happy to see our beds when we arrived.





 We had to be up early in the morning to film a mass at the main cathedral in Cuenca and an interview with the former Archbishop Alberto Luna

, a much beloved church figure who became controversial among the Catholic community for advocating rights for the poor. ...Read more

After a couple of hours of shooting the protests in Jantar Mantar we crossed the city of Delhi to an area called Sarita Vihar where we met with a truly inspiring man named Anshu Gupta. Anshu founded and runs an organization called Goonj whose work is an example of real ingenuity and service. Goonj provides clothes and other basic amenities to millions in the far-flung areas of India by turning one person’s waste into a resource for another. Goonj not only redistributes discarded clothing and other items to people in need around India, but takes what most would consider unusable materials and turns them into children’s notebooks, backpacks, school mats, sanitary napkins, rugs and many other things. Nothing goes to waste; every scrap is reused and made into something that can be of great use to another. Anshu walked us through the entire process, from the sorting and breaking down of cloth to the construction of new materials and final touches like sewing buttons. As he took us from room to room I became more and more moved by the conviction and selflessness the work Ashnu’s organization is doing. The model he developed is beginning to catch on with organizations in places as far away as Poland and Brazil.

These next few days should be quite different from Delhi as we enter the world of Tibetan Buddhism and meet with several Rinpoches and nuns including HH the Karmapa, Ven. Choegyal Rinpoche and Ani Tenzin Palmo.




More soon…

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

Director, Global ...Read more

On Monday we spent much of the day shooting b-roll in old Delhi before meeting Anupam Mishra, a Gandhian environmentalist and water rights activist. Although Anupam spoke some English, he preferred to speak to us in Hindi, which Sumaira Aslam (who is traveling with us) translated for us. Anupam spoke about many of the environmental issues now plaguing his country, including the privatization of water and the effects modern water harvesting techniques are having on the environment here. One of the things he said stands out, “If we can learn not to dismiss all the old and more harmonious ways of living and working with our environment perhaps things can start to change. Modern or industrialized doesn’t necessarily mean better.”

We left early Tuesday morning for the city of Agra, which is well known as the home of India’s most famous landmark, the Taj Mahal. The day before we had been able to connect with a very prominent environmental lawyer M.C. Mehta who has fought for years to close factories near India’s historical monuments whose pollution is damaging, and in some cases destroying them. We arranged to interview him the following week at his Eco Ashram on our return from Dharamsala but wanted to get some shots of the factories around the Taj Majal and of the Taj itself to use as b-roll before we met him. M.C. Mehta is also responsible for making all the auto rickshaws go green and run on clean fuel which has had a tremendous effect on pollution levels in Delhi. He should be an interesting interview!



Returning to Delhi late that evening we headed straight to see Medha Patkar whom we had arranged to meet for an interview. Medha was in Delhi for a protest called Action 2007 that focused on the issue of rural villagers and farmers being displaced form their homes due to the construction of the Narmada Dam in the Narmada Valley. Medha is respected and loved by millions of people in India and around the world as a champion for the rights of rural people. Medha was camped out with hundreds of others at Jantar Mantar, the section of Delhi where organized protests are usually held. Speeches, meetings and singing were still going on when we arrived and so we were asked if we could come back in the early morning for the interview. Arriving early the next morning we interviewed Medha and listened as she talked about the problems with the current paradigm. She spoke eloquently about the need to create a new paradigm where the rights of the rural people of India were respected and not destroyed by corpor ...Read more

It is the morning of our fifth day in India yet it seems like we have been here much longer than that. We are now driving from Delhi to Dharamsala, a twelve-hour drive up into the foothills of the Himalayas where we will be spending the next five days. As I write, the sounds of honking cars, buses, auto rickshaws and motorcycles fill the air as they fight for space on the crowded roads. At first all this motion seems quite chaotic, but then you start to see the hidden rhythm of it and it begins to make sense. The sheer number of people everywhere is eye opening, everything and everywhere is filled to the brim with men, women and children selling wares, traveling to work, eating the wonderful smelling street food and of course, talking on mobile phones.

Most of our arrangements have worked out so far and we have interviewed four out of five of our planned interviews. Our first day in Delhi we met with Nirmala Deshpande at the Gandhi Ashram, who by some very strange twist of fate was meeting with a group of students from Mount Madonna School (the high school I attended in California) when we arrived. It was very strange running into an old teacher of mine in Delhi -- what are the odds?

Nirmala Deshpande is a strong and lovely woman who has been a prominent Gandhian and peace activist for more than fifty years. Now in her seventies she is full of energy and hope. She spoke to us about how Gandhian values are needed in the world now more than ever. Her strong yet gentle voice was quite an inspiration to us as she described how simple it is to live and treat others from a place of peace and understanding. ...Read more

Choegyal Rinpoche warmly welcomed us to his monastery late Friday afternoon. Choegyal Rinpoche is a peaceful man, full of compassion, wisdom and a great sense of humor. Off-camera he spent some time showing us his paintings and talking about the importance of diversity with comments like 'If you only eat bananas, your stomach won’t like.'

Later that afternoon we met with Tenzin Lhadron, a lighthearted nun who shared her candid thoughts with us. The security was much more lax than earlier in the day at the Karmapa's monastery although a group of monkeys did attack the table we were sitting at after the interview having tea and biscuits.

Sunday morning we met with Geshe Kalsang Damdul la , the assistant director of the Buddhist dialectics institute. He was an articulate and intelligent man who talked about not only the Buddhist perspective on oneness but how current political and economic models can be impacted by seeing life as an interconnected whole.

Off to Tashi Jong tomorro ...Read more

Auroville is a truly unique place, unlike anywhere else I've ever been. It is both bizarre and wonderful, and filled with some real characters. Auroville is an international township with a core population of 2,000 people (it grows to 6,000 in the warmer months) from more than forty countries (a third are Indian) located just north of Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu. Founded in 1968 by followers of Sri Aurobindo and 'The Mother,' Auroville and its core community are committed to creating a new city based on the principles of human unity and oneness. The goal is to build an infrastructure so that the community can grow to support up to 50,000 people, a number large enough to force people to take note of what Auroville is doing and perhaps imitate its model. From its founding Auroville has been viewed by both outsiders and its own community as an experiment, a laboratory where all sorts of things are being tried and tested, from alternative energy and economic models to communication and education. It certainly felt like a large living laboratory, with ideas having the time, space, and support to flourish and fail alike.

When the first small group moved to Auroville in 1968 it was a large barren wasteland, the victim of deforestation and erosion. The surrounding villagers were poverty stricken, suffering from malnutrition and diseases with very little access to water. Faced with these very real physical challenges Aurovillians devoted much of the first few years to reforestation and erosion control. They developed windmill-powered wells to bring water to the parched soil and thirsty community. Seeing pictures of Auroville in the late 60’s and early 70’s, it seems hard to believe it is the same place. Lush tropical plants and trees now cover the ground, creating a micro-climate bringing the temperature down 4-5 degrees from Pondicherry which lies just a few kilometers to the south. The community here has planted more than a million trees here in the last 40 years, and as a result has become a leading figure in reforestation techniques that have caught on around India. Although water is still an issue and will continue to be one as the population increases, they have built enough wells to support the community and surrounding villagers for the time being. Auroville was also an early pioneer in solar energy use, and much of the electricity used here is generated by the solar panels that cover the rooftops and grounds throughout the community. Many homes are completely off the grid, generating enough energy to meet their own needs.

We met with many different members of the community, from schoolteachers and businessmen to gardeners and mothers, each offering their own experience as Aurovillians. They spoke of both the benefits of living in this unique community as well as the challenges it presents. All the people we spoke with had experienced many communication difficulties over the years with the 40+ nationalities in the community, but agreed that that these problems forced them to become more understanding, respectful and patient with their fellow community members. They said that these challenges are ongoing, but as long as they kept focused on the larger goal of the community they could make it through these problems.

The ideals and values of Auroville have attracted many people committed to developing practical solutions to problems in the world today. One person we met, a French man named Stephan, started a seed bank, collecting seeds of unmodified varieties of fruits and vegetables from around the world that he then distributes to farmers at no cost so that these unmodified varieties will not be lost to the now common genetically modified versions that agribusinesses have developed. Another man named Ramu, a native of the area working at the Auroville Center for Scientific Research, developed low cost toilets and water treatment units that are built in the community and are shipped and used around India helping with the sanitation problems. All the people we met said that the work they did all was grounded in the intention to serve humanity as a whole, and it was that intention that drives their creativity and innovations.

Although the ideas and methods developed in Auroville are impacting people around India and the world, it still felt as though Auroville is living in its own reality, quite separate from the world outside its borders. I do believe that this is not the intention of the community but a result of the intense focus on developing a new city and society that differs so much from the rest of India and the world. You can expect to see a short film about our time in Auroville in the coming months.

Emmanuel Vaughan ...Read more

We just left a small village in Niligris on the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu where we spent a few days with Emmanuel Sumitran Gnanamanickam and the Niligris-Wynaad Tribal Welfare Society, an NGO serving the tribal people in this region. At twenty-five Emmanuel is a young, motivated, and inspiring man who manages this organization along with a small, dedicated staff that provides basic health care needs to the four different tribal groups that populate this region. We spent our time visiting tribal villages, seeing the programs this NGO manages, and experiencing the amazing care Emmanuel and his staff offer to those in need.

See what Emmanuel had to say about the concept of a global village in the clip below, and look for a short film on Emmanuel and the work of the Niligris-Wynaad Tribal Welfare Society on our site soon. ...Read more

After each trip we go on I take some time to reflect upon the experiences we've had, the places we've gone and what has been shared with us during our travels from all the people we've met along the way. As I think about the month we spent traveling around India, and indeed our travels this past year one theme stands out: generosity.

The amount of generosity that has been shown to us by the people we have met during our travels these past months is not necessarily captured in the videos we produce. We have visited four continents and interviewed over 75 people from all different walks of life and facets of society. They spoke many languages, addressed many issues and offered a truly diverse perspective on the idea of seeing life as one interconnected, interdependent whole. Some offered skepticism and questions while others shared experiences, stories and calls for action. Regardless of their personal views, the amount of warmth and kindness we were shown while filming and traveling has been overwhelming. People offered not only their time, but they took us into their homes, fed us, housed us and most importantly, spoke to us about their lives, work and families. Many times I wish we had the camera rolling to capture the small things, the meals shared, the late night conversations, the 'behind the scenes' moments that aren't always caught on film.

Our last few days in India were particularly filled with generosity (see my last blog about our time in Ahmedabad). As guests of Manav Sadhna at the Gandhi Ashram, it seemed as if everyone we met went out of their way to make us feel welcome and at home. On our last day over lunch I was presented a parting gift from Jayeshbhai and the kids of Manav Sadhna. A couple of days before, Jayeshbhai had noticed the project's logo on my business card. He told me how he often uses seeds as a metaphor for the kids he works with, telling them that they will grow into great trees that will then send off many more seeds that have the power to change the future. At lunch I was presented with a bag made from recycled newspaper (another one of the amazing things that the kids of Manav Sadhna make) filled with four beautiful wall hangings on handmade paper (again from the kids) with our logo copied exactly by hand and seeds cut and glued onto the paper.

The time and effort that had gone into making these for us really got to me, and the thought behind it -- it wasn't just a thing, a gift for the sake of giving a gift -- it was much more. That's just one example of what people have given us again and again on our travels, much more than just an interview or a few words of wisdom or hope. They have shared their generosity with us and I hope we can, in turn, share it with you.

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee ...Read more