When we dwell on solutions instead of problems, we make positive progress. As an avid walker and writer, I created my magical Story Walking practice to help young people find their true life path, which usually involves confronting problems and exploring solutions for those problems. As we step into Story Walking, I plan to cover a lot of ground with regards to identifying solutions. We are living within a world filled with problems. We want to know what we can do, individually and collectively, to make our precious world a better place. John Lennon once said, “There are no problems, only solutions.” Story Walking is about stepping out of the box to find solutions. Imagine the box created by an indoor classroom, an office or a house. If we want to help the world, we need to get up from our seats, out of our boxes and into the real world to truly understand the problems. Only then can we begin to explore real world solutions. One problem is health care costs. And second problem is poverty. These problems are connected. Poverty is caused by inequities in health, education and food access. An underlying cause of the inequities is illiteracy. In our second segment today, Gail Ahlers will be speaking with us about these issues. Gail is an artist, a child educator, and an Ambassador for Joy. Her non-profit, The Empowerment Factory, is situated in an old mill in the middle of an impoverished area that is undergoing revitalization. Gail’s organization provides children with the skills they need to lead happier, healthier, more empowered lives. The Empowerment Factory’s programs make learning fun, by blending literacy with art, urban-based environmental learning and community engagement. A highly creative and dynamic thinker, Gail will be sharing some of her organization’s ideas for solutions. https://www.theempowermentfactory.org http://gailahlers.com/
In the third segment, I will take you Story Walking along the shore, and we will talk about beach clean-ups and other solutions for cleaning up the mess in our oceans. We will be covering a lot of ground.
