Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Update

I've been absent from this site for a while now - fortunately, for good reasons. First off, I was selected as a semi-finalist for the Echoing Green Fellowship. The fellowship grants $60,000 over 2 years to social entrepreneurs to launch their own non-profit. The application process has been an incredibly rigorous one, which has really helped me to chisel away all the excess bits and deliver a lean, focused proposal for TE KORU. Out of 950 original applicants, I was in the top 300 selected for Phase 2. By the end of March they'll have selected 30 to fly to NYC for interviews at the end of April. 20 finalists will be chosen to receive the grant. I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I've been throwing myself full-force into another project, with similar themes. Adventure Ecology is launching the Plastiki Expedition to raise awareness of ocean trash and stimulate a dialog on sustainable solutions. The 60 ft catamaran (made almost entirely of recycled plastics) will sail from San Francisco to Sydney this spring. Inspired by the boat building, adventure, and creativity, I've been spending all my free time down at the Pier helping with the construction.....and proposing ways of incorporating my own ideas on story-telling and cross-cultural communication into the Plastiki Expedition. We'll see what happens. For now, I'm enjoying seeing how an adventure-based organisation with philosophies and outlandish goals similar to my own runs when it's in full swing.