Culture and Identity

There is a unique opportunity to improve people's awareness of their own culture, strengthening their identity and valuation of themselves and their communities in a non-discriminating way. Through equal access to both local and global content and culture in different places and enabling communication and interaction among such experiences, people's identity could be built at the same time as their appreciation and acceptance of other cultures and values, thus promoting a true global culture of tolerance enhanced and enriched by local values and elements.

TAVOS Media Network is a trail-blazing venture based in Palo Alto, California, that empowers people in underserved communities around the world through local media services. Our vision is to build a global network of local media microfranchises to give voice and promote the life and prosperity of every community.

Harrasment? Fear? Mistrust? Political populism? Well, the meaning has become so complex with all the distortions and prejudices created by our political affairs, social disconnectedness, and their consequential mistrust and fears, that a kiss is not a kiss anymore.  Where did we leave compassion? love? solidarity? gratefulness? human empathy?

First, I would like to express my sorrow for what you are going through. You both feel hurt. I am sorry for your families in pain. My condolences and thoughts are with you.

I have been engaged reading the stories, looking at the heart-breaking images, reading the discussions in online fora, news media and blogs. Some people justify war in the name of honor, faith or national pride and interests. I respect their position. However, in my core, I cannot justify war.

I believe that life is our utmost precious right and our source of joy. The life of a Lebanese or an Israeli girl could be the life of my children. For me, every girl counts. Every life is sacred. I cannot justify the stabbing of any single life.

In the previous times of history, signed by the lack of understanding and means of communications, many were the myths, many the misunderstandings, many the misconceptions, many the fears of the unknown. War was a human reaction to secure the life of the closest ones.

These days, nobody writes letters anymore. With Internet and telecommunication technologies, we have emails, IMs, and better yet, my folks in China are mostly writing SMS on mobile phones.

My dad in China, unaffected by whatever the technology, still wants to write letters to me. I would send him the pre-printed address labels so he doesn’t have to struggle to write my address in English on the envelope. Each time, I would remind him: “remember to put your own address on the upper left corner and put my address on the lower right corner of the envelope. This is the American way.”

In TiE Women's Leadership Forum, Rayona Sharpnak, founder and president of Institute for Women's Leadership, brought together three panelists from industry to share with a roomful of women their successful stories as female leaders, and discuss the topics that are mostly of concern by women in their career.

When I first came to the United States, in a social event, someone asked me:

“What’s your name?”

“Helen,” I answered.

She looked at me ambiguously…. Obviously, I am not a blond, I don’t have blue eyes, and I probably spoke English with an accent. Then she asked again:

My mentor for RDVP, Allen Long, has suggested I make a list of the things I can be doing at Stanford and those I could be doing in Rio for assessing where I should be for the remainder of the program. This is mostly brainstorming, but any opinions/suggestions are welcome.

After reassessing the project with insight from my trip to Brazil, I have had to change the deliverables and their dates.  Here they are:

Having spent Thanksgiving break in Rio working at Projeto Uerê, I am reporting back on some minor changes to the project.  Overall it was a great success and despite the dire situation of many of the children, I was inspired and deeply moved by the work Yvonne and everyone at the school are doing to give the children a chance in life.