Theresa Two Bulls
Theresa B. "Huck" Two Bulls is an attorney, prosecutor and politician in the United States and the Oglala Sioux Tribe. In 2004 she was elected as Democratic member of the South Dakota Senate, representing the 27th district, the first American Indian woman to be elected to the state legislature. She served until 2008. That year she was elected president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation, the second woman to serve in this position, and had one two-year term. In elective office, Two Bulls has particularly worked to develop stronger relationships between tribal and local and state governments. She also served on a United States Department of Justice task force to develop guidelines for and implementation of a study to reduce violence against Indian women.
Milo Yellowhair
Milo Yellowhair is a fullblood Oglala Lakota Sioux and a well-known Native American who is an activist, historian, filmmaker and former tribal vice-president. For nearly four decades, Milo has dedicated his life as an advocate for political justice, social change and environmental preservation and has traveled the world informing and educating other cultures about Native American history and customs. On Pine Ridge, he assists families and youth with the organization of over 200 community-based gardens, and has been involved with advocacy efforts against the contamination of local aquifers from uranium mining in the Black Hills, which studies suggest are contributing to health issues on the reservation. Milo has also been involved in film productions including the narration of the PBS documentary The Spirit of Crazy Horse, which presents the Sioux struggle of the last 100 years from the context of Lakota culture.
Loretta Afraid Of Bear Cook
Loretta Afraid-of- Bear is the faith-keeper and holder of the Afraid of Bear/ American Horse Sundance Pipe. Fluent in Lakota, she serves as Cultural Specialist, the only one who speaks both languages perfectly on the board of He'Sapa Reparations Alliance -- Black Hills Reparation. Loretta carries an enormous mission: gathering and presenting to the Obama White House a consensus on the future of the Black Hills. Loretta has that consensus: "The Black Hills are not for sale. We want all the unseated lands in the Black Hills back, returned to the 9 tribes." Loretta Afraid-of-Bear and her husband, Tom Cook, together with their people, are sponsors of the Sundance in the Black Hills. On a shoestring, they accomplish great work. With Running Strong for American Indian Youth, Tom enables food security: they put in gardens: 462 last year. They also continue to lead a successful fight against a uranium mine. For 5 years they've held off this disastrous, water-poisoning proposal. Loretta's mother, Beatrice Long Visitor, sits on the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers.
Jyoti
Jyoti is an internationally renowned spiritual advisor with a PhD in Transpersonal Psychology including two-and-a-half years of postgraduate study at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. She is one of the founders of Kayumari, a spiritual healing community, located in the Sierra foothills of California, the North Bay of San Francisco, New York, Prague and a home in the Brazilian Amazon. She is the Spiritual Director of the Center for Sacred Studies, a 501(c)3 dedicated to sustaining ways of life based on collaboration and reciprocity with the Earth and all Her beings.(www.sacredstudies.org) She has devoted her life to bringing unity to the planet by facilitating the development of alliances between individuals who are the guardians of indigenous culture and traditional medicine ways. Through this work collaborative relationships with organizations that are focused on economic, social and environmental solutions have developed, creatively addressing the global challenges of our times.
Peter Yarrow
As a member of the renowned musical trio, Peter Yarrow of Peter Paul and Mary sang at the civil rights movement's historic 1963 March On Washington led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March. During the Vietnam War he produced peace concerts at Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium, and co-organized the famous 1969 anti-war March on Washington attended by a half-million people. Over a career of more than 50 years, Peter Yarrow has been an advocate in the arenas of human rights, peace, the environment, gender equality, homelessness, hospice care, public broadcasting, education and more. In 1999, Peter launched the educational non-profit, Operation Respect: “Don’t Laugh At Me,” that uses highly effective social/emotional learning curricula infused with music as a transformative tool for creating a bully-free school environment, now utilized in an estimated 22,000 schools across America and in countries as diverse as Croatia, Ukraine, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Hong Kong, and South Africa. Peter's gift for songwriting gave Peter Paul and Mary some of it’s most poignant songs including “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” “Day is Done,” “Light One Candle,” and “The Great Mandala".
Suzanne Hunt
Suzanne Hunt founded Hunt Green LLC, in 2007 in Washington DC, which provides strategic advising on transportation, energy, agriculture, and the environment. She is also a Senior Advisor to the Carbon War Room where she leads their work on aviation and renewable fuels and recently launchedwww.RenewableJetFuels.org. Suzanne designed an alternative aviation fuels competition for XPRIZE in 2011 and recently worked on a new prize, which has not yet been announced publicly. Her other former clients include private equity firms, UN bodies, government agencies, clean tech start-ups, fortune 500 companies, NGOs, and other innovators. In 2007, Science Magazine featured Ms. Hunt as a “Pioneer”. She directed the Worldwatch Institute’s bioenergy program from 2005–2007, where she orchestrated the landmark research initiative and resulting book, “Biofuels for Transportation: Global Potential and Implications for Energy and Agriculture.” She was a founding advisor to the annual Art Center Sustainable Mobility Summit and the Climate Lab. Currently she sits on the advisory boards of the Latin American Council on Renewable Energy and the Regional Biofuels Technical & Knowledge Center (CHIBAS) in Haiti. Suzanne is engaged with the ongoing implementation of sustainability practices at her family’s 7th generation farm and winery, Hunt Country Vineyards, in upstate New York. She holds a BS in Environmental Science from Penn State and master’s degrees in International Affairs and Natural Resource Management from American University and the UN’s University for Peace in Costa Rica. Ms. Hunt makes frequent speeches and media appearances around the world. She is also a singer/songwriter. You can find her on Linked In and follow her on Twitter @HuntGreen.
Bethany Yarrow & Rufus Cappadocia
Bethany Yarrow and Rufus Cappadocia are a critically acclaimed world roots duo who have been involved in many social justice, environmental and water issues -- leading songs at many marches, rallies, and demonstrations over the years. Deeply influenced by prayer and ceremonial music, they perform around the world, reaching into people's hearts with their music to dissolve prejudices and create a common humanity through song. Bethany is also the daughter of Peter Yarrow and has been performing with him at concerts and events since she was 8 years old.
David Braun
David Braun has been working to stop fracking for a number of years and is the President and co-founder of United for Action and the lead organizer for New Yorkers Against Fracking, a statewide coalition for a ban. Previously, he was the grassroots coordinator for the film, Gasland, and designed the outreach plan for soon to be released new installment, Gasland 2. Previously, he was an organizer for MoveOn and has worked on numerous social, environmental and economic justice campaigns.
Libero Antonio Di Zinno
Art Center College of Design adjunct professor and Los Angeles based photographer / documentary film maker, Libero Antonio Di Zinno, was introduced to the world of working with Non-profit foundations through co-teaching a prototypical ACCD class based on the UN’s MDG’s [millennium development goals]. Subsequently, the instructors of this class were invited to be part of the team to share the best of their students work in New York City at the United Nations 5th annual NGO conference. Orientation as a concerned photographer included meeting and working with the founding member photographers of the illustrious VII and Magnum photo agencies providing further tuition to his own personal body of work in aftermath with Sara Terry on "War Is Only Half the Story". Since early 2008, he has been a advisory board member at large for Mountain to Mountain, contributing his own images from Tibet, Nepal and Afghanistan to M2M’s group photo exhibits including the most recent Streets of Afghanistan book project amongst others.
Wes Gillingham
Wes Gillingham is a co-founder and the Program Director of Catskill Mountainkeeper, an environmental advocacy organization dedicated to protecting the Catskill Region in New York State. Wes serves on the New York Sate Forest Preserve Advisory Committee providing advice and guidance to the State Department of Environmental Conservation, which manages the 3.4 million acres of the State Forest Preserve. He is on the board of Directors for the Sullivan County Farm Bureau and the legislative policy committee for The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY). From 1997 to 2007 Wes with his wife Amy ran a 150 member Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) vegetable operation in Youngsville, NY and during that time he also served on the Board of Directors of NOFA-NY. Prior to farming Wes was an Acting Director of Field Programs for the National Audubon Society Expedition Institute (AEI), a fully accredited, traveling undergraduate and graduate environmental studies program at Lesley University. Wes spent ten years working as a Park Ranger for the National Park Service at the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River where he lead the canoe training for incoming Park Rangers, lead interpretive history and natural history programs, and did canoe patrols along the river. For two years he was a wildlife technician for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s 3 offices in New Paltz, NY. Wes and Amy are raising their two children on land in the Catskills that has been in his family for 55 years along with their Scottish Highland Cattle, Icelandic and Scottish Blackface Sheep.