You are looking at the legacy of a true non-profit organization – now available for FREE anywhere that a caring educator puts their heart and soul into mastering and presenting this content. In 2007 I, the founder, needed to retire – unexpectedly. The 501c3 board members at that time each also soon had significant life or family crises that pushed program DVD and full kit roll-out ever onto the back burner.

Fortunately, this content had made it to a DVD + CD archive that was extracted this spring and posted in this globally accessible format. Take a look through the Testimonials or the Training Videos and see the value that can be shared with your students. Become practiced at presenting this, then see how students respond to Conflict Resolution Training and Peer to Peer support in developing Leadership Skills – the reality will hook you. The look of understanding from the students will be your incentive to master this program ever more.

Between teaching in the Peace Corps and the 1WOW.org program was over a decade of providing business scenarios and plans via FORTRAN and IFPS computer modeling. This newsletter story image introduces the odyssey that began my metamorphosis back into teaching. The home page photos and most of the program slides were shot during these trips over 2-months in 1986. By 1990 the story telling had become an integrated program set to music.

National tours kept me busy, but rarely met the costs of 3 month long road trips. Personal funding was and remained from part time and seasonal jobs. By the spring of 1997 a board decision (incorporated as a 501c3 in 1996) restricted the outreach to Southern California. Could everything be digitized and have presenters in different regions of the country? Was a boxed kit with hoops and card supplies possible? Without much to budget either the software of the hardware to scan, and rebuild the Audio/ Visual content and working seasonal and or part time jobs to allow freedom to present locally, it took years to produce then what accessible software and newer computers can now produce handily. The first digital presentations began in 2001 and allowed accepting a trip to Ireland to demonstrate at key schools there. Digital yes, put not a time sequenced video until 2003… and STILL in need of a Train the Trainer video -now embedded in this site as the video links. What you see was shot in early 2004, and entailed many months of editing work after full days in my final and full time job – as a Peace Corps Recruiter.

Now a decade has passed, the 501c3 has folded, but I’m able to resume the role of website custodian. To the extent that I can assist part-time and remotely as a retiree, I will use the blog and suggestions pages to interact and support your efforts to share this content with students. I’ve also chosen to add a topic called “Conflict Trigger Issues” to the prior supplemental material = Suggestions to and from Teachers. As a retiree, trained as a chemist, with access to research, I’ve acquired an in-depth awareness of not only the population issues I’ve seen since the early 90s, but also of FOOD, ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE. The data and trends promise the future will not be able to return to the expansion of the late 20th Century. Now married and instantly a father/ uncle/ grandfather… the computer models and sheer logic of what lies ahead is troubling. Leadership and conflict resolution skills are rare on our national stage, but we need them more and more.

GOOD NEWS, this program content works AND it DOES NOT rest on the quality of individual images, or any several of the bells and whistles. It succeeds by the mosaic of human empathy established by the whole… getting students prepared to listen and apply the classroom lessons far more than they otherwise would do. The material IS very sufficient for that use, and the next step is yours … will you look deeper? Will you give it a go?

Sincerely,

Rudy Sovinee