Hey Ocean! Thank you so much for sharing your story. It is so moving, you have such a great attitude and outlook! Your example is something for young people to look up to! The world needs more like you. But that's what it's all about right? Making a difference and "turning the lights on" one person at a time. That's how we change the world. Keep sharing.

Wow. What an amazing, inspiring story. It sounds like you've had an incredible journey so far. I can only imagine what it was like growing up surrounded by the natural world and coming into your own with your dad and YES!'s success. It's such a crazy juxtaposition that's happened throughout the years. One of our Change Agents, Chris Nicola (changents.com/chrisnicola), dedicated his life to sharing stories about persecuted Jews. His story is pretty incredible, like yours. I love to hear you're helping make change from the bottom up by helping the leaders of tomorrow. Christopher Swain (changents.com/christopherswain) is trying the same approach, but for ocean health. He's reaching out to kids--similar kind of idea. Best of luck and thanks for sharing your story here! I look forward to following it closely.

Ocean: Funding is less of an issue if you know where to find it by defining what you are offering. but yes, we would need a female trainer. Ideally it would be great if we could develop a "train the trainer" program so we could continue to develop Jams. IF you could send me a proposal of your program that hilights issues on gender and sustainable development, that would be great: grow@backpackfarm.org Thank you for responding so quickly. Rachel

Hi Rachel, thank you so much for your comments and your good work! I did put more about what YES! does in there -- thanks for the tip. We do have a close ally named Salim Mohammed who is based in Kibera, outside Nairobi. Perhaps I could connect you with him? As far as a Jam in the region, unfortunately funding is what keeps us from bringing Jams everywhere people want them. We do have some great facilitators and if there are resources for travel and to actually out on the Jam, we can provide coaching and potentially send a trained facilitator to help (or perhaps Salim could help, though he is a man)... I hope that is of some help. Thank you for your good work! Ocean

Ocean: HI fellow change agent. I loved the story and thank you for sharing it. Could you include a little more about what YES actually does in your profile to help explain your work and what you plan to do next. I did a quick google search and found www.yesworld.org. I really wish you could come here to Kenya and help to mobilize youth leaders into an action against so many injustices including tribal and gender violence, malnutrition, corruption, sex trade and the list goes on. OR can you share information with us to run women's jam. I see you have done workshops on sustainable communities as well. My passion is focusing on women in rural farming becuase 7 out of 10 of them work in rural agriculture and produce 80% of the food. They are almost exclusviely single mothers. While women are my primary focus, my biggest risk factor when assessing a community to support a farming co-op is tribal boundaries, it could completely implode the project. We never planned to have a full time conflict resolution expert on staff, nor do I do think it would make much of a difference. This situation exists for the commercial farms as well if they want to invest in an out-grower scheme and employ more than one tribe. After the elections / tribal violencei n 2007, it has forced farms into tribal (racial) profiling even though they all suffer from the same economic hardships. It's like living in time warp. SO... thank you for the inspirational story of the Selma elections. YES, it is possible to contribute and change the world. I look forward to reading more about you and your work.