Peraska

I follow Michelle May on Twitter and occasionally read her blog. I have especially enjoyed Michelle's commentary and reporting in Iran. You can find some of her reporting on PBS her @meshelmay on Twitter and check her blog for video about her travels in Iran. This video of a series of interviews taken in 2010 in Zahedan is especially good. Zahedan is strategically located near the boarders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Based on such reports, human nature virally tends to label entire regions based on local conflicts producing regional and even global fear. However, the sentiment expressed in Michelle's video I find universal including when I was in Iran, in Europe, here, on the phone, on social media.

The fear that some have expressed to me within the past year, while I acknowledge your feelings and right to those perceptions, is truly unfounded. Unfortunately, I find that fear feeds on itself often to the point of being ridiculous – buying iodide tablets in Los Angeles to ward off the coming radiation for instance. Fear also causes us to miss the very real problems that are happening in the world and closer to home. Problems such as human trafficking, poverty, repression/exploitation of women and children happen too often in places like Iran, Middle East and Portland, OR. What is desperately need is to get rid ourselves of the fear.

We can do this by creating a Web of Trust an interconnected fabric that helps us form trusted communities -  with friends and colleagues at first perhaps. The communities grow outwardly to eventually include larger communities. It is within these communities we will profit from collective answers; answers that lead to action addressing real human problems and crushing any unfounded fear. What Michelle May does so wonderfully is go to these places to live and talk with the people, and in doing so, builds her own web of trust within these communities. And then by sharing her experiences with us openly through her community, (in this case, Twitter) we find answers that help us understand and dispel the fears. It give real hope to the potential of positive change is possible and happening now.

It is Sustainability Education Week,  November 8-12, 2010