Member-only story
Forget What You Think You Know About Changing the World
Today I walked into one of my classes to find a woman I had never seen before standing at the front of the room. She was talking with my professor, and the level of her voice told me that she had something to say. Something she wasn’t afraid to say. Her confidence was apparent within moments of entering the room. She had the piercing presence that effortlessly attracted the attention of everyone around.
When everyone (all six of us) came into the classroom, my professor introduced her as the founder of a project known as “Rainforest Flow.” We had watched a video about this project during the previous class.
Her name is Nancy. An older woman from Connecticut. A fashion photographer in LA and New York City.
She’s photographed Tyra Banks. Cameron Diaz. Anthony Hopkins.
She began talking about how in her late-thirties, after becoming a successful photographer, she wanted something more out of life. She wanted to search for inner truth. She came to Peru to find a shaman deep within the rainforest. Along her journey there, she talked with the local indigenous people. She asked them what they wanted most in their communities, and the response that was repeated again and again was WATER. Clean water.
