Smile & Keep Going, id est Work & Music

While being transported by some funky hip-hop musical mix ( and some good old times of Daft Punk mix) I think of all the choices I made in my life and how many more I would need to make….en attendant le vrai Amour, waiting for the True Love, I still enjoy the company of my colleagues-friends, I want to see them, work with them, do good things for children and the mothers of Madagascar….preparing next trip tomorrow for Social and Behavior Change Communication and Nutrition Education….

The goal of social and behavioral change communication is to influence and trigger desired changes in behavior, social norms and policies in a sustainable manner. At individual level, change is facilitated through Knowledge, Motivation and Feasible Behavior Changes, using channels and themes that are aligned with dialogue groups’ needs and preferences. At a social level, shifts in social, cultural and gender norms, skills, physical and economic access, legislation that contribute to an enabling environment, and participation and engagement are targeted.

In Madagascar, dialogue groups, community gatherings, word-of-mouth and interpersonal communication with trusted people are still the most important and widely used form of communication and spreading of information. Radio is used, but coverage is low. Strategies can be , for instance, to organize community meetings, public debates, storytelling sessions with positive messages and actions for positive change in behaviors, on nutrition practices and gender equality.

The Future is in our hands, and we are in a position to change ce que ne marche pas – the things that do not work, fixing and adjusting things: the collective power to design campaigns, fighting for a better future and the deep desire to improve the quality of our lives. Dance and concerts, theatrical pieces, mobile cinema units screening short movies and debates around them, sporting events and competitions where messages are conveyed before and after the games and at halftime, road soap operas, games organized at community events to convey key messages and engage with community; billboards, wall paintings, cartoon strips for distribution and mobile technology approaches (SMS, video clips shared via facebook and social media, mobile apps….and understand how people use them)!

and, in between missions, traveling and work writings and photos, a pit stop at the BEST bookstore in the capital of Madagascar is MANDATORY to recharge batteries and restart with beautiful new stories! 🙂

“Oh, trouve-moi

Je serai dans ce bleu

Entre le ciel et la mer

où se concentre désormais le temps

et nous sommes l’éternité

qui s’écoule comme la rivière”

@Mille Feuilles Librairie Café in Antananarivo, Facebook page here

Collective Commitment, Meritocracy & Solidarity, Unity & Openness to Others

Good morning & Good Sunday to all!

Today I am sharing some thoughts on authenticity instead of personal power, hard work, women togetherness & common objectives to reach equality.

To understand life and do good to humanity, to reach social justice, gender equality and eradicate extreme poverty, the work of many is the key to success. Women together is always a good idea.

A woman values the help of others, and when she reaches success ( which is a constant set of good actions, objectives reached, joint work and tangible results that can be cascaded to help others) she is never alone. And she says it: “You inspired me. You made me believe in what I was doing. I am grateful you have been here all the way”. Individual Success is a step that leads to a Joint-Success, success that can be celebrated in Teams, Together, to motivate one another to do better and to continue working together, strengthening professional and social bonds that lead to greater satisfaction and willingess to contribute to a higher cause.

Stronger Together (c)Pinterest.com

 

Women also never forget. They are together, and they understand the past, they value the good path of good people accompanying them, and they cherish it. Emotions can never be erased. This is what a woman’s sixth sense is all about: she senses it, she feels it, she understands the dynamics, she is a risk taker if she evaluates the consequences of potential actions, because she feels the shared-responsibility of being in the planet, not by herself, but with others. She understands that if she takes any steps, she is sure other people will be involved, and will positively/negatively be influenced/impacted/affected by her decisions. She understands more the totality and the holistic view of “sharing the same planet”, hence at work, she consults, asks questions, evaluates before making any decision, because- at the essence of her heart- there is always a desire to rejoice Together and cherish the good life and good work path in a positive and emotionally-peaceful and smiley way (it is when the heart feels at peace, and the body is completely connected to the heart, hence the mind is calm and is able to project wonderful thoughts about unity, solidarity, openness and sharing happiness and love). There is a need for that in the planet, and women can infuse it. They go through many changes of their bodies and emotional whirlwinds, hence they need to understand themselves first (and all these changes happening) to be able to live well in the world, with others.

Humans’ emotions – faces- (c)Pinterest.com

 

Lastly, they value networks. Women’s network of support, relying on other women for talking, sharing, feeling less alone and understanding that we are not alone, that many other women are going through the same emotional-healing-work.related- process of understanding and giving good answers. Working for the well-being and for the improvement of lives of other people and populations means understanding that (a) You are not the first one who is trying in the attempt – value and respect history-  (b) you need to understand how you can advance the cause, going the extra mile vis-à-vis of what had been done before (c) creatively think of ways of improvement of the current state of the art (d) work together for better ideas and for advancing humanity together (e) take best practices and real examples from everyday life, connection to reality is always the best idea to create new ideas.

Some songs for a cheerful Sunday!

A higher place– Soundtrack Begin Again

Coming up roses– Soundtrack Begin Again

Gente di mare– Raf & Umberto Tozzi during the Italian Music Festival 2019 (5 to 9 February 2019)

Luce– Elisa

@GaiaParadiso

 

Featured image: https://www.pinterest.it/pin/420594052698436785/ (c) Pinterest.com 

 

 

Community Matters

Dear Lighthouse Passionate Readers, 

I have not been writing on the blog lately, traveling life, music  & reading. Life is Eastern Africa is slow and fast at the same time, or perhaps it is my Time perception that has considerably changed, and now I see more of the Human element of the Life Journey (life Safari, or roller-coaster), and I pay more attention to emotions, conversations, sharing of ideas, negotiating for that win-win situation where everyone can benefit from the situation and not get hurt (very fine line, trust me). For this reason, for the Italian-speaking readers, I am suggesting this downloadable book “Before speaking, Shut up” by Italian diplomat Vittorio Amedeo Farinelli. He served as Ambassador in Managua (1976-79), Kinshasa (1984-87), Teheran (1987-92) and Budapest (1992-95). His book is a Manual for International Negotiations, where he basically explains that everything, from marriage to work, is a negotiation. According to him, the negotiation revolves around 4 main pillars, based on meritocracy: it is about People, and it involves Understanding, Emotions, Communications & Common Interests. It is full of good anecdotes, and it is a good learning tool to apply to our lives.

However, please do not apply every single element to your Life! Life should be also pure emotions, unconditional love, fun and not reasoning and calculated negotiations all the time! ( it is also a note to myself, not to think about work all the time, plan meetings, write, do social media and media relations, to increase results and deliverables!).

People’s Relations is the most difficult but also the most amazing thing that can happen to life. We learn to understand better, to listen better, to agree better. All is possible if we patiently love and wait. Not pushing, just loving for the fact of loving, Love is about a Smile, unexplainable good vibes and energies and chemistry. My philosophy now is just a song, in pills: If it is meant to be, it will be! No worries, Hakuna Matata, Just Let it Be 🙂 Listen to this wondrous song: Meant to Be

Enjoy the ride with your girls…

listen and dance to the music!

Gira– David Otero

We won’t stop– Miley Cyrus

Amasijo de Huesos– Sidecars

I want it all– Queen

Finesse– Bruno Mars

Man in the Mirror– Michael Jackson

Closer– The Chainsmokers

Love me like that– The Knocks

El No soy yo– Blas Cantò

Flames– David Guetta & Sia

Hakuna Matata!

Ciao!

@GaiaParadiso

What is True Love?

The other day my dad suggested me the reading of Labor of Love, a book by Moira Weigel on the history of dating and the evolution of it. Interestingly enough, as the author tells in The Stranger, the term “have a date” or “make a date” comes from the practice of writing down someone’s name in your calendar or datebook.

The idea of my dad comes from a sad history of long-distance breakup and the desire to help out with tips and scientific research about it. Learning , as he always says, is the first step of improvement and development.

As explorer of the world and of human relations, I got hooked up with the topic: I think one of the deepest one in our lifetime, that drives work, relations and definitely the enabler of life happenings.

First of all, I got so impressed by the amount of songs that speak about love. Think about Whitney Houston, Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion, the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Nat King Cole, Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder and many others singers and music composers in the history of all genres of music ( even hard rock, singing as a reaction of anger from a lost love); Movies: how many of you have cried by watching Titanic? Or have identified in the characters of When Harry met Sally? or have watched at least a couple of times Gone with the Wind with your mothers? Not talking about the several romantic movie scenes of Love Actually…or ever felt the possibility to blank the mind and start from zero in love as the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? or ever taken off with a plane to go somewhere and find yourself again after a broken heart, like in Eat Pray Love? How many of men have ever thought of taking the role of the character in What Women want or ever wanted to be the classy and gentleman man of Pretty Woman? How many women have ever wanted to dance like the characters in Grease and listen to the music in the headphones in La Boum and magically fall in love….. or dream of a perfect dreaming love as in the Notebook?

Some examples are these and many more. Everything in this universe speaks about love, from songs and movies, from books to human stories, until the very words of people while interacting with one another. Many human and violent tragedies are happening in the world as well, spurred by hatred on the other hand, negative feelings of non-acceptance, not-belonging to a community and rejection of oneself and non-acceptance of “the other”, the newcomer, rejection of news, unwillingness to put yourself in the shoes of others, of learning about other cultures, other ways of thinking, other behaviors and other traditions & customs, other religions and other languages- which tell a lot about people and the way they act. Physical and verbal violence is often the reflection of the friction and the block to opening up to the world’s constant changes. Rigidity kills; being dynamic and flexible on the other way always pays back.

Yesterday a friend of mine and I were discussing about the meaning of true love and the passing of time. He was (wisely) telling me that Love with capital L, the one we hear on the radio through the voices and the lyrics of songs, is just the beginning of a long journey: It can (and hopefully) start with a big bang in the heart, an explosion of sparks and infatuation. However, the true barometer to understand if it is really and profoundly true is the holding on to it, through the passing of time, and the nurturing of it, through all the years, like flowers that regularly need water to grow and blossom. It is a shared path, where persistence, determination and time play a major role. It is not a matter of an instahappiness or instaphotograph, or a constant messaging on whatsapp. It is a living story where two people are involved. A story where the two need mutual support and encouragement to keep their passions, share them with the loved one and then, create another story, a shared-one, together. A story able to elevate both to be, as he said, “the best part of themselves”.

On these first thoughts and to kick-off of the conversation, I leave you with a great jamming by Dave Matthews Band, including beautiful “The Space between us” and “Two Step”, here the Youtube Mix while writing this blog post, and stunning pictures that show, to me ( and I hope they speak to you too) the meaning of “watering and nurturing love like flowers”, the ups and downs of love, like the waves of the ocean, and the passing of time and the patience to wait like when you go sit on a bench and wait for the right moment to stand up and go, or, you patiently wait for your love to come sit next to you, with a peaceful and calm heart.

Lots of Love and enjoy the start of a sunny summery new June week! 🙂

Gaia

 

 

 

El avellano y los elefantes Africanos

Esta noche he estado con un amigo contandole las ultimas noticias de la rara y extraordinaria historia de mi vida. Compartiendo chocolate con avellanas y poleo verde en el maravilloso Circulo de Bellas Artes de Madrid- un edificio arquitectonico que nació en1919- y que huespeda un ciclo interminable de increibles exposiciones, un circulo de jazz, un cinema, una libreria ( Libreria Antonio Machado que aconsejo para hacer compras- buena manera de utilizar el dinero que tenemos), fiestas literarias y espectáculos teatrales- empezamos a imaginar la nueva vida en Africa, acordandonos de la pelicula con Robert Redford Out of Africa.

Empezé a soñar con mis elefantes, y analizamos el collar que siempre tengo en mi cuello: un elefante- con las orejas grandes- africano entonces! ( el elefante asiatico tiene las orejas pequeñas, nuevo aprendizaje) que me ha estado acompañando durante algunos años que mi tio me regalió cuando era una bambina. 

Luego nuestras conversaciones giraron entorno a la naturaleza, a los animales, y vi brillar sus ojos, la libertad, el contacto entre los humanos y el clima, el ambiente que nos rodea. Me encantó el ver como nosotros, personas humanas, nos emocionamos y brillamos, estamos bien cuando estamos cerca de la naturelza, del mar, de los animales, de los arboles, del verde, de parques, de areas verdes, de montañas…..

Y cerca de avellanas y de los arboles avellanos, que producen frutos con los que se pueden saborear ricas chocolates…

Algunas canciones en la lectura 🙂

Four to the Floor– Stairsailor

Reality– Lost frequencies

Maybe tomorrow– Stereophonics

Say it once- Ultra

Mike Stern Band

Hello-Adele

One two three– Hooverphonic

MAP – Mezquida / Aurignac / Prats 

Cuatro elementos– Musicalité

What you know– Two Door Cinema Club

Me acordé de ti– Fito & Fitipaldis

Adore- Jasmine Thompson

Chemicals– Tiësto & Don Diablo 

Ciao de vuestra viajera y nuevas historias llegaran con el Diario de bordo de Africa!