THE
TEAM
1000KALEMA
Competition
Morad al-Jarrah is a young engineer from the Middle East who, at an early age, knew how eloquent a photo could be. However, it was only after he initiated a small project called "I Spy With My Little Eye" that he realized the value of a photo. Although his pictures were taken with his mobile cam and were low in resolution, the rich substance of the photographs were making an impact. "1000KALEMA" was born to give people a license to spy on the beauty around them, on the amazingly harmonic fabric that has been connecting human beings with the nature around them. Morad offers this encouragement, "Sheddo al-Hemmeh," which means gather your strengths.
Barbara Hartford has served United Religions Initiative since 1997, managing start-up areas of the organization. Her focus has been on peacebuilding initiatives, launching the Traveling Peace Academy to deliver trainings throughout the URI network. Program highlights have been producing the "URI Interfaith Peacebuilding Guide," a confluence of the principles of URI with conflict transformation and appreciative methodologies co-authored with Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Cynthian Sampson, and others. She also helped create a two-year URI Pilot Program in Moral Imagination, taught by John Paul Lederach, in regions like Uganda, Ethiopia, India, and the Philippines.
P. K. McCary is a journalist and storyteller who founded the Think Peace Radio Network, a broadcast and web-based radio station that brings a global perspective to interfaith efforts for peace. She is also the author of several books, and teaches non-violence through media to young people. Ms. McCary is a well-known mentor of young people with a special interest in supporting the growth of the next seven generations. Her humor and her passion are two descriptions of both her work and her life. She is a mother and grandmother who is also known as the Wacky Peacemaker. P.K. also co-founded and mentored Morad in this endeavor with sponsorship through the non-profit Think Peace International.
Donald Frew is a Wiccan Elder and High Priest of Coven Trismegiston in Berkeley, California. he is one of seven National Interfaith representatives for the Covenant of the Goddess. He is active with a number of interfaith groups, and has served with the Parliament Assembly of the Parliament of the Worlds Religion, the Global Council of the United Religions Initiative,the board of directors of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio of San Francisco, and the Expressing the United Religions Initiative in Music and the Arts. Frew is the founder and director of the Lost and Endangered Religions Project, focused on preserving and restoring the religious traditions of marginal communities.
Rachael Watcher is a fine arts photographer with some years of training in this particular media. She studied with Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and others of note (when people were still putting film in a camera) and has continued in both her studies and her art since that time. Her latest project was "Mother Bones," a calendar of interfaith celebration with original Black and White studies of geological formations throughout the Western United States and Canada, drawn from both her own and her partner's work.