Will you join me in New York for the experience of a lifetime? To show up with others from around the globe to bring your voice to the table on behalf of women everywhere?
I would love to have you, and here’s why. Our Intentional Creativity Lineage has its roots in justice, ending violence for women and children, and creating conscious pathways for women to be empowered, successful business owners.
Here is just a little bit of my story – and the reason I am teaching entrepreneurship at the UN…
Annual trip to United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, 2016
We head to the United Nations next week!
At Musea : Intentional Creativity we have been financing our own revolution for over 20 years! The revolution we are a part of is rooted in justice with a focus on art, economy and education.
Will you make yourself a cup of tea and pause with me for a moment to reflect on the status of women globally? Will you send loving thoughts and compassion out with me right now? Imagine what would be possible if the 30,000+ women and men in my community held this loving awareness with me in preparation for International Women’s Day? How would this powerful field impact and shape the well-being, healing and potential future for women around the world?
Having invited you into this intention, I also feel the need to do more than just think about it. That is why I go to the United Nations every year to speak up on behalf of women and share the transformational work of Intentional Creativity.
This year, I want you to share in this experience with me. Continue reading for ways to participate in person and online.
Although there have been many strides made for women over the past century, there is much work in front of us. At this point in history, women and girls continue to experience exploitation and violence, exclusion from education, and severe economic and physical hardship in many places in the world – even here in the United States.
The many strides we’ve made are just the beginning, and I want to keep the momentum going. It is both exciting and a looming sense of responsibility to show up for this work. That is why I plan to do something radical this year at the United Nations – to teach women who serve women what I know about creating flourishing businesses. The philosophy, the energy, and the feminine consciousness that makes businesses financed and run by women (and for women!)…different.
I BELIEVE we can finance our own revolution! My family and I were able to do this, as well as countless other women I know. What I’ve learned through this is that we have to be smart about it. We can’t play the same games or follow the same rules as the mainstream business world. We have to consciously define our own marketplace. And we are!
Every year at the UNCSW event when women from other organizations ask me how we’re able to fund our trip, I tell them we are self-funded. They ask me how that is possible, and I share with them the basics: We host a workshop online and in person here in New York, through our non-profit, and use the proceeds to fund our trip. Their eyes get big. Yep.
Having been asked that question so many times, I was inspired to teach about it this year. And to my surprise, the UN event organizers actually said yes! WHOOOP!
I am reaching out today in the hopes that you will choose to participate in either the New York in-person or online Dancing Entrepreneur Workshop, the proceeds of which fund the Intentional Creativity Foundation as we make our 7th annual journey to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
By registering for this in-person or online workshop, you will be including yourself with me and many others from our Red Thread community as we collectively hold our piece of the Red Thread for women globally.
Here are the ways you can join us, Tricia!
UN NEW YORK
1. Dancing Entrepreneur – An Innovative Visionary Business Class, Manifesting Through Flow and Form: Come in-person or attend online to amplify your business, access new pathways of service and discover your next dance move! March 7, 8 and 9 guided by Shiloh Sophia. A fresh and fun opportunity to paint your business plan! Register here for Dancing Entrepreneur.
2. Be a stand for women in business by joining our UN Team: This year, you are invited to be part of our UN Team at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women event on the evening of March 9, which is open to the public. We have room for 200 and we want to represent! Come one come all! I would also like to invite you to our Afterparty, where we will have the chance to hang out and connect. Register here for the Afterparty.**If you are registered for Dancing Entrepreneur, your Afterparty ticket is included**
UN Event Details: Doors Open at 6pm. We will gather earlier to prepare and connect. Being on time is important for this event. There is a central hall where you can arrive, get oriented, and use the restroom, etc. I will be speaking about global women’s entrepreneurship from a feminine framework. Address: 4 W 43rd Street, NY NY 10036 @ Social Hall.
ONLINE
3. Support our efforts at UNCSW to bring entrepreneurial education to hundreds of women serving women throughout the world byjoining us for the online version of Dancing Entrepreneur. This will be an expanded version of the curriculum offered at our UN event. Because of your online support as a student in this program you will make it possible for us to give 100 scholarships to women at the UN. We will begin this online workshop in April, and will be sharing stories and images from our experience at the UNCSW as part of the video class.
4. Donate to bring inspired education to women at the United Nations. The Intentional Creativity Foundation, Inc. is a fully recognized 501(c)3 Charitable Organization in the United States. Your donations will be earmarked for UNCSW and may be tax-deductible (please consult a tax professional for more information).
When you donate specifically to our participation in the UNCSW, your donation directly supports us bringing our collective voices to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
For the past four years, our participation in the UNCSW has been funded through generous and conscious donations like yours. Because of this, we are able to show that self-funding from within a non-profit organization is possible, and can share this successful model with women at the UNCSW event. It is powerful to teach a funding model that is not reliant on government funding or grants, but comes from a collective of inspired women. Many of the women who participate in this event come from organizations who are subject to constraining financing partners such as government, corporations, granting organizations, banks etc. Funding available to support women’s causes and organizations has also been largely cut in recent years.
In the past few months, I have talked to two women who served for YEARS at not-for-profits, but due to funding constraints, had to be cut from their positions. This model is not workable in my opinion. We can’t depend on government funding to continue to serve in the ways we know we must.
For questions about donations or to make a larger sum donation, you can contact jonathan@musea.org
Having a voice at the global table has always felt important to me and been a part of my upbringing. I grew up around the table, in deep conservation about the rights of women, the poor, the oppressed, and – artists. Much of it was about finance – how we could finance our own revolution. And indeed, that is what I have been doing.
I am honored, that in some way I get to participate, however small, in joining the effort to support the sustainable development of women and girls. My earliest vision for my work was connected with justice, safety and human rights. My family often protected women in danger, providing work, shelter and a new story.
I remember the day that my mother and grandmother had picked up a young woman who was hitchhiking, I was 14. She came home with them that night and then moved in with us. My grandmother taught her how to work with fabric. She stayed with us and worked at our in-house sewing business. At first I was surprised about her moving in, but then I got the spirit. The spirit of supporting and connecting. We became friends and I joined my family’s effort to provide a nice environment for her. In time, she moved on, as they all did. Yet I remember over a year later her calling and telling us she was doing well, and had a baby girl and named her Shiloh, after me. That was a moment in time…even a young girl can make an impact in the lives of another human being.
As time went on, this pattern of supporting other women became an integral part of my life, and it is for me today. As part of our own NGO not-for-profit work, we provide education to over 4000 women a year through our free online education. Every month in our free community calls, Red Thread Connect reaches 1500. So far, that has been financed by personal funding from Jonathan and myself, and our Intentional Creativity Guild (Color of Woman Graduates).
In 2019, we brought Carmen Baraka Spirit Warrior and Alexis Estes of Native Hope to the UN to share about the reality of Native American women and children in the United States. This was made possible through the Intentional Creativity Foundation and donations from our community for which we are so grateful for your support. I fly to New York in one week, and invite you to join me for this experience in whatever ways possible.
My roots of justice extend to my art training. Thinking of Eleanor Roosevelt I cannot help but think of Lenore Thomas Straus – my teacher Sue’s teacher – and the conversations they must have had – since Lenore Thomas Straus carved the Pre-Amble to the constitution during the New Deal Era. She literally, carved Justice into stone.
Justice carved in stone by Lenore 1936
You can get an idea of the scale of the images from the photo below. That is the Greenbelt Community center.
Lenore passed her teachings in both art and justice onto Sue, and Sue passed that to me, and I carry the torch. In what the Greenbelt Museum calls ‘enduring influence’. Now tens of thousands of women worldwide, also carry the torch of justice, with our art and heart.
And every year since 2012, we have made the journey to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women to share the voice of Intentional Creativity with a global audience and giving voice to women and children who need our attention on a greater scale.
Thank you for being a part of my community – whether I see you in person or we meet online or you just read my Red Thread Letters from time to time, I am grateful for you.
United Nations annual trip, 2018. Many Voices. Many Hands. Many Lands.
“We stand firm in our commitment to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression, including artistic and creative expression. In addition to being an integral part of the protected human right to freedom of expression, artistic and creative expression is critical to the human spirit, the development of vibrant cultures, and the functioning of democratic societies. Artistic expression connects us all, transcending borders and barriers”.
~ This quote has come from a joint statement made by 57 State Members at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and delivered by Ambassador Janis Karklins, the Permanent Representative of Latvia to the United Nations on September 18, 2015
