Betty Ray
During her fellowship year Betty explored the power and simplicity of ritual. During these difficult times it’s often hard to find any order in the chaos. But in fact we’ve had the solution for thousands of years. Humans have used ritual to make sense of their surroundings and find intention and purpose when life provides none. Every religion and every culture since the beginning of time has put forward rituals. Betty has found the common language of these rituals and modernized the process of creating them. With Betty’s toolkit anyone can create a unique ritual for their own life and begin finding a way out of the chaos and into a more intentional life.
After a decade at the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Betty Ray was plagued by a question: Why are young people suffering with depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide at such soaring rates?
At Teachers College, Columbia University, Betty landed on rites of passage as a long-forgotten approach to preparing young people for life in an uncertain future. During her Fellowship year, Betty aimed to design and create a set of modern rites of passage so all youth feel grounded and supported through the turbulent challenges of adolescence.
Travis Ning
During his fellowship year Travis worked to change the harmful power dynamic present in international philanthropy and has created the Awareness Accord. Most philanthropic engagement follows the classic drama triangle, hero, victim, villain. This dynamic creates huge inefficiencies in the philanthropic process. The hero (donor) is always right. The victims must be happy for any assistance they are given. And there must always be a villain. In his 20 years of development experience Travis has seen countless resources wasted supporting this dynamic rather than solving the problems at hand. The Awareness Accord gives everyone a chance to change the interpersonal dynamic. Intentions are aligned and respect is given to all parties throughout the engagement process.
For 20 years, Travis Ning has worked in international development around the world. He knows that human connection is an essential part of finding solutions, but that the design of these experiences can produce a negative "hero-victim" result. With the world more connected every day, there is an opportunity to revisit and reframe the way we "do good."
This year Travis will explore and test alternatives to The Drama Triangle (hero, victim, and villain) in Guatemala with MAIA, a program serving Mayan girls in rural Guatemala. Travis will explore and test ways to turn good intentions/actions into mutually-empowering experiences for all stakeholders and hopefully begin to change our frame on philanthropy.