Solidarity in the Carpathian Region

Sandor Koles introducing the PASS Delegation to the Carpathian Region
Sándor Köles is a Hungarian-born sociologist, the President of the Carpathian Foundation, a founding member of the PASS Board of Advisors, and a member of the Berlin-based Robert Bosch Academy.  He had been the Senior Vice-President of the International Center for Democratic Transition (ICDT), the main goal was to share and make applicable Central European experiences on democratic transition in a wider world.  Previously, he had been the Carpathian Foundation's Executive Director, promoting cross-border and interethnic cooperation in the bordering areas of Hungary, ...

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Empowerment for Change

Our goal at VantagePoints is to engage socially activated leaders to hear their ideas for solving some of the biggest global challenges. Many of the thought leaders we have interviewed name empowerment as a key part of their work. Click on the articles below to read more about how these leaders are empowering others to make a change across our globe. We encourage you to share with us how you empower those around you! Leave a note in the "Comments" section or by sending us an email at vantagepoints@pass-usa.net. Interview with Ho`ōla Nā Pua on their Mission to End ...

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Empowering the Future of Social Impact

Carrie Rich is the co-founder and CEO of The Global Good Fund, a nonprofit organization that supports high potential social entrepreneurs in more than 25 countries globally, collectively serving 339,000 beneficiaries. 

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Channeling Women’s Voices Through Digital Multimedia

Shirin Taber
If you gather people for an event and you show them a short film—you are able to more quickly convince them of your cause, rather than just relying on a speech or a lecture. Short films are a very effective tool to inform people about important topics. Of course, they can also go viral.

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Crossing Faiths and Building Bridges

Crossing Faiths
One of the innovations of the podcast is that it doesn't have to be just two people talking. We want to make sure that we have a space that is participatory, not just from a listening perspective, garnering support from different communities—but making sure that they see it as space for anyone to come and talk about the issues of the day, and utilize that format in that space.

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Building Resiliency Around the World

VantagePoints shares the impactful work of thought leaders around the world who are making a social impact. We understand that many of us have started to feel frustrated, bored, and restless during these times. That’s why we have picked out three of our articles that continue to inspire us and leave us hopeful for a kinder, more positive global society.

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Impact:Peace is Reducing Violence Through High Impact Peacebuilding

Head Image
People think about lethality and they think about conflict zones. They don't think about countries and places with very high levels of violence that exist outside of conflict. For example, many people don't realize that Brazil and Mexico constitute two of the most lethal countries in the world.  If we're going to be talking about evidence-based solutions to address violence, we have to start with knowing—where is the violence, and what's the kind of violence that we're talking about?

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Beyond Mobility: Wheelchairs Enable Engagement and Quality of Life in Developing Regions

When I started coming to Belize and Guatemala 1980, I saw people with disabilities that were crawling around on the ground or stuck in bed. That kind of tore my heart out. Just prior to returning to the States from Guatemala in the summer of 1988, I saw a woman, for the second time, crawling across the Pan-American Highway.

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China’s Data-Driven Philanthropy

Since China instituted the Charity Law in 2016, charitable giving in the country has continued to grow as it opened more platforms for citizens and business leaders to participate in social responsibility. The Law also emphasizes transparency, requiring charities to report all the basic information related to their operations. An advocate of data disclosure and transparency, Tao Ze, founder and president of YISHAN, shared with VantagePoints his thoughts and experience on philanthropy in China. As a philanthropist, are there any philosophies that inform your philanthr...

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Tools Against Corruption and Human Trafficking

Human trafficking, also known as trafficking in persons (TIP), is a multibillion-dollar criminal industry surpassed only by drug trafficking and arms sales. The 2017 data by the International Labor Organization (ILO) revealed that there are more than 40 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. Under federal and international law, TIP is considered a crime, but there have been many challenges in enforcing this. Ambassador Luis C.deBaca (retired), a Robina Fellow of Modern Slavery at Yale’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, ...

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