2010: A Year in Review

Another year has passed. As we prepare for 2011, it’s a good time to reflect on the year that was for the Dalai Lama Center.

CTV’s Four Paths to Peace – While this documentary actually aired on New Year’s Eve, it came so close to 2010 that we’ll include it here. During the 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit, CTV followed four different people as they prepared for the Summit. The documentary shows their different approaches to finding peace in their own lives. The filmmakers recently announced that the documentary (along with the Vancouver Peace Summit itself) is available on DVD.

Thank You Tibet! Campaign - "What if the Dalai Lama had not crossed the Himalayas into India in 1959?" asked DLC Founding Director Victor Chan. In February, the DLC joined the Thank You Tibet! campaign presented by the Tibet Fund in collaboration with the PeaceJam Foundation and the Nobel Women's Initiative. The campaign invited people to send a message of support and appreciation to His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people for sustaining their culture of wisdom and compassion over 50 years and for their steadfast commitment to nonviolence as the path to peace. These messages were presented to the Dalai Lama in March.

Speakers Series has a busy month – The DLC was fortunate to be able to welcome two acclaimed speakers to Vancouver in March. First, Paul Ekman gave his talk entitled “Darwin, the Dalai Lama and the Nature of Compassion”, and highlights from this talk became one of the DLC’s most watched videos on YouTube. Jody Williams then joined Maria LeRose for an intimate conversation about her experiences as an activist that led to her winning the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

Victor Chan reflects on the Vancouver Peace Summit – Six months after the 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit, Victor Chan sat down to reflect on some of the moments that stood out for him. In a four-part series, he recalled some of the stories and lessons that came out of an extraordinary event that brought more than 20 leaders of social change to Vancouver for three inspiring days of conversation about peace, compassion and universal responsibility.

Money, Generosity and Happiness - Can money buy happiness? That’s the question that Elizabeth Dunn, Bill Harbaugh and John Helliwell attempted to answer when they visited Vancouver for “Money, Generosity and Happiness”. They concluded that happiness comes most easily to those who give rather than to those who receive.

Share Your Voice! – The Dalai Lama Center has had the good fortune of hearing the insights of some of the leading thinkers of our time. From Nobel physicists to religious scholars, from neuroscientists to dot-com philanthropists, the DLC has welcomed a wide variety of voices. However, in July, we wanted to hear a new voice. Your voice. With the new Share Your Voice! page, visitors to the DLC were given the chance to respond to the words of the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and others. Watch for this page to grow in 2011.

Vancouver Peace Summit: One Year Later – To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Vancouver Peace Summit, the Dalai Lama Center spoke with some of the people who made the Summit the powerful event that it was. Susan Davis, Mario Frangoulis and Clyde Hertzman were just a few of the Summit participants that took time to reflect on what the event meant to them and what it could possibly mean to the world at large.

Dalai Lama Center welcomes new CEO - In September, the Dalai Lama Center welcomed Lynn Green to the organization. As the Center's new President and CEO, Lynn brought with her a passion for teaching and lifelong learning, social emotional development of children and youth, organizational and social change and community building. She has worked as an educator and administrator in public education for over forty years.

Mary Gordon and Brenda Morrison explore the roots of empathy – For the DLC’s final Speakers Series event of the year, Mary Gordon and Brenda Morrison sat down to discuss the power of empathy when it comes to child development. Mary Gordon opened “Exploring the Roots of Empathy” by saying that “war is really the extreme example of the failure of empathy.”

Meet the DLC Trustees – The Dalai Lama Center is supported by a remarkable group of nationally recognized leaders that serve as the Board of Trustees. In December, some of those trustees sat down with the DLC and shared a little bit about the Center’s mission, programs and goals.