Programs

E. M. P. A. T. H. (Empathy Makes Peace and Transformation Happen)

Founder and Director of E.M.P.A.T.H: Empathy Makes Peace and Transformation Happen©, an organization that facilitates the development of empathy through a variety of methods, creating pathways that foster understanding and build compassionate community. Workshops on conflict strategies that mitigate violence and address bullying. Continued research in empathy development and bullying. Facilitator; Advisor; Mediator; Researcher

Standing in the Shoes of the Other: Moral Imagination, Empathy and Compassion

Built upon Lisa’s extensive research on narrative and the creative arts approaches that develop empathy and build caring and compassionate classrooms and communities.

Creating Peaceful Classrooms K-12: Integrating Peace Studies Curricula across the Disciplines

This program is designed to meet the specific needs and requests of administrators and teachers.

Elder Leadership: Living and Transferring Our Ethical Ideals

Empowers educators, parents, and visionaries in all fields to identify, articulate, and model their highest principals of leadership.

Re-membering History: Reflecting on Heroic Acts of Nonviolent Protest and Peaceful Initiatives

Provides participants insight into alternative methods that have challenged and changed oppression, injustice, and despair.

Art: From Protest to Transformation

Beginning with a historical overview that demonstrates how a variety of art forms has effectively been used to assist in changing humankind’s perceptions and actions during times of conflict, participants are encouraged to envision personal artworks and creative projects that address issues of global and personal concern.

Embodying Story: How to Bring Storytelling into Your Classroom
This is a hands-on program, designed to fit the needs and requests of participants

For Younger Students

Giving Voice to the Wild Things: Celebrating Rachael Carson and Considering Endangered Species

This program reflects upon the abilities of one person who, against great odds, was effective in instituting positive and lasting change. In addition to honoring Ms. Carson, we examine the current state of endangered species and ways each of us might “give voice” to those living beings who cannot speak up for themselves.

Revelations in Randomness: Telling Stories through the Language of Comic Books and Graphic Novels

This program introduces participants to the methods used in this medium, in which humor and randomness provide freedom to examine challenging situations in new and inventive ways.

The Silk Road, the Buddha, and Jataka Tales

These profound wisdom tales offer a wealth of meaning on friendship, service, sacrifice, humility, and compassion.

The Enduring Wisdom of Ancient Cultures

These artist-in-residencies offer students an immersion in the mythology of ancient cultures. The week involves an overview of a particular history and culture, its beliefs and artifacts, the oral tradition of the culture’s tales, and an exploration of the meanings and messages these profound stories offer us today. Throughout the week, students work on an hour-length play, which they perform at week’s end.

The following is a list of Lisa’s original plays with casts of 20 or more for grades 4–8:

Travels Down the Ganges River: Tales from Ancient India
The Ancient Aztec, Inca, and Maya: A Dream Play in Three Parts
Ancient Egypt: Eternal Kingdom in the Golden Sands
Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Eight Myths

For Adults

Searching for Baba Yaga

(For adults and survivors of violence, rape, abuse, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)
This program introduces and explains Baba Yaga in Russian folktale by examining her world, her many roles, how she liberates, and the wondrous gifts she brings. Equipped with this map of meaning, we enter into Baba Yaga’s fierce healing realm with a retelling of the folktale Fenist the Bright Falcon. Following this is a sharing of personal stories, which participants are invited to enter into if they choose.

This program is designed to open the heart to the courageous experience of soul retrieval and the action of reclaiming a lost part of the self that was disassociated from the body through trauma.