Board of
Directors: |
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Paula Larke |
Founder, President,
Executive and Artistic Director
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PAULA LARKE -
Advocate for Peace:
Keynote Speaker, Workshop Facilitator, Humorist, Vocalist,
Drummer, Banjoist, Bassist, Storyteller, Percussive-word
Artist, Workshop Program Designer, and Instructor/Teacher.
A veteran of the professional stage,
(New York Shakespeare Festival, New Federal Theatre, La Mama)
story-gatherer in and creative consultant to educational and
community service institutions, Peace Artivist (community
peace builder through the arts) PAULA LARKE is firmly grounded
in the art of human relationship building. She has brought
her hands-on experience to advisory and keynote presenter roles
within educational, social service, public and private sector
institutions for over thirty years. She is a fiercely
avowed autodidact, having studied exactly what she needs to
know to do exactly what she wants to do all her adult life.
This course of studies she sometimes calls "Hard-Head Hindsight
University”, and her degree, Doctorate in Decency Discernment.
After doing professional theatre in NY and on tour, Larke
immersed herself in the classroom of the American community,
traveling with stories, music, and message across rural and
urban USA. Her accolades as a performer/lecturer include
enthusiastic endorsements from the North Carolina Department of
Juvenile Services, Leadership America, the General Board of
Global Ministries, and innumerable advocacy organizations across
the U.S. In addition, she provides counseling and
motivational workshops through faith-based and community service
organizations across the country. She works with refugees
from every continent to help them acclimate to American language
and customs and still honor the traditions and values of their
own cultures.
For over 30 years schools, playgrounds, community centers,
nursing homes, churches, lumber mills, electronics plants,
Dairymen’s Association dinners, Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary clubs –
have been inspired and called to Larke’s messages of peace,
non-violence and accountability. Unceasingly promoting peace,
justice, and integrity, Paula is a treasured advocate and
mentor, combining her musical and theatrical artistry with
skills learned in her training with CTI (CONNECT Training
Institute), Creating a Culture of Peace, the Brecht Forum TOP
Lab (Theatre of the Oppressed), as well as two decades of
community organizing and education training through work with
Carpetbag Theatre, Inc., NC Teaching Fellows, Kellogg
Foundation, Brushy Fork Institute, the Mary Reynolds Babcock
Foundation, Southern Rural Black Women’s Development Initiative,
the Highlander Center in New Market Tennessee, among many
others.
She is founder, executive and artistic director of Voices in the
Treetops, Inc. She created and coordinates its local
seedling program, C.U.L.T.U.R.E. (Creative Unity, Learning
Together for Understanding, Respect, Excellence), now operating
in the Clarkston Community Center in Clarkston, GA. This
program models the positive effect of music and intercultural
arts activities in diffusing tension and preventing violence in
the Clarkston area.
She is a member of Alternate ROOTS, Inc., Local 1000 of the
American Federation of Musicians, and Actors Equity Association.
For extensive photos, more information on
programs visit:
www.voicesinthetreetops.org and
www.paulalarke.com
or visit YouTube for Paula Larke videos
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Kim Nimoy |
Vice President,
Director of
Domestic Violence
Awareness and Education
Director of Intercultural Relations
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Due to the confidential nature of much of Mrs. Nimoy's
work with domestic violence survivors and/or certain refugee
communities, photos of her work are few and do not depict or
compromise the safety of any one in these specific
communities.
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KIM NIMOY - Peace
Warrior:
Advocate, Consultant, Inspirational Speaker, Peer Educator,
Writer, Percussionist, Performance Artivist.
KIM NIMOY promotes education and healing through the arts. She uses music, dance, drama, poetry, drumming, with humor
and artistic flair, and is a much sought after keynote
speaker and facilitator.
For decades a solo warrior in the fight against domestic
violence, Ms. Nimoy is an individual recipient of the
prestigious Governor’s Justice, Freedom, and Courage Award
in the State of New York. Armed with this as well as the
Warrior Award from the Benjamin Cordoza School of Law, she
is a fearless representative of Sanctuary for Family’s (
www.sanctuaryforfamilies.org ) legal staff as a member
of the Courtroom Advocacy Project (C.A.P.).
After graduating from Sanctuary for Families’ Mentors
Program, Ms. Nimoy established the Sister to Sister Peer
Support Program at Sanctuary’s Sarah Burke House Tier II
Transitional Domestic Violence
Shelter. Sister to Sister is a program which caters to the
needs of women survivors in - shelter as well as in the
continuing care program. Her aim is to bring this program to
other D. V. shelters both locally and nationally.
Kim Nimoy’s works and words are quoted in law school
journals by such professors as John Jay College of Criminal
Justice’s Katie Gentile, PhD.
Ms. Nimoy is one of the recipients of the Fund for Modern
Courts’ Samuel J. Duboff award1. This award
was given in recognition of her work in documenting problems
with handling domestic violence cases and in making
recommendations for improving the courts’ approach to such
cases.
As an artivist, Kim Nimoy
brings her training in the theories of Paulo Freire and
Augusto Boal, Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed, to her
“works” in helping women to heal and to organize through the
arts and to her “works” in promoting peace globally.
Her unique program, The Healing Arts Drum Circle, was
designed for and is implemented at Barrier Free Living
Family of Companies.
http://www.bflnyc.org
Ms. Nimoy is known in professional circles as a “Peace
Warrior”. She has taken her experience, strength and
wisdom to universities, middle through high schools, medical
and law schools, the corporate world, prison populations and
countless others. The Allstate Foundation recruited
her to train leading advocates for domestic violence
survivors from 51 states in the art of using their own
stories more effectively to change policies and laws
pertaining to family violence.
Ms. Nimoy is the founder of W.O.M.E.N. (Word of Mouth
Empowerment Network) which provides workshops for victims in
living life beyond violence.
Ms Nimoy works with youth and
adults alike. As Vice President, Director of
Intercultural Relations and of Domestic Violence Awareness
and Education with VOICES IN THE TREETOPS, Inc. (
www.voicesinthetreetops.org ), she has facilitated
workshops for agencies such as Friends of Island Academy, a
re-entry program for young first time offenders from Rikers
Island Correctional Facility.
She has taken her joyful, rejuvenating strength to NahWeYone,
Inc. ( www.nahweyone.org
) a New York service agency for refugees of war-torn African
countries. She serves on the advisory board of Safe
Horizon’s Domestic Violence Hotline and is a vital advisory
board member of the Commissioner’s Domestic Violence
Subcommittee Administration of Children’s Services (ACS).
Through this position, Kim Nimoy also provides multicultural
sensitivity training to ACS staff.
Kim Nimoy provides emergency room sensitivity training for
doctors and staff of Jacobi Medical Center, affiliated with
the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Beth Israel
Hospital’s the Advocate Program, Mt. Sinai Hospital, and
Metropolitan Hospital.
Ms. Nimoy is a certified
producer, through training provided to Voices of Women,
Inc., for Manhattan Neighborhood Network cable access
channel. She is presently designing, in her own unique
style, programming which addresses injustices to humanity on
all fronts, locally and globally.
The list of Kim Nimoy’s accolades and achievements could go
on but, in her own words, her greatest joy is promoting
peace through the arts. Kim Nimoy believes that "If
you heal a woman, you have healed a nation!” and that one
must “organize, strategize, and globalize” the message of
peace.
1 Samuel J. Duboff Memorial Award:
The Samuel J. Duboff Award is named for the late Samuel J.
Duboff, who served as Chair of Modern
Courts' Executive Committee for 19 years. The Duboff award
recognizes non-lawyers who make
outstanding contributions toward improving the quality of
justice in New York State.
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Charlotte A. Watson, Executive Director of the
New York State Office for the Prevention of
Domestic Violence and Chauncey G. Parker,
Director of Criminal Justice Services for the
State of NY, present Kim Nimoy with the
Governor’s Freedom, Justice, and Courage Award
for her work against domestic violence.
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nimoy@voicesinthetreetops.org
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Ralph
Hubbard |
Director of Technical Services,
Website Mgr., Oak Ridge, TN |
Ralph Hubbard - Peace
Advocate Founder and
President of Living in Peace, Inc.
Living in Peace, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated
to creating world peace one person at a time. Our
belief is that world peace does not begin by solving the
differences between nations or political organizations or
between groups with strongly held religious or ethnic
beliefs. Rather world peace begins with each
individual taking responsibility for their part. When
we can let go of our own resentments, prejudices,
intolerances, and anger, we become a link in the chain of
world peace.
www.LivingInPeace.org
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Paula, Tufara, Larry Osborne
and Fruit of Labor |
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National
Advisory
Board/
Consultant
Team |
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Sheila
Kerrigan |
Director of Theatre Education,
University Programming,
Duke University |
Sheila Kerrigan,
Sheila is a performer, director, and writer who collaborates
with schools and after-school programs to create meaningful
arts experiences for neighborhood youth. Sheila
created the position of Coordinator of Education and
Community Programs for Duke Performances and the Office of
Community Affairs at Duke University in NC where she matched
up Duke arts students, faculty and staff with appropriate
partners, for example, musicians who coach middle school
band students. With Duke Performances, she brought
professional performers and artists-in-residence to
neighborhood sites.She
has returned to being a full-time writer, theatre arts
teacher and consultant, facilitating and teaching at
schools, universities and other institutions nationally.
She is co-chair of Alternate ROOTS’ Resources for Social
Change and the author of THE PERFORMERS GUIDE TO THE
COLLABORATIVE PROCESS.
E-mail:
kerrigan@mindspring.com |
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Contact Voices in the Treetops
For
Booking or Program Design and
Development
inquiries,
contact the
Director:
Paula Larke
Telephone: (404) 492-1946
or e-mail
info@VoicesInTheTreetops.org
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