I kicked off 2013 with a new column on the Huffington Post.  My column will explore the fascinating ways women are using digital media to mobilize for change across the globe.  First Up:  "The Day Women of the Congo Seized Control of the Internet"  and "'Access to the Internet is Life' say Women Across the World" which discusses the new report I had the opportunity to consult on - "Women and the Web" that examines how we can bridge the digital gender divide.

_ World Pulse CEO and founder Jensine Larsen has been recognized with several exciting new leadership awards in 2012. Following in the footsteps of Alice Walker and Jane Goodall, Jensine was honored to receive a "Lives of Commitment" award celebrating contemporary women spiritual leaders by the Auburn Seminary in New York.  In addition, she was  selected as a "Woman Who Inspires" by Donna Karan alongside such luminaries as Susan Sarandan, Fatima Bhutto, and Uma Thurman.
Last but not least, Morgan Stanley-Smith Barney has selected Jensine as one of six "Next Generation Changemakers" under 40 to be featured in their just-released Perspectives in Philanthropy journal. Download the journal here.

_Fourteen speaking events. Five Cities. Three incredible voices. Thousands of audience members. One epic journey that changed us all. As Martha would say in her Colombian accent as we toured the country, “Beyond. Be-yond!” Soon this one word--beyond—became the mantra we all used to describe our experiences.

Martha, along with Beatrice from Uganda, and Sarvina from Cambodia, touched down in Portland, Oregon in October exhausted, nervous, and elated. Collectively they had booked enough miles to circle the equator.  Read more

I recently traveled with a World Pulse delegation of women leaders across the dusty Kenya plains to the lush hills of Rwanda.  We  met face to face with hundreds of World Pulse online community members, danced and connected with grassroots women in churches and fields, and hosted Speak Out forums with leading figures in parliament, human rights, law, and media. I came away irrevocably convinced of the readiness of women leaders to push their voices to higher levels and to use communications technology and new media to accelerate women’s empowerment in their communities.  Read more + Photos

 I was so proud to witness the World Pulse Voices of Our Future correspondents Sunita Basnet of Nepal, Jacqueline Patiño of Bolivia, and Malayapinas of the Philippines take the stage as speakers at the first-ever TEDWomen conference along with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Arianna Huffington, Eve Ensler, and other global leaders.  It was a dream come true for me to sit in the back row and watch them shine.  They were so nervous, it was their largest audience ever!  Read more.

Our powerful class of new citizen journalists is breaking stories from some of the most unheard regions in the world: Yemen, Burma, Afghanistan, Liberia and Colombia. Thirty-one women are buried deep in their 5-month training, tackling hard issues from corporate environmental pollution in South Africa, to bride burning in Afghanistan, to the Thai-Burma border conflict. In just a few months of being involved in our program, correspondents have fought successfully for their land rights, been featured in major films, and selected for international speaking engagements. You can follow their writing and see their faces on our Voices of Our Future program page.

Growing up my playgrounds were the fields and streams surrounding our old farmhouse in the hills of rural Wisconsin. I learned the rhythms of insects and birds, the song of the frogs lining our creek.

Year by year, though, my family and I began to detect unsettling changes. Our breathtaking constellation of stars faded as lights from the suburban sprawl encroached, and birdcalls no longer lulled me to sleep on summer nights. One day I found our stream stagnant and rotten, choked with yellow foam. It had become contaminated from chemical run-off from the neighboring farms.

When I began reporting around the world, I recognized a mourning similar to my own in the eyes of women in the Amazon whose sacred lands had been coated in oil spills.  More

Every year it is one of the most inspiring opportunities of my life to tour across the United States with three of our award-winning women new media citizen journalists speaking out from some of the most forgotten regions of the world.