ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief chronological overview of the author’s personal story as it relates to the themes in this book. Events from her early childhood and youth that have made an impact on her lifelong quest for social justice and affinity for Critical Theory as a way of understanding the world are examined. Her several disabilities and health realities are described with details about how, although they have certainly had life-changing consequences, they have also contained hidden benefits especially with regard to the community-building aspects of creating resilience found in this book. Her experience of consciousness-raising, both politically and spiritually, is described with highlights of her evolution and eventual acceptance of the Bahá’í Faith and its influence on her personal and professional life.
The chapter then focuses on her professional work, including in radio, how it made her curious about the world and eventually led her to become a radio journalist reporting from India and other parts of the globe. Details are provided about how this eventually led to her research interest in integral development, capacity-building and community-based economic sustainability. She is most comfortable operating in the places where social issues converge, combine and evolve together, thus her desire to combine media, emergency preparedness, education and now community economic development to form something new.
