Manisha Gupta and Host Michael Lerner

These are wild times to be alive. From the local to the global, we are facing complex, interlocked crises. Yet, around the world people are responding in creative, dynamic, grounded ways to adapt and emerge. Omega Resilience Awards, a new program of Commonweal, was created to gather a community of people interested in resilient strategies. Collectively, we strengthen generative connections and share narratives of resilience. What will emerge? What will coalesce?

Join The New School co-host Michael Lerner in conversation with three of the co-creators of this dynamic global resilience community. In this session number two, Michael speaks with Manisha Gupta from StartUp! in India. In June, join us for conversation with Anabella Museri and Sofia Nemenmann from Asociación Argentina de Abogados/as Ambientalistas/Colectivo de Acción por la Justicia Ecosocial in Argentina. Find recordings from our first conversation with Nnimmo Bassey from Health of Mother Earth Foundation in Nigeria on our website and all our media sites.

Manisha Gupta

Manisha was a journalist before she joined the social entrepreneurship sector. For 27 years, she has worked to build the ecosystem of social entrepreneurship in India. Manisha worked with Ashoka: Innovators for the Public for nine years as the India Country Representative and International Director for Ashoka’s youth programs. In 2009, she founded Start Up! – an incubator, impact accelerator and leadership springboard for social entrepreneurs. Under her leadership, Start Up! has seeded and scaled more than 100 social ventures across 17 states. It has trained 500+ early-stage social and cultural entrepreneurs to build high-impact change models. Manisha has co-authored two books, 1098-Childline Calling and Opening Doors: Ten Years of Ford Foundation’s International Fellowships in India. She is a passionate believer of creating deep impact through collaborations with communities on the ground.

Michael Lerner

Michael is the president and co-founder of Commonweal. His principal work at Commonweal is with the Cancer Help Program, CancerChoices.org, the Omega Resilience Projects, the Collaborative on Health and the Environment, and The New School at Commonweal. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Prize Fellowship for contributions to public health in 1983 and is author of Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Therapies (MIT Press).

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