WISDOM AT WORK: : Older Women, Elderwomen, Grandmothers on the Move!

Grandmothers on the Move Episode 35 - What If All Women Who Were Survivors Had This?  Dr. Lesley Ann Foster is a passionate, tireless activist and grandmother - the founder and Director of Masimanyane Women's Rights International - an international advocacy and empowerment organisation working with local, national and global partners to strengthen women's rights, reduce HIV and AIDS, and eradicate violence against women. Where something is needed and doesn't exist, Lesley Ann steps in to create it - always in collaboration, and with local women and realities at the heart of what she does! The world needs more of what she brings!

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Grandmothers on the Move Episode 34 - Mary Pipher, Author of Reviving Ophelia and her newest book Women Rowing North - Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing as We Age.  A profound and transformative book...I was enlightened, deeply moved and couldn't put it down.  It's one of those books you want everyone you love to read right away! As Mary says in this interview "I want readers to understand that this life stage is not solely defined by diminishment but also by great spiritual and emotional growth".  Mary shares deep insights about building resilience, crafting resplendent narratives, forming intimate relationships, and Grandmotherhood... this book is a real gift to us all.  Distilled wisdom and beauty.

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Grandmothers on the Move Episode 33 brings you Lara Seixo Rodrigues, founder of Lata 65 - also known to many of us as the Graffiti Grannies! An amazingly creative, inspiring, transformative programme. "Get a can and go to the streets" is Lara's exhortation to Grandmothers everywhere! Are there even words for how much we love this! Banksy move over, the Graffiti Grandmothers have walls to cover and messages to deliver!

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Grandmothers on the Move!  Indeed! Today, a totally different conversation - Lustre – a website, and a burgeoning community – for women who are finding their footing in a new chapter, and getting out of the “retirement box”!  Lustre’s founders, Karen and Erica, are talking about it: “And then one day, bam! There it was. No office, no title, no business cards, no calendar, no meetings, no calls, no places we had to go…” And doing something about it: “We are the same people we always were. Nothing about retirement changes that. Shoulders back. Heads up. We were part of a large sisterhood when we started out. It’s time to come together again. We can forge a new picture of retirement if we do it together. We can shape the next decades. Together, we will build a new community—one with incredible energy, experience and power. And that, our friends, is priceless”. Agreed! 

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Welcome back to Grandmothers on the Move! I'm your host, Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, and today, I am honoured to speak with Joanne Dallaire.  Joanne tells us “Being in my truth is vitally important to me in order to work with other people in their truth – no matter how vastly different it is”.  And the truths in this conversation will expand, challenge and fill your heart.  Joanne’s wisdom, humour and truth-telling is powerful and galvanizing…no wonder she is now Campus Elder at Ryerson University, after 30 years working as a counsellor for Ryerson’s Indigenous students! This conversation is like a precious road-map to transformation, reconciliation, and how to Stand in Your Truth with integrity, humanity and courage.  Thank you, Joanne Dallaire!

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Welcome to Grandmothers on the Move! I’m your host, Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, and today I have the great honour to speak with Dr. Kristen Hawkes, the brilliant originator of THE GRANDMOTHER HYPOTHESIS: How grandmothers played a pivotal role in the evolution and very continuation of our species.  What we've always suspected!  Here is a scientific, anthropological and deeply fascinating hypothesis... deeply satisfying too! 
This is the extended version of the interview - a longer, much more in-depth discussion which anthropology, ethnography and evolutionary biology buffs will find worth listening to!  

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Welcome to Grandmothers on the Move! I’m your host, Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, and today I have the great honour to speak with Dr. Kristen Hawkes, the brilliant originator of THE GRANDMOTHER HYPOTHESIS: How grandmothers played a pivotal role in the evolution and very continuation of our species.  What we've always suspected!  Here is a scientific, anthropological and deeply fascinating hypothesis... deeply satisfying too! 

There are two versions of this interview available... this one, a shorter excerpt, which provides an overview of The Grandmother Hypothesis, and another longer episode on my website (episode #30A) that has the full and extended interview - which anthropology, ethnography and evolutionary biology buffs will find worth listening to!  

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Audrey Cooke, originally from Singapore, and in Australia now for 50 years, is a social justice dynamo! She is the personification of having the courage of one's convictions. Whether taking action to oppose the building of the Adani Mine, or advocating for the rights of refugee children in detention, her passion and humour are infectious. Every other phrase from Audrey is steely determination with an impish chuckle, : "This granny is not ashamed to put herself out there", "It's my time to Rebel!", "Im' gearing up to go out again and put my body on the line", "instead of knitting and watching a soapy (soap opera), I go out and do things that benefit others".  Audrey has a message for each and every one of us, and I know you are going to feel as uplifted by her perseverance and vision as I did at the end of this conversation!

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Grandmothers on the Move podcast episode featuring Dr. Linda P. Fried. This remarkable and internationally renowned global leader and scientist in the fields of epidemiology and geriatrics has dedicated her career to the science of healthy aging and creating a world conducive to realizing “the untapped asset of our longer lives”.  The Dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia U., she has combined brilliant medical insights into aging with an understanding of societal change and the key role of elders – for their greater health, for all generations, and the improvement of the human condition! AND she says that older people, older women – are the most future-looking people in our midst! Hear hear!   

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In 1939, Eva was a happy six-year-old living with her parents in Lodz, Poland. She was looking forward to starting first grade. However, instead of starting school, Eva, along with her family, was forced into the Lodz Ghetto, in accordance with the occupying Nazis’ policy against Jews. After four years in the ghetto, the family was deported to Auschwitz, Stutthof and a labour camp in Dresden, and then marched to Theresienstadt. There, in May 1945, Eva and her parents were liberated. By the age of twelve, she had endured over five years of imprisonment, hunger, disease and forced labour.

Eva is an educator, an activist educator and participant in her community in Tulsa, Oklahoma - passionate about the improvement of the human condition and children’s rights.  Eva shares her insights and thoughts, informed by her experiences as a child, and her determination and commitment to tell her story and prevent further suffering and abuses of children and all people.  A Guiding Grandmother to be sure! 

The Jewish Federation of Tulsa says of Eva: “In 1978, Eva stood in a Tulsa classroom and for the first time shared the story of her Holocaust experiences. Since then, she has told her story over and over to thousands of students. Her commitment to Holocaust education continued to deepen and evolve with the formation of the “Holocaust Educators Group,” the direction of Tulsa’s annual Interfaith Holocaust Commemoration, and the establishment of Tulsa’s Council for Holocaust Education. Eva Unterman has truly shaped the way our community understands, learns and commemorates the Holocaust”

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