Rooted In Love

Description

Rooted In Love contains amazing pictures from Kenya and Seattle. There are pictures that I took by myself. There are also pictures taken by photographers from Kenya like Otieno Okong’o of Krushal Entertainment. Currently based in Sweden, Otieno was one of the first photographers to capture One Vibe activities between 2008 to 2013 in Kenya.
There are also pictures taken by photographers from outside Kenya. In 2014 I went to Kenya with Corvus Eye Media and Tackett Films, which are thriving film and media production companies from Seattle that accompanied me to take photos and videos of our work in Kisumu.
Rooted In Love tells the story of just a few who have discovered or used their strengths to help others. This book will inspire you to look deep inside yourself to find your niche in the puzzle of creating a more sustainable world. Welcome to the Village of today, tomorrow, and the future. I wrote “Rooted in Love” as part of an inspiration that came to me when I was reviewing an exercise I was asked to do by Dee Endelman and Steve Benson. They were my colleagues at Generating Transformative Change, which is a unique leadership development program I attended in 2011 and 2012 right after I moved to Seattle from Kenya.
At that time, I was not sure how to articulate my vision for One Vibe Africa, but what Dee and Steve knew was that I was a great storyteller. Due to my storytelling abilities, they asked me to imagine what One Vibe Africa would look like in the year 2024 by writing a fictional story about a girl who benefitted from One Vibe’s work in 2024. My name is Simon Javan Okelo. I grew up in the slums of Manyatta in Kisumu, Kenya, serving as the Field Director of Solace International and Co-Director of the Young Generation Centre from 2002-2010 where I directed humanitarian projects in Malawi, Kenya, Ghana, Liberia, and South Sudan. I also worked as a DJ and producer, organizing Unite The People concerts in 2008 in the wake of the post-election violence and founding One Vibe Africa.
I came to the US in 2010, and I have since organized events and digital campaigns celebrating the African diaspora locally and globally. For example, since 2014 I have organized the Madaraka Festival at The Museum of POP Culture headlined by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Sauti Sol, Blitz The Ambassador, Rocky Dawuni, Meklit Hadero, Nik West, Naomi Wachira, Karun, and other renowned Grammy award-winning artists.

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