Agape International Spiritual Center Form the Heart of Skid Row

Michael Bernard Beckwith & Rickie Byars Beckwith joined hands with Tadd Sutton of The Weingart Center in the skid row area with local organization such as Garments of Praise for an event called Street Lights our thanks to Agape International Choir

Dr. Beckwith is the originator of the Life Visioning Process, which he teaches throughout the country along with meditation, scientific prayer, and the spiritual benefits of selfless service. He facilitates retreats, workshops and seminars. His books include: Inspirations of the Heart, Forty Day Mind Fast Soul Feast, and A Manifesto of Peace.

In a personal letter to him Coretta Scott King wrote, "I greatly admire what you are doing to bring about the Beloved Community, which is certainly what my dear husband worked for and ultimately gave his life."

dance music, poetry, love, Michael Beckwith and Rickie Beckwith in skid row, Michael Blaze, Ministries, prayer, Weingart Center, arts & Crafts , PBS, Barack Obama Peace Prize, The Answer is You

Barack Obama Wins Noble Peace Prize / Hope Central Mdia News Solute You

President Barack Obama

October 9th
Friends --

This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I've said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won't all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

This award -- and the call to action that comes with it -- does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.

So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we've begun together. I'm grateful that you've stood with me thus far, and I'm honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

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“ Hope Central Media” is a local news source for the people of skid row and beyond dedicated to providing accurate accounts of challenges, needs, experiences, dreams, opportunities and accomplishments of the Central City East Community formally known as Skid Row. We use photography, film, video, blogs, radio blogs and partnerships with other truth provoking organizations and news agencies to help keep the people current on news and images that effect them on a daily bases; Always seeking to provide Access, Dignity and Respect back into the hearts of the people whenever possible, the truth will set you free.

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Skid Row Photography Club nets $350.00 in Donations

The Skid Row Citizens Bureau of journalism event featuring Slam Mic and Spoken Word was a major success which brought the club through donations $350 our thanks to all the poets and spoken word artist that performed on behalf of this cause and of course to our PR person / Secretary Lauren Singer for putting this together with Style class and professionalism. Further we also must thank Andrew McGregor president of The Tiziano Project for all his support in this program at the Hive Studio & Gallery founded by Nathan Cartwright located at 729 S. Spring St in the heart of Gallery Row.
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The Skid Row Citizens Bureau of Journalism @ The HIVE

Skid Row Photography & Tiziano Project Presents

"The Skid Row Citizens Bureau of Journalism"

Open Mic Slam Poetry & Spoken Word

THURSDAY, JULY 23rd @ 8:30 PM

Join us at the HIVE Studio & Gallery in Downtown LA for an evening of slam poetry, spoken word, and open mike MAGIC to kick-off the Skid Row Citizens Bureau of Journalism, a collaboration between Skid Row Photography Club & The Tiziano Project. This collaboration aims to empower residents with training and tools to become legitimate ground-level journalists, reporting on the ins and outs of the Skid Row community, and ultimately empowering both themselves and the neighborhood at large.

The HIVE Gallery is located at 729 S. Spring St.
$10 suggested donation for entrance, drinks, food & access to Downtown LA’s most creative and inspired people!
Doors Open/Poet Sign-Up: 8:30pm
Open Mic Begins: 9pm
Winners Announced: 10:30pm

The Tiziano Project strives to develop and encourage first-class collaborative journalism on a global scale. We provide community members in conflict, post-conflict, and underreported regions with the equipment, training, and affiliations necessary to report their stories and improve their lives.
http://www.tizianoproject.org

&

Skid Row Photography Club was created to provide the local community with a healthy artistic outlet designed to bring new possibilities of self-expression as well as personal development and growth. The club is comprised of local Skid Row residents who are given the gift of a camera in order to document and share the everyday experiences of people in this unique neighborhood.
http://skidrowphotography@yahoo.com

Contact Lauren@skidrow.org for further information!
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Social Entrepreneurs as Enculturators

Enculturators are dedicated to altering systemic challenges through cultural change. Enculturators seek to restructure that edifice which reinforces co-dependency. We believe that an important component of the edifice is the very pattern of beliefs, practices, and routines – the culture of our daily lives – that keeps our patterns of co-dependency firmly in place. We seek to shift that co-dependency to a re-newed sense of empowerment.We believe that the vision of the social entrepreneurial movement is to advance systemic shifts in entrenched social challenges, often characterized as being in a state of hopelessness and despair, and to do so as a self-sustaining enterprise.The social entrepreneur spearheads a new initiative for cultural change – the citizen sector. Participation is open to all. The opportunity is to generate a shift in a host of entrenched societal challenges, including homelessness, poverty, literacy, drug-abuse, and other dilemmas which have produced a multi-generational entropy of hopelessness, despair and choicelessness.The social entrepreneur is a transformative power for creating new possibilities, opportunities and choices within the general community as well as within the social service sector. It is a paradigm shifting methodology: · The social entrepreneur is empowered by enhanced and renewed access to their own dignity, respect, and opportunity in a profound and measurable way; · The community is enhanced and empowered by a model of performance within a domain of renewed possibilities and choices; · The new enterprise offers the community an alternative to the existing co-dependency of process related social service programs, which is the current paradigm; · The larger community benefits from the opportunity to support social entrepreneurs in their commitment to transform societal issues through a positive, useful and self-sustaining economic model; · Local, state, and federal governments benefit through the possibility of transformative initiatives that operate in a self-sustaining structure and both inspire cultural change as well as perpetrate a cultural change momentum; · Local, state, and federal governments, as well as all of society, may benefit from a reduction in the need for funding ever expanding social challenges; and, · Social entrepreneurs may have the transformative power to alter the funding structure by foundations and governments from process-related funding to measurable, results-oriented investments that finally create a turn-around in the most intractable of societal challenges. The social entrepreneur has the opportunity to operate in a manner here-to-fore unthinkable in the global free-enterprise system. They seek to be self-sustaining in the short-term, and are a living model of the transformative cultural shifts they serve. They employ those who may otherwise have been recipients of aid and services, and they produce a result that intentionally reduces their marketplace of need. Thus, the more successful social entrepreneurs are, the less needed they become. In many critical social areas, the social entrepreneur is the pioneer of a new field of business practice that succeeds by intentionally reducing the marketplace for their goods and services.

The Tiziano Project comes to Skid Row

Andrew McGregor attended our Skid Row Photography Club today to speak to us and the community of Hope Central formally skid row about participating in his new vision of a local news and journalist project here in skid row to give the people not only a voice but the opportunity to become part of his internship program that is designed to empower people as journalist and story tellers who then may become a viable sources of media for .com agencies world wide.

Blaze-Out (213) 784-1692
www.hopecentralmedia@gmail.com

Andrew McGregor - President and Founder
Andrew is a journalist, artist, writer, and filmmaker. He holds a Master's degree from the University of Southern California School of Professional Writing and has a B.A. in philosophy from Connecticut College. He works as a journalist while developing The Tiziano Project.

andrew@tizianoproject.org
tizianoproject.org

Hope Central Media Local News & Blogs Begins Today

My name is Blaze; I am the founder of several programs, clubs and activities throughout the Downtown Los Angeles area both in Skid Row as well as Gallery Row, which is just two blocks away in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. In recent years I have began a program called unified Fathers For Life, reuniting families one father at a time then another called Skid Row Films and yet still another; Downtown's Best Cable Show going on 2 years now I have the Skid Row Photography Club which gives skid row community peoples digital cameras at no charge whatsoever, and then there is Downtown's Photo 101 for people who simply love cameras and the art of photography and just yesterday I finally found the and founded the program that will at long last serve as a unifier for all my various manifestations because through all of this I am at heart in the deepest regents of my soul; a humble documentarian and filmmaker to the end of time, welcome to my world.

Michael Blaze

Let God Be Magnified