JACQUES VILLEGLÉ

JACQUES VILLEGLÉ

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Artist & Grandfather of French Street Art

There was the war from ‘40 to ‘45 under the Fascists, so I didn’t have art training at that time. The painter Picasso, we knew the name, the artist who painted an eye in the place of a navel, that’s all I knew at the age of seventeen. I found a book published in 1926, the year of my birth, speaking of the painters Braque, Picasso and Miró. And then all the figurative painters at that time, Van Dongen…so it was a new style that I encountered there.

MARCIA SCHEINER

MARCIA SCHEINER

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President & Founder of Integrate Autism Employment Advisors

For autistic individuals, there’s really sort of two paths. There are those today, about 35% percent of 18 year olds with an autism diagnosis who do go on to college or some form of post-secondary education, and then those who don’t. Of those who don’t and want to work, there’s about a 55% unemployment rate. And those who go to college and then look for employment afterwards, there’s about a 75 to 85% underemployment rate. So you can see the unemployment rates whether you go to college or not are astronomical, but they’re even higher if you go to college, which is sort of counterintuitive.

SHIMON SCHWARZCHILD

SHIMON SCHWARZCHILD

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Environmental Activist
Founder Assisi Bird Campaign & Action for Nature

I witnessed being totally rejected and not only witnessed, I remembered as a ten-year old all the children would go to a class in eugenics that I was not allowed to go to. I remember the insults that children learned against Jews while I was still in Germany. And I’m one of the lucky Jews who managed to leave.”

EDMAR CASTANEDA

EDMAR CASTANEDA

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Jazz Harpist

The harp or the instrument that I play is a traditional instrument from Colombia (I’m from Bogota, Colombia). We have traditional music there called Janetta music. It’s the music from the plains of Colombia and Venezuala. It’s like the cowboy music… I met the harp when I was seven years old. That’s the first time I saw this instrument. I was like–Wow! I knew I was born to play the harp that day!

PETER SINGER

PETER SINGER

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Most Influential Living Philosopher
Author · Founder of The Life You Can Save

I would like young people to recognise that they are part of a long tradition that has been trying to the make the world a better place. A tradition that goes back as far as we have recorded history, that there are people who tried to–like Socrates, but also like Buddha and many other figures in different cultures–think more about how we ought to live and tried to live in accordance with their thinking. Tried to do good in the world and that’s a traditional they can be part of. This generation really does hold the future of the planet in its hands.

JUNG CHANG

JUNG CHANG

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Historian & Author of International Bestseller Wild Swans

Writing Wild Swans was the thing that resolved the trauma for me. When I first came to Britain in 1978, I was one of the first people to leave China and come to the West. I wrote about the experience in Wild Swans. And for many years I had nightmares of the horrible things I saw and experienced. Writing Wild Swans made all these nightmares disappear. It was a wonderful process. The writing process turned trauma in memory. I am now able to talk to you about my book, my life, to read it without too much pain. I think this is a luxury people in China still don’t have.