Jodi speaks with Baktash Ahadi (RPCV Mozambique), an award-winning documentary filmmaker, motivational speaker, trainer, and human rights activist. Baktash shares how his Peace Corps experience coupled with his cultural life experiences as a refugee has influenced his passion for storytelling. He speaks on how activism and awareness is his foci in his multiple documentaries.

Featured Guest:
Baktash Ahadi is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, speaker, facilitator, and human rights activist.

He specializes in strategic communication, leadership development, narrative storytelling, conflict resolution, and cultural diversity to help leaders make a positive impact in their organization and on society.

The recipient of numerous awards for public service and documentary storytelling, Baktash has worked on race relations in communities across the United States and on the peace process in Afghanistan. Baktash is particularly drawn to stories of forced migration, conflict, refugees, and vulnerable and underrepresented communities.

PODCAST HOST:
Jodi Hammer is an RPCV (Ecuador, 1994–97), Job Coach, and host of the Global Reentry's Jobs with Jodi Podcast. In her role as Global Reentry Career Services Specialist with NPCA, she develops and delivers individual and group programming to foster Global Reentry's mission of providing career and transitional support to RPCVs worldwide.

We're National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) — a mission-driven social impact organization that encourages and celebrates the lifelong commitment to Peace Corps ideals. NPCA supports a united and vibrant Peace Corps community of nearly a quarter-million individuals — including current and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, current and former staff, community partners around the globe, family, and friends — in our efforts to create a better world. Find out more, get the latest news for the Peace Corps community, sign up for our newsletter, and join. Basic membership is free: http://peacecorpsconnect.org

In this episode, Jodi speaks with Juana Bordas, RPCV Chile and recognized thought leader, award winning author, and activist in the Latina and multicultural communities. Juana speaks of her own cultural background and her lifetime commitment to bringing a focus to the interconnectedness between the areas of leadership, inclusion and social change.


FEATURED GUEST:

Juana Bordas is recongized expert in the field of leadership, inclusion, and social change. She served with one of the first groups of Peace Corps volunteers in Chile where she worked in production cooperatives (microenterprise), and is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2001 Franklin Williams Award through Peace Corps given for her lifelong commitment to communities of color.

She is also a bestselling author. Her books include “Salsa, Soul and Spirit – Leadership for a Multicultural Age” which won the International Latino Book Award & “The Power of Latino Leadership”which received the Nautilus Prize for best multicultural book (second edition juste released).

Juana is the founding President of the National Hispana Leadership Institute and a founder of Mi Casa, the largest Hispanic serving organization in Colorado. She was the first Latina faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership, and has been honored as one of most Influential Hispanics in America by the National Diversity Council.

PODCAST HOST:
Jodi Hammer is an RPCV (Ecuador, 1994–97), Job Coach, and host of the Global Reentry's Jobs with Jodi Podcast. In her role as Global Reentry Career Services Specialist with NPCA, she develops and delivers individual and group programming to foster Global Reentry's mission of providing career and transitional support to RPCVs worldwide.

We're National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) — a mission-driven social impact organization that encourages and celebrates the lifelong commitment to Peace Corps ideals. NPCA supports a united and vibrant Peace Corps community of nearly a quarter-million individuals — including current and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, current and former staff, community partners around the globe, family, and friends — in our efforts to create a better world. Find out more, get the latest news for the Peace Corps community, sign up for our newsletter, and join. Basic membership is free: http://peacecorpsconnect.org

In this episode, Jodi speaks with Mike Tidwell, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Zaire (now known as Democratic Republic of Congo) about his life changing journey into the environmental advocacy field. Mike is founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), the oldest and largest grassroots organization dedicated exclusively to fighting for bold and just solutions to climate change in the Chesapeake region of Maryland, DC, and Virginia.


FEATURED GUEST:

Mike Tidwell is founder and director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, a grassroots nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about the impacts and solutions associated with global warming in Maryland, Virginia, DC, and West Virginia.

Under Tidwell’s leadership, CCAN has helped pass landmark clean-energy legislation in Maryland and the District of Columbia; blocked coal and oil development plans in Virginia; and worked with groups nationwide to push for a fair and effective carbon cap policy on Capitol Hill.

Tidwell is also an author and filmmaker whose books include The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Race to Save America’s Coastal Cities. Tidwell’s documentary film – “We Are All Smith Islanders” – vividly depicts the dangers of global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. Tidwell has received numerous awards for his advocacy work, including the Audubon Naturalist Society’s prestigious “Conservation Award.”

A long-time resident of Maryland, he lives in Takoma Park with his wife Beth and son Sasha.