Friends of the Empowering Clerks Network
Here are a few works and life works that inspired us to do what we do.
Short movie Validation by Kurt Kuenne helped the ECN develop its main theme. It's only a 15 minutes movie, but you'd want to watch it many many times. Enjoy!

Victor's approach to dealing with past experiences and his "tapping" mechanism of retelling past stories we tell ourselves was a major influence on the Refurbished Report Card, Pain Deed and other documents and the ECN is thankful for his support. Visit the Radical Resilience Institute at victorlewis.vpweb.com
Victor Lee Lewis, MA, is the Founder and Director of the Radical Resilience Institute, and Radical Resilience Coaching and Consulting. He is a Progressive Life Coach, trainer, speaker, and social justice educator. Victor provides individual and group life coaching, training, and keynote lectures. His work supports transformative change agents in improving and maximizing their emotional resilience, mental flexibility, and personal performance and effectiveness. Victor brings a unique socially progressive vision to the work of personal growth, personal empowerment, and emotional health. This is the fruit of his 30+ years search for personal healing and social justice, and nearly as many years of innovating practice in using liberatory educational approaches to bring healing and justice to others.
A nationally respected social justice educator, Victor has conducted seminars, workshops, keynote speeches, and "train the trainer" programs across the United States, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Germany. He is best known for his inspiring leadership role in The Color of Fear, an unusually powerful video about racism which received the Golden Apple Award for “Best Social Studies Documentary" of 1995 from the National Educational Media Association. He is co-author, with Hugh Vasquez, of Beyond the Color of Fear, a 4-volume multimedia curriculum for use in classrooms and trainings programs.
Victor Lee Lewis, MA, is the Founder and Director of the Radical Resilience Institute, and Radical Resilience Coaching and Consulting. He is a Progressive Life Coach, trainer, speaker, and social justice educator. Victor provides individual and group life coaching, training, and keynote lectures. His work supports transformative change agents in improving and maximizing their emotional resilience, mental flexibility, and personal performance and effectiveness. Victor brings a unique socially progressive vision to the work of personal growth, personal empowerment, and emotional health. This is the fruit of his 30+ years search for personal healing and social justice, and nearly as many years of innovating practice in using liberatory educational approaches to bring healing and justice to others.
A nationally respected social justice educator, Victor has conducted seminars, workshops, keynote speeches, and "train the trainer" programs across the United States, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Germany. He is best known for his inspiring leadership role in The Color of Fear, an unusually powerful video about racism which received the Golden Apple Award for “Best Social Studies Documentary" of 1995 from the National Educational Media Association. He is co-author, with Hugh Vasquez, of Beyond the Color of Fear, a 4-volume multimedia curriculum for use in classrooms and trainings programs.
The kind authority of Zoketsu Norman Fischer as the ECN Commissioner of Compassion has helped the ECN since before we even had golden stickers. His teachings and writings helped shaping the core values we believe in and our vow to use bureaucracy as a tool to promote loving-kindness, care, peacemaking and justice. Norman is a Zen priest, Buddhist teacher, poet, writer and founder of everydayzen.org. He is Senior Dharma Teacher at San Francisco Zen Center, where he was abbot from 1995 to 2000, and he is currently the director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, which is dedicated to bringing the Zen perspective to the world outside Zen, including to Christian and Jewish religious settings. He is a highly regarded poet and translator, and his numerous books include Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms, Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up, Training in Compassion and Sailing Home: Using Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls.
For info about coming talks and book readings by Norman visit normanfischer.org
For info about coming talks and book readings by Norman visit normanfischer.org
Paul H. Miller has been teaching circus skills to teens in detention centers, elders, people with disabilities and who's not. His work literally saved some kids lives from years in prison, brought lots of joy to people with disabilities and sicknesses and saved taxpayers millions of dollars (locking a child in prison is much more expansive than a juggling class) Visit Circus Mojo at www.circusmojo.com/
An art project by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak
Clown Visa holder Clay Mazing founded the Emergency Circus. With their functional healing ambulance they bring laughter and joy to refugee camps, hospital and many other emergency calls. Visit them and show your $upport at www.emergencycircus.com/
The ECN knows no other human being who treated authorities in a more hilarious way as Chaplin did in The Kid. Besides, it's a masterpiece and one of the best movies ever made. If you haven't yet - enjoy this beautiful movie!
Patch Adams MD is a pioneer (and a Certified Prophet) of bringing laughter into healing. His life story was beautifully documented at the movie Patch Adams with Robin Williams.
Love the CSB? You might enjoy these like-minded projects too!
Post a Secret - an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.
The Human Library - borrow a human being for a conversation
NY DMV - offer numerous services online and in many local branches. Services include Driver's Licenses, Learner Permits, ID cards and more! Their website ranked #2 in the national best DMV site in the country!
U.S. Department of Art and Culture - Inciting creativity in the service of empathy, equity, and social imagination.
Story Corps - Story Corps' mission is to preserve and share humanity's stories in order to build connections between people and create more just and compassionate world.
Dutchess County Clerk, Poughkeepsie NY - Get a professional and efficient service from state clerks to issue various certificates including marriage, birth and death. The ECN is communicating with the County Clerk to introduce Playful Paperwork services in addition to State issued documents (read Official Letters form the Empowering Clerks Network)
Post a Secret - an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard.
The Human Library - borrow a human being for a conversation
NY DMV - offer numerous services online and in many local branches. Services include Driver's Licenses, Learner Permits, ID cards and more! Their website ranked #2 in the national best DMV site in the country!
U.S. Department of Art and Culture - Inciting creativity in the service of empathy, equity, and social imagination.
Story Corps - Story Corps' mission is to preserve and share humanity's stories in order to build connections between people and create more just and compassionate world.
Dutchess County Clerk, Poughkeepsie NY - Get a professional and efficient service from state clerks to issue various certificates including marriage, birth and death. The ECN is communicating with the County Clerk to introduce Playful Paperwork services in addition to State issued documents (read Official Letters form the Empowering Clerks Network)