In a 100-person model of the world, 10 would control 85 percent of the planet's wealth, but there is hope that this unequal distribution may be corrected, according to Zo Tobi, the Northeast Organizer of the Sierra Student Coalition.
Tobi led a symposium titled "Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream" Sunday in the Dickey Center for International Understanding. The three-hour event included short documentaries, group activities and brief meditations "to illustrate the environmental, social and spiritual crises humans currently face," Tobi said.
"The modern way of life that we've constructed is based on the assumption that through progress we will make our lives better, but the advances that we've made haven't made us much happier at all," Tobi said.
The speakers encouraged attendees to respond proactively to the problems at hand.
"The goal is that by the end of today, you enter a space of what we call 'blessed unrest,' " Tobi said. "This is a state of being, a state where you have a nagging itch, a state where you are constantly discontent and want to change the world."
Several participants cried when sharing their reactions to the material at the end of the program.
"We all need to work together. Nobody has the whole truth, everyone has a piece of it," Greg Reinauer, who helped lead the program, said. "We need to awaken from this trance we are in."
Tim Bolger '10, founder of the Dartmouth Council on Climate Change, worked with Tobi to bring the symposium to the College. The event has been held throughout the country and internationally.
The students, Hanover residents and Dartmouth professor at the event all participated in a group activity that involved staring at one another for about five minutes, Bolger said. The exercise was meant to instill a greater sense of awareness and consciousness, he explained.
"It was an intense experience, I had never stared at anyone that long," Bolger said.
Documentaries highlighted the social and environmental disparities of the world, interspersed with meditation periods that allowed attendees to absorb and come to terms with what they had just seen, according to Tobi.
"We hope people will take the grief they are feeling from these crises and use it to respond," Tobi said.
The symposium was sponsored under the banner of the Pachamama alliance, an international group engaged in empowering the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.
"Our society is on a completely unsustainable path and experts everywhere are saying we have a limited time to turn things around," said Bill Twist, president and co-founder of the Pachamama alliance, in one of the documentaries.
Bolger and Tobi are also working together to start a "Power Vote" campaign at Dartmouth, an initiative that brings environmental issues to the attention of presidential candidates.
"This is a movement in which, no matter who you are, you have a role to play." Tobi said. "It's not a large role or a small role; it is just your role."
