SUCCESS: DISCOVERING CHINA, ON FOOT
Thank you for helping a historic, 3,600-mile storytelling walk across the Middle Kingdom connect people across cultures and borders.
UPDATE: DECEMBER 31ST, 2021: THANK YOU FOR BRINGING US PAST OUR GOAL OF $75,000, FOR ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL YEAR ON THE WALKING TRAIL! YOU RAISED $85,665 DURING THIS CAMPAIGN, WHICH ENDED ON DECEMBER 31ST, 2021. OUT OF EDEN WALK IS A 501(c)(3) NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION. YOU CAN STILL DONATE TO THE WALK: 100% OF READER DONATIONS GO TOWARD ESSENTIAL COSTS FOR FULFILLING THE PROJECT’S MISSION. PLEASE HEAD HERE TO DONATE TODAY.
YOUR DONATION THIS YEAR MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO WALK INTO THE NEXT. OUR CAMPAIGN WILL CONTINUE UNTIL 11:59PM EST, DECEMBER 31ST, 2021. EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR RAISED HERE GOES TOWARD ESSENTIAL COSTS FOR FULFILLING OUT OF EDEN WALK’S MISSION. HELP US PUT OUR BEST FOOT FORWARD—AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LIMITED-EDITION REWARDS, SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY—IN THE CAMPAIGN’S FINAL STRETCH, AS PAUL AND HIS WALKING PARTNERS SCALE 12,000-FOOT HIMALAYAN MOUNTAIN PEAKS TO ENTER CHINA’S SICHUAN PROVINCE AND THE PROJECT’S 9TH YEAR OF STORYTELLING.
Almost nine years ago, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning writer Paul Salopek left an ancient human fossil site at Herto Bouri, Ethiopia, and set out to walk 24,000 miles to the tip of South America. His mission: Follow the pathways of the first humans to walk out of Africa during the Stone Age, and collect stories of our shared humanity in a modern world fractured by borders, mistrust, and mutual incomprehension. Today, Paul’s trek, called the “Out of Eden Walk,” has reached China. We need your help to keep this slow, mindful voyage of human discovery and self-discovery moving forward through 3,600 miles of the Middle Kingdom. Please consider joining a unique, global storytelling project that provides a thoughtful alternative to the frenzy of shallower, fast-paced media that often fosters fear and ideological division. Along the way, you’ll “walk along” with our worldwide community of readers, educators, scientists, artists, environmentalists, and storytellers who appreciate a boot-level view of our shared home—an old Earth made fresh and new by walking.
Fall 2021 Fundraiser
Thank you to all our donors, we have met our fundraising goal.
Time remaining in campaign:
A MESSAGE FROM THE TRAIL
CAMPAIGN STATUS: 12/31/21: SUCCESS!
A MESSAGE OF THANKS FROM PAUL SALOPEK:
But at a legacy level, your kind support does far more than only that: It also helps us grow a global community of readers and storytellers who find meaning in tales that connect our far-flung lives across the isolating chasms of nationhood, ethnicity, language and culture. The most enduring legacy of the walk is exactly this: thousands of fellow journeyers like you.
MATCH CAMPAIGN STATUS: 12/19/21: Abundance Foundation and Out of Eden Walk Board matching gifts are REACHED! You helped us match $30,000, doubling your impact to $60,000. THANK YOU!
We still need your help: Your donation this year makes it possible to walk into the next. This campaign ends on December 31st, 2021, at 11:59pm EST. Help us put our best foot forward into 2022, as Paul and his walking partners scale 12,000-foot Himalayan mountain peaks to enter China’s Sichuan province, and the project’s 9th year of storytelling. Every single dollar raised here goes toward essential costs for fulfilling Out of Eden Walk’s mission.
REWARDS
FOR EVERYONE: To show our sincere thanks for your contributions, we are assigning each mile along the Out of Eden Walk crowdfunding map a donor’s name. This digital map of supporters will remain a permanent legacy of the journey. See the Out of Eden Walk Donor Map here.
In addition, you can choose to add your name to the Donor Wall at the bottom of this page and to receive monthly newsletters we create just for you, the Out of Eden Walk community, featuring special content and updates from the trail.
REWARD SPECIAL: TEA CEREMONY. $750
Tea Set: Gongfu Cha, meaning “making tea with skill.” The beauty of tea is the uniqueness and pure flavor, which is like no other drink. For a contribution at the $750 level, one lucky donor will receive a celadon tea set, one can of high quality Alishan High Mountain Oolong tea, and one box of 6-year old raw Pu’er tea, all purchased in Asia and generously donated to this campaign by Out of Eden Walk Advisory Council Member Sunny Lambert. Thank you, Sunny! **LIMITED TO ONE. IN ORDER TO CLAIM THIS REWARD, YOU MUST EMAIL INFO@OUTOFEDENWALK.COM ONCE YOUR DONATION IS COMPLETE. WE WILL UPDATE THIS PAGE WHEN THE REWARD IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.**
Celadon glazed porcelain, this traditional tea set with two accompanying types of fragrant teas of the region is the reward for a lover of tea, ceremony, beauty, taste, or the combination of all four.
NO LONGER AVAILABLE. REWARD SPECIAL: JOHN STANMEYER PHOTOGRAPH PRINT. $4,000
For a contribution at the $4,000 level, one lucky donor will receive a large 40×30″ photograph of their choosing, documented by National Geographic and World Press Award-winning photojournalist John Stanmeyer (@johnstanmeyer). John has documented stunning images along the Out of Eden Walk trail since its first year, and has illustrated all but one of the Walk’s ten feature stories in National Geographic Magazine. This year, we are letting you choose which image you’d like to take home: Choose one of these four options, below, all of which are rare, limited-edition print series. Your selection will be printed on high-quality paper, signed, and shipped to you from John’s studio. Depending on location, shipping time may vary. This archival investment opportunity is limited to one, so act fast. **LIMITED TO ONE. THIS REWARD WAS CLAIMED ON DECEMBER 29th, 2021, AND IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.**
The world at boot level: Choose from one of these stunning scenes witnessed on a global walk, all documented by John Stanmeyer on the Out of Eden Walk trail and featured in National Geographic.
NO LONGER AVAILABLE. REWARD SPECIAL: MATTHIEU PALEY PHOTOGRAPH
**THIS REWARD WAS CLAIMED ON DECEMBER 15TH, 2021, AND IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.** National Geographic photographer Matthieu Paley (@paleyphoto) accompanied Paul across the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan to document the stunning images featured in Out of Eden Walk’s feature story in the September 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine. For one lucky donor who contributes at the $1,500 level, Matthieu is generously donating a print of the image that introduces that story in National Geographic Magazine. Shot on medium format camera for incredible quality, this 60cmx48cm photograph will be printed on Hahnemühle Archival Paper by Matthieu from his Portugal studio. It will be titled, dated and signed. Depending on location, shipping time may vary. This archival investment opportunity is limited to one, so act fast.**THIS REWARD WAS CLAIMED ON DECEMBER 15TH, 2021, AND IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE.**
Matthieu snapped this photograph (shown above) deep in the rugged Afghanistan’s Pamir mountains, where he and Paul and their 2 donkeys got caught in a snowstorm. They crossed the 16,329-foot pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan, traversing one of the remotest border crossings in the greater Himalayan world: the Irshad Pass.
REWARD SPECIAL: AUDIO STORIES. For a limited time, donors who contribute $75 will receive five archival audio recordings of Out of Eden Walk stories, read by Paul Salopek. This reward is ideal for those who enjoy the oldest form of human storytelling: The spoken word. Experience the trail from home, similar to an audiobook. Updated to include the first story from the trail in China. **In order to claim this reward, please select this tier in the donation dropdown menu.**
The five stories you’ll receive are: “Eat Your Country,” “Sleeping With a Saint,” “Dawn Gallery,” “Walking on Depleted Water,” and “Crossroad of Memory.” We recommend listening while you take a walk. **We’ll update this page once the reward is no longer available.**
REWARD SPECIAL: SNAIL-MAIL TRAIL MIX. *ACT FAST, LIMITED TO 200.* With a donation of $200 or more, you will receive all of the rewards listed above, plus a special bonus: a handwritten postcard purchased and signed by Paul along the Out of Eden Walk trail. Please note that this reward is limited to the first 200 people to donate $200 or more. We will contact you once the campaign is complete to request a valid mailing address where we can send your postcard. **We’ll update this page once the reward is no longer available.**
About the Abundance Foundation match: Thank you for helping us reach a match goal of $10,000 that Abundance Foundation is matching 1-1. Abundance benefits a wide variety of grassroots empowerment programs, ranging from global health to digital democracy. Abundance works to promote whole and healthy communities, serving as a connective hub to a network of visionaries, innovative projects, and organizations that are working together to transform scarcity into abundance. Abundance Foundation is proud to have supported Out of Eden Learn and Out of Eden Walk from before Paul Salopek took his first steps on this journey, and is committed to excellence in education and a world in which all our stories can be valued and heard. Stephen Kahn, President of the Abundance Foundation remarks, “Especially now, when forces seek to divide us from one another, the Abundance Foundation is honored to share in this journey that serves as an antidote to division.”
After some 12,000 miles on the trail, Paul Salopek has finally crossed from Myanmar into Yunnan Province in southwest China. This latest phase of the Walk is truly monumental in scale. For more than a year, Paul will walk across the Middle Kingdom from south to north, from Myanmar to Russia, through a vast and ancient Chinese heartland that’s largely unseen by outsiders. He will share the stories of ordinary people he meets—craftspeople hewing to fading trades, farmers experimenting with green technologies, local storytellers, village innovators, young urban creatives, and many others. And he will share the Out of Eden Walk’s slow, literary storytelling methods with interested students and professionals along the route. We are excited that the Walk’s learning journey is starting up once again.
Your support has been the heartbeat of this cross-cultural project: Our achievements, ranging from educational programming, to promoting new and diverse voices, to compiling nearly half a million words of written narratives—all have been made possible because of your generous donations to the Walk. We are in awe of the loyalty of our global following over the last nine years.
Thank you for walking the world with us.
This year we’ve made it even easier to support the Walk. In addition to the “Donate” link above (which provides the option to send a mailed check), you can contribute through a Donor Advised Fund or Cryptocurrency too:
Other options:
Donate through a Donor Advised Fund
Donations can be made via mailed check through a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). If you have an account with Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, BNY Mellon or Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, or other DAFs, access the DAF Direct link to make a gift from your account. The link provided is for convenience only, and is not an endorsement of either the linked-to entities or any products or services.
Donate in Cryptocurrency
We are now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Head here for details if Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies, listed at link) are your “cryptonite” when it comes to meaningful giving:
A woman stands on a bridge in Heshun, Yunnan Province
IMPACT
After nearly two years of pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Walk has finally entered the Middle Kingdom, where Paul and the project’s Walking Partners are now story-gathering through the diverse landscapes of Yunnan Province. The Walk will eventually span ten Chinese provinces, sharing discoveries large and small. With your support, Out of Eden Walk will:
- Walk with local students, historians, cultural experts, ethnic minority artists, world-class scientists, and others, who will share their stories in their own voices.
- Traverse and record a kaleidoscope of natural landscapes, ranging from biodiverse lowland jungles to glacier-cut scarps, immense grasslands and even subarctic forests frequented by tigers.
- Visit newly discovered historic and prehistoric sites that are changing the story of the human settlement of Asia.
- Elevate the work of creative local Walking Partners whose art will be featured in a collective exhibition called “Walked Middle Kingdom.”
Zhang Qing Hua joined the walk near China’s Gaoligong mountain range. Roughly 300 miles long and topping 16,000 feet, the biodiversity in this space equals a third of all the native flora in the United States.
We need your help to maximize the impact of these storytelling opportunities (conditional on common standard health and safety standards and logistical circumstances) in China and beyond:
‘Slow Storytelling’ Roundtables: The Out of Eden Walk offers a unique and free curriculum of mindful storytelling for university-age students across all disciplines of the sciences and arts. By sharing the tools of close observation, we hone critical thinking and cultivate empathy among all participants. These “walk along” learning opportunities will augment an “Out of Eden Walk” curriculum being shared with our partners at NYU Shanghai. Previous storytelling teachings in India generated narrative outputs that reached an estimated 25 million people.
Paul with schoolchildren in Shanghai, 2021.
Storytelling Camps: We are collaborating with WildChina Education and VisionWorkshops to host a series of innovative field trips for young people along the walking route, with a focus on personal empowerment through photography and writing. The mentored students will come from diverse backgrounds, ranging from urban youth to rural children. Youngsters are encouraged to tell their own stories via topics such as local culture, environmental conservation, and more. Students’ work will be published online and in book form.
‘WALKED MIDDLE KINGDOM’ art exhibition: Local creatives across media—artists, craftspeople, filmmakers, musicians, writers, dancers—will be invited to join the Out of Eden Walk trail to draw boot-level inspiration from home. The Institute of Contemporary Arts at NYU Shanghai will help us co-curate the participating artists’ work in a public exhibition. This will serve as a prototype for similar art events in other nations along the global trail, each aimed at identifying and elevating the work of emerging artists in every transited country.
WHO WE ARE
A veteran writer and multimedia storyteller, Paul Salopek has worked around the world for publications such as the Chicago Tribune and National Geographic, among others. But Paul felt that “fast news” left an unfilled and increasingly perilous void in the international media landscape: The relentless 24/7 news cycle often simplified complex stories, and emphasized an artificial separation and isolation in human affairs. So in 2013, Paul set off from Herto Bouri, Ethiopia—a “cradle of humankind”—with a novel solution in mind: To walk through the stories of our time rather than fly, drive or otherwise speed through them. Having started out a solo rambling storyteller, his Walk has blossomed into a diverse global network of fellow storytellers, all bound together by a shared idea: A medley of media professionals, educators, scientists, artists, who wish to foster cross-cultural connections and promote immersive via people-to-people narratives of connectivity.
The Walk’s beginning: Ethiopia, 2013.
Walking partners Yang Wendou (right) and Li Bing take their first steps along a Ming Dynasty trading road near the Myanmar border in Yunnan. Photograph by Paul Salopek.
WHY WE FUNDRAISE
The Out of Eden Walk project is an IRS-certified 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Out of Eden Walk is only partially funded by our partners. Walking the world is costly, so the project relies on public support. For nine years now, this community has generously kept the Walk plodding along. Your donations help keep Paul and local walking partners on the trail, but they also support integral impact mission projects—from amplifying local voices, to innovative education resource building, to the eternal preservation of the Walk’s photograph, audio, video, and text archive, and so much more. By joining our global donor community, you are investing in a meaningfully connected future.
Here are some of the many ways your donations make all the difference:
Storytelling Equipment:
With eight years of walking under his belt, Paul has honed the art of packing light. But the demands of being a writer on the move include keeping up with a fast-paced publishing schedule, often in “unwired” areas with limited or nonexistent Internet and mobile connectivity. This can mean expensive satellite phone charges, as well as periodic laptop, sound recorder, and phone replacement.
Kong Zhong unscrolls 20 feet of family genealogy. He is the 78th direct descendant of Confucius. Photo by Paul.
Travel Essentials:
These include basics such as food, water, lightweight camping equipment and foul-weather gear. Paul and walking partners travel with pack animals—such as camels, horses or mules—when the terrain demands; these four-legged walking partners are costly, but necessary.
Photograph by John Stanmeyer / National Geographic
Racing the heat in the early morning hours, Paul Salopek walks 250 miles across the remote Kyzyl Kum desert of Uzbekistan en route to China.
Home Base:
Our small headquarters in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA handles behind-the-scenes support to keep the walk moving. The core team actively manages content creation and curation, educational coordination, audience outreach, fundraising, financial management, international communications and back-end logistical support for Paul and his Walking Partners.
A worker hammers a steel cartwheel rim into circular perfection. Shwe Than Kone, Myanmar. Photo by Paul Salopek.
Walking Partners:
Walking Partners are crucial creative collaborators along the Out of Eden Walk journey. They are compass holders; they help design and, often, dictate the routing through their native lands, they act as translators and interpreters, and, most importantly, they bring personal and in-depth cultural perspectives of the peoples and landscapes through which they walk with Paul. Walking Partners are paid an above-standard wage for their key roles, and often spend several months on the trail.
Paul Salopek and Ahmed Alema arrive in Haramfaf village to a welcoming song. Photo by John Stanmeyer.
Paul stops to give a presentation at an elementary school in Kampat, Myanmar.
ACHIEVEMENTS
Storytelling
National Geographic
Out of Eden Walk has published ten feature stories, including three cover stories, in National Geographic. Paul’s most recent article, published October 2021, recounts the lessons learned as one walks around the globe and witnesses at boot level the effects of climate change, migration crisis, natural resource innovation, political upheaval, and a global pandemic.
“Walking With Migrants,” featuring photos by John Stanmeyer, is Paul’s eighth story from the Out of Eden Walk in National Geographic Magazine (August, 2019). Paul’s 11th story is coming in 2022.
The Walk has created more than 400,000 words in almost 500 dispatches hosted on the National Geographic Society website, www.outofedenwalk.org. Educational and editorial partnerships with NYU-Shanghai and The New Yorker, among others, bring the Walk to a whole new audience of readers.
Walking the Path of Buddha in a Neglected Corner of India, by Paul Salopek for The New Yorker.
The PBS NewsHour has featured Out of Eden Walk seven times. NPR’s Morning Edition has featured Out of Eden Walk five times. Over 50 prestigious news organizations worldwide have covered Out of Eden Walk, including the New York Times, WBEZ, the BBC, GQ, VICE, and the CBC. In addition, almost 800 Out of Eden Walk articles have been translated by more than 290 volunteers in 34 different languages on www.outofedenwalk.org.
Education
Out of Eden Walk-Chicago and the HomeStories Project
A civic engagement program of Out of Eden Walk funded by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation in Chicago, Out of Eden Walk-Chicago elevates the voices of local storytellers in the spirit of the Walk to foster understanding between communities in one of the most diverse yet segregated cities in the United States. With input from community stakeholders and generous pro bono support from leading GIS software developers at Esri, Out of Eden Walk-Chicago created “HomeStories,” an interactive GIS map in which Chicago residents can pinpoint and describe locations across the city which represent home to them. Community walks have been organized in neighborhoods across the city, giving students and other city residents the opportunity to experience Chicago through a new lens. In Spring 2020, the Out of Eden Walk-Chicago team took the community walks online, designing a series of virtual events to foster connectivity and promote empathy through stories in keeping with social distance requirements for public health and safety. In partnership with Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, OOEW-Chicago staff designed a bespoke lesson plan for educators to use HomeStories in their classrooms.
Read and download the free lesson plan here: outofedenwalknonprofit.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/LessonPlan.pdf
Watch: HomeStories How-To
With support from National Geographic Society, Out of Eden Walk piloted three successful professional development events in India in 2018. Over 55 participants were selected from a pool of hundreds of applicants. After a rigorous screening process, participants learned a “slow storytelling” toolkit co-taught by Paul Salopek and Out of Eden Walk University Outreach Director Don Belt. The resulting stories published by participants reached over 25 million readers in India.
Paul pauses along the walking trail for speaking engagements and other group education activities. Here, he presents to a group at NYU-Shanghai, 2021.
We hope to replicate these professional development continuing educational events in China, in the cities of Chengdu, Xian and Beijing, creating more networks of young professionals interested in grounded, human-oriented storytelling.
National Geographic Learning has created a variety of different educational programs for students to engage with Out of Eden Walk. These learning platforms include a Google Earth Voyager Story, and an accompanying Idea Set for students to visualize and engage with the journey interactively online. National Geographic also offers education videos and other Out of Eden Walk-inspired classroom activities in their Resource Library. National Geographic regularly coordinates “Explorer Classroom” sessions—live digital interactions in which students can speak with Paul from his trail locations and ask him questions. Thousands of students have joined eleven Explorer Classroom hangouts with Paul so far, with more engagements scheduled in the future.
Definitions In the Field – Trade
Definitions In the Field – Diaspora
Mapping the Human Journey and Human Migrations
Definitions In the Field – Rural
An Esri StoryMap of the Silk Road
Our partners at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting connect students and teachers from elementary through university levels with Out of Eden Walk, providing access to free lesson plans and educational curriculums for Out of Eden Walk-inspired programs. One example is the “Walk Like A Journalist” activity, which teaches students the skills to slow down and produce their own stories.
Over 120,000 students from U.S. classrooms and the Philmont Ranch summer program have enjoyed learning from Out of Eden Walk resources and methodology through Pulitzer Center-designed and supported lesson plans, curriculums, and in-person events. A new editorial partnership with Pulitzer Center is bringing lessons learned on the walking trail to a whole new cohort of students via a series of blog posts, from examining the nature of pandemic immunity in Southeast Asia to examining biodiversity in China’s Yunnan Province.
Pulitzer Center’s 2021 Teaching Fellows Program selected ten teachers from Chicago schools and ten from a national cohort, and during the extended Fellowship timeframe of one year, are linking this inspiring group of 20 Teacher Fellows with Out of Eden Walk-Chicago HomeStory lesson plans and other Out of Eden Walk-Chicago resources.
Mapping
With chief cartographer Jeff Blossom from the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis, Out of Eden Walk produces interactive storytelling maps that take viewers through regions and cities along the Out of Eden Walk Trail. Jeff collaborates with partners along the Out of Eden Walk route to teach mapping and its relationship to meaningful, data-based storytelling.
Interactive storytelling maps provide in-depth, immersive experience of urban and rural locales along the Out of Eden Walk route—and an introduction to the people who inhabit them.
Mapping with Esri
“The River Roads of India,” produced in partnership with Esri, is an immersive story map that takes viewers through The Indus, The Ganges, and The Brahmaputra waterways, examining a looming water crisis with photo, video, and narrative content documented on the Out of Eden Walk:
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/42416c676a1a4df6b187b44cebdcf0bc
In July 2021, Paul was a Keynote Speaker at Esri’s User Conference, joining remotely from Shanghai to present “A Walk Through the Anthropocene.”
Carto-education equips all-level students with GIS design and literacy development. In October 2021, Jeff taught 54 students in three different classrooms in the United States. Jeff is developing a soon-to-launch web application that will make Paul’s GPS data point trove searchable by date and location for anyone, anywhere in the world.
Jeff Blossom in his office at Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis, working on OOEW archival maps. Photo by Fei Ming.
Cartography and carto-education are core components of the project’s storytelling, education, and community civic engagement missions.
Out of Eden Walk in Universities
Former National Geographic magazine editor Don Belt, now teaching at the University of Richmond, will be a visiting professor at NYU Shanghai next year, sharing the principles and practice of the Walk with Chinese and international students as Paul makes his way across China. Back home, Don also directs the Out of Eden Walk University Outreach program in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Our University Outreach program trains hundreds of educators and thousands of students across the United States using the immersive storytelling tools of the Out of Eden Walk. Don’s “Walk on Campus” curriculum equips students across disciplines to walk their communities and produce in-depth storytelling projects. Thirty-five U.S. universities and colleges have hosted professional development events for more than 300 educators and thousands of students. One such campus visit inspired students and faculty at Syracuse University to create the National Award-Winning “City Blocks” project in 2016.
Paul and Don Belt with walking classroom participants in Kolkata, India, 2018.
Out of Eden Learn, Project Zero
Out of Eden Learn is an online education platform serving students aged K-12. This program uses Out of Eden Walk methodology, and reporting on subjects such as climate change, borders and migration, to provide inspiration and core readings for 30,000+ students representing 60 countries and 40 states in the U.S. Designed and supported by our partners at Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Out of Eden Learn brings students of similar age groups and diverse geographical and socioeconomic settings come together for collective learning experiences focused on slowing down, exchanging perspectives, and making connections to larger human stories. In October 2021, Out of Eden Learn’s newest learning journey has 185 classes participating from 18 countries, engaging about 3,600 students. Some 60,000 students from 53 countries (and growing) are engaged with Out of Eden Learn.
Community Engagement
In May 2020, Out of Eden Walk-Chicago held a panel discussion with representatives from three neighborhoods across the city with Paul Salopek to talk about community development, the power of local-to-global problem-solving, and the many definitions of “home.”
Three Neighborhood Perspectives Roundtable.
One of 1,000+ HomeStories: This self-proclaimed “bachelorette who is still enjoying her freedom,” finds home and maternal ancestry intertwined.
Read More: The Global Launch of a Chicago Storytelling Project
The HomeStories map, originally created for Chicagoans, is now open for participation by people around the world.
In July 2020, Out of Eden Walk launched a series of roundtables with Paul, Walking Partners, and photographers (including a frequent visitor to the trail, John Stanmeyer) who discussed the storytelling process behind the stories. In this series, the subject was Paul’s National Geographic Magazine article “Water, Everywhere and Nowhere.” Panelists including Walking Partners Priyanka Borpujari, Arati Kumar Rao, and Veditum Founder Siddharth Agarwal, discussed the environmental, social, and political factors impacting river systems in India. Thousands of viewers joined in real time for a Q&A with panelists. The recorded series can be viewed here:
“Really enjoyed the presentation! In the US, our news media is so focused on politics, racial unrest and COVID that it is hard to remember what the rest of the world has to deal with every day. Thank you for the varied personal and informed insights. I have been reading every article in National Geographic on Paul’s walk since he started out in Africa. I am inspired and fascinated with the ambition and goal of his walk. Thank you and I look forward to the next webinar.“ —Out of Eden Walk follower from Springfield, VA.
Soul nourishment: Slow Storytelling, Slow Food. Shanghai, 2021. Photo by Paul Salopek.
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SOCIAL MEDIA SPOTLIGHT
Walking through the remote Gaoligong Mountains of Southwestern #China, one of the planet’s last, great arks of life. #EdenWalk #Biodiversity #Cop15 #Yunnan @natgeo @InsideNatGeo @outofedenwalk https://t.co/43ShJClbCU
— Paul Salopek (@PaulSalopek) November 9, 2021
English language learners in the AISL secondary are currently participating in @OutofEdenLearn‘s Stories of Human Migration alongside students in the US, India, Greece, & Spain. To find out more, head to our FB or Instgram feeds. @DigitalNomadRob #AISLusaka #AISLLearns pic.twitter.com/E2qfORgmo5
— AIS Lusaka (@AISLusaka) November 5, 2021
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Shinyi Lee
Suzi Davidoff
Taylor Robertson
Ian Mitchell
Jenn Baljko
Ronald Seroka
Kathleen Goldingay
Michelle Yeonho Hyun
Leah Hackler
Kevin & Linda Crowley
Lisa Roberts
Sangeeta Ram
Rachel Jackson
Cynthia Sokol
Nancy Lundeen
Deborah Watrach
Lynne Richards
Arch K. Lamb
Hannah McSwiggen
Anthony Imperato
Robin Gamrath-Schauman
Barbara Porter
Jay Bryant
Alexandra Horne
Katie McCarthy
Jan Lajka
Marie-Louise Deruaz
Debra Old
Heather McLaren
Matteo Bonalumi
Markashley Williams
Raymond Manley
Debby Everett
Anne Umphrey
Jane Maxey
Mel Sokolow
Jan Eberhart
Betsy Westgate
Theodore Trager
Priya Rajamani
andrea legorreta
Sarah Pergolizzi
Carol Mandato
Marc Mordey
CATHY WARREN
megan vosk
Subin Revi
susan osnos
Prem Panicker
Melissa Angtuaco
Ayikomath Balagopal
Kenneth Oslund
Andrew Blasko
Andrea Leung
Jessie Benjamin
Debbie Pastors
Sally Ryan
Linda Stempel
Arie Haziza
Marko Kramer
Jan Eberhart
David Badstubner
Linda Smith
Maren Schmohl
Douglas Stenberg
Bo Baggs
Rex Thornton
Janice Armstrong
Meredith Johnson
Anna Chen
Carol Zipke
Gian Troiani
Donna Kelly
Robert Krupczak
Jolanda Jansen
Kirstin Miller
Zaira Rivera
Aaron Lee
Otto Moerbeek
Grace Penlain
David Hunting
Carla Finlay
Barbara Porter
Luciano Zorzetto
Timothy Kujawski
LeeAnna Xanthos-McQueen
Jan Eberhart
linda shuman
Stephen Shilling
THOMAS WEAKS
Patricia Copeland
Elizabeth Duraisingh
Shari Tishman
Susan Goss
Richard Woodward
Timothy L Vaughan
SW Parker
Mary Carter
Michael Cripps
Ian Gordon
Arch Lamb
Marcel Metze
Erin Douglass
Ilene Simmons
Judith Johnson
Flynn McRoberts
Dmitriy Rozentsvay
Derek DeSantis
Brenda Pro
Cybele Abbett
Jeannette Bach
Louis Martincheck
Boudewijn Peters
Emma Capello
Pamela Green
Ashley Thames
Caroline Kagan
Geoff Westgarth
Laura Wareh
Allen Carroll
guylaine l’heureux
Sridevi Vedantam
Sarah Stannard
Cynthia Graham
Cindy Faith
Erin Williams
Kay Schmid
Erin Dover
Katarzyna Nowak
Xiao Li
Phyllis Nofziger
Marika Roberson
Tracy Crowley
LORI COLLETT
Jonathan Miller
Paul Koerber
James Yuen
Joanne Chow Winship
Marion Noble
Carol Cooperrider
Neal Huneycutt
Dana Law
Karen Utter
Sachiko Murphy
Martin Bohle
Judith Wilson
Chen Fei
Mandy Case
Robert Martin
Nina Watts
Neil Gest
Kathryn Gavin
Linda Boyle
Rosemary Churnside
Laura Okawa
Eric Gilliland
Stephanie M Baker
Rajan Nair
LIN Xiaowei
IÑAKI HURTADO
Kay Bassford
John Koble
Soumya Kannan
Robert Banaszek
Seeling Cheung
Manuela Cerruti
Joe haedrich
Jeannine H Mead
Carole Allison
xiaole ni
Karen Pszonka
Cynthia Barry
JoanElaine Justice
Geneva Walters
Alina Bugeag
Sonila Pokharia
Mary Bildsoe
Ashok Gupta
warren sweetnam
Andrea Beckett
Greg Hull
Barry Eberhardt
Rose Marie Hill
Sarah Peterson
Kerry Luft
Alexander Gates
B Bradford
Clare Cody
Pauliina Swartz
Timothy L Vaughan
koula bouloukos
Brigid Isenor
Tom Cheyney
Edwin Smelt
Mary Jelf
Alan Crowther
Marco Didò
Jeffrey Lilley
Mancho Manchev
Saskia Gischler
Heidi Stenner
Yvette Van Wijk
Elke Hagge
John McGrath
Claudia Unterlechner
Sam Chamberlin
Jenna Mollross
Andrew Midkiff
Aaron Jobson
Michael Carragher
Kathy Hubbell
David Skok
IAN JOHNSON
Jan Carroll
Charles Routt
Edward Silverman
Don Belt
Claud Lee Jones
Necia Quast
stefan uch
Allan Hong Jie Lee
Lane Becker
Barbara von Hauzen
Veronica Blette
Sarah Snyder
Samuel Brown
Chris Karlin
Margaret Brown
Mary Mammarella
Julio Rodrigues
Diane Deutsch
Connie Assadi
Paula Zitzelberger
Jack & Susan HALE
Luciano Corazza
Gabi
Samuel Wilson
Belle Parkinson
Craig Bennis
helene constant
Victoria Shade
Jan Eberhart
kim t gray
Suzanne Bardasz
Maria Christina von Nolcken
Cindy Graham
Annelies Verspeelt
William Thompson
Francis Foyle
Brian Devine
Sean Stevenson
barbara paterson
Jonathan Brelsford
Alice Roberts
Lynn Maria Minervini
Len Nguyen
Out of Eden Walk’s Digital Donor Map
When you donate, you join the journey. We show your impact— and our thanks—by adding your name to a mile on our digital donor map, a feature unique to Out of Eden Walk that will remain a permanent legacy of the journey.
