Mitchell's IONS Celebrates 40 Years in 2013

As Cosimo looks to holiday celebrations and preparing for the new year, we are excited to congratulate our author Edgar Mitchell on the 40th anniversary of founding the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS). Festivities officially begin on January 20, 2013, with a gala celebrating 40 years of consciousness research by the institute.

Mitchell, also an Apollo 14 astronaut, founded IONS in 1973 as an institute for researching beyond physical science. Psychic Explorations, his anthology on psychic research, was originally published the following year and offers insight into the issues explored by noetic sciences.

We wish Mitchell and IONS a great year of celebration and findings!

Author Michaela Walsh Featured in The Next Women Business Magazine

This month, Michaela Walsh gave an interview and we featured on the cover of The Next Women magazine, an award-winning online women's business magazine and networking forum with a focus on start-ups and growing businesses led, founded, or invested in by women.

After many years in the business, Walsh still strives to encourage women entrepreneurs and work with them on a daily basis. She says,

I continue to believe that finding women entrepreneurs and encouraging them in whatever way they need is the key ingredient in moving women forward.  Women improve their communities as they gain assets, and as they have more control over their economic situation they bring more influence into the community.  As women move into markets and create ever-more sophisticated business approaches, they build the local economy and contribute to a worldwide shift in the economic downturn. We still work toward our dreams.

Read the full interview and check out The Next Women magazine to read more about exciting financial and business opportunities and accomplishments for women around the globe.

2012 Holiday Gift Selection: This Season, Offer the Gift of Classics

This holiday season, Cosimo has put together a collection of Christmas and Classics titles sure to delight book lovers of all ages. In addition to the launch of a new Christmas book, we've added favorite titles that make wonderful gifts for friends and loved ones.

Included in our selection is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Gulliver's Travels, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Little Women, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, and The Works of Eugene Field. Read more about this fabulous selection of classics in our press release, and be sure to visit the website for more information.

Our holiday book selection is headlined by a new title and our December book of the month, The Christmas Mice, by John White and illustrated by Dorothy Hall. A tale for children, The Christmas Mice is a heartwarming story of love and acceptance. It tells of two mice, Roger and Emily, who are outcasts from their community because they are different. One is green, the other is red--the colors of Christmas. Encouraged by the birth of his children and the beauty of a Christmas tree, Roger teaches the rest of the meadowmice an important lesson about love and brotherhood. As the two main characters gain acceptance and understanding from the other mice, the importance of peace and oneness of all life is sensitively communicated. The Christmas Mice is a touching tales with a powerful message that will delight young readers of all ages. Read more about this title in the press release.

John White is an internationally-known author in the fields of consciousness research and higher human development. He has published fifteen books, including Everything You Want to Know about TM, Including How to Do It, and his writing has appeared in publications in the United States and abroad. Dorothy Hall has been an accomplished artist all her life; she is also an illustrator art teacher, and cartoonist. You can find her online at dorothyhallarts.com.

United Nations Event Honors Founders of the First Women’s Global Financial Network

Women and men who met in Mexico City in 1975 at the first UN Conference for Women, and resolved to work together to bring women everywhere into the formal financial markets, will be honored at the United Nations on Wednesday, December 5. The event formally launches Founding a Movement: Women’s World Banking, 1975-1990, by Michaela Walsh, one of the founders and the first President of Women’s World Banking (WWB).

Walsh’s book, in her words, “shines a light on the value that women contribute through work, and when they support one another, to become full participants in the economy.” Founding a Movement illuminates the birth of a culture of trust—from Kenya to Colombia, from Brazil to the Philippines—where women entrepreneurs could learn from and teach each other to gain control over their economic destinies. Currently, WWB serves as an umbrella organization to a network of 39 financial organizations from 27 countries that provide small loans, from $100 and up, to borrowers to start their businesses: with a portfolio of $7 billion and $3.5 billion in savings, 26 million clients are served by the WWB network, 80% of whom are women.

The UN event will feature a discussion, moderated by Zohreh Tabatabai, former Director of Communications at the United Nations, recalling the ideas and conditions of 1975—very little knowledge by women across cultures, difficult communications, legal barriers to women regarding credit and bank loans—and reflect on change.  Elements of the process that remain important today include being open to knowledge from all sources, crafting solutions based on grass-roots needs, and providing training as needed rather than by formula.  Of particular importance, according to the book and the founders, is creating a culture of personal trust based on working together.

The event sponsor is the Permanent Mission of the Kingdom of The Netherlands to the United Nations.  Institutions and citizens of The Netherlands played an important role in the history of WWB, which was incorporated there in 1980. According to Walsh, “The trading tradition of the Dutch, and their concern for the interests of women and developing economies, meant that WWB found natural allies in Holland.” The Dutch appreciation for WWB is also evident from the comments by former Minister for International Development Cooperation of the Netherlands, Jan Pronk, who said:

“Women’s access to finance, including microcredit is crucial. Michaela Walsh and Women's World Banking have broken new ground. Those who wish to follow in their footsteps should read this story!"

Among the participants at the UN discussion will be other WWB founders, book contributors, and leading figures in  finance and international development, including Mary Okelo, first African manager of Barclay’s Bank in Kenya and founder of the Makini School; Barbro Dahlbom-Hall, Sweden, management consultant and author; Hon. Dag Nissen, former Norwegian Ambassador; Ron Leger, former Director of the Canadian International Development Agency; Deanna Rosenswig, former Executive Vice- President, Bank of Montreal; Geertje Lycklama, formerly with the Dutch Ministry of Development Cooperation; Klaas Molenaar, formerly with Triodos Bank; and others.  

For more information about the event, please contact Graciela Hall at 516-458-4310.