ecoshare

Janine Johnson - Founder of Green Wave

What is your background?
I grew up in an inland suburb of San Diego, a small town called Poway. I remembered thinking when I was in high school that I lived in a bubble of some sort, as I realized I was growing up in a “nice town”. What I didn’t know was in what capacity this bubble existence would impact my future perspective on life. So on some level I have always been introspective, curious, questioning, and therefore slightly rebellious though keeping with a fairly cookie cutter mainstream sort of appearance.

I stayed in San Diego after college I completed my bachelor’s of business administration at the beautiful University of San Diego. I emphasized in real estate and finance so shortly after I graduated college, I took a few more classes so I could obtain my broker’s license for real estate. I even went through extra training to get my Ecobroker certification last year. But while I was in college and throughout a large part of my twenties existence, I danced. Prior to that experience, even when I was 18, I was interested in entrepreneurship; I wanted to work for myself. I read books on the beach about how to start my own business. I wrote business plans for hobby which usually ended with me realizing how much of a person’s life would get absorbed into any start-up business. Through the business plan writing process, I realized I didn’t love my ideas enough to dedicate even ten years of my life to them. So for most of my young twenties I was an independent contractor, coupled with my yearn for entrepreneurship it solidified my feeling that I did not want to work for others and that would be a motivating factor as to where I am today.

I would not recommend the job as a path but in retrospect I see I was able to “buy time” to find myself, find my passions. Ultimately it introduced me to the electronic dance scene because of the diversity of music I was exposed to on the job which then led me to yoga, meditation, and my compassion for the world which for me is holistic environmentalism (a want to harmonize our human existence with nature).

What was your inspiration to get into Environmental nonprofit?
Yoga. I started to see all the world as being inter-connected … all of Humanity and all of Nature. Everything is really inseparable and we erroneously see otherwise. We have devalued Nature because we cannot hear It speak. I just felt a calling like many others to give voice to what we have degraded as voiceless.

Aside from the environment what are your other passions?
I love the electronic dance scene –I love different forms of movement so dance and yoga which are moving meditation for me …if passion is what you love what moves you to do something in life, then beyond what people may consider love for a partner, Ken, my partner, is a passion for me as he inspires me greatly to be the best person I can be. I think when you get older and over the immaturity of youth (glad I made it this far to even have this perspective) family does that as well. I love my family (which includes friends and really the world’s people in general…).

As a surfer, do you think you are more in tune with the environment than the average person that doesn’t spend considerable amounts of time in the water?

There are surfers that don’t care about the environment. I think caring about anything in general is a personal choice that comes from a place in your being that is greater than yourself. I would say I surf because I want that connection to Nature. Most surfers naturally are more in tune on some level of appreciation of the water, and the beauty of the beach environment but that doesn’t mean they pick up trash on the beach or they go out of their way to change their consumption habits let’s say, relating to plastic purchases (considering the Pacific Ocean is now a plastic stew). Ken and I both picked up some trash on the beach on my last trip to Costa Rica everyday. We picked up at least something after each session. I never saw a single other surfer that did the same. There are even signs up around town that say “Pick up Three” –a campaign to encourage people to just pick up three pieces of trash … Perhaps we are all at different levels of evolved consciousness. First we must think of ourselves then and only then can we care about other people and then the larger world around us and seek out ways to make changes in our lives to better the world as a whole. We must be able to feel that we are taking care of ourselves first, or we cannot have the expanded mind or energy it takes to care about anything else. At least I feel that for the most part, surfers although often caught up in their own niche branded consumerism, they are bit more simple and tread lighter even if only by default. They are not all hippies seeking out ways to live a more natural life. I would say I have more hippie leanings and I happen to surf.

How did Green Wave start?
The idea came from a job I had. I was working for a company that had a lot of land in Costa Rica. I went down to check out the property and it changed my life. I understood that land would be developed in Costa Rica, I could not stop that but I had this feeling like I wanted to stop it, I wanted to preserve what I saw. I felt like the people the foreign influence was importing bad ideas, meaning not eco-friendly and ultimately not sustainable, damaging ideas and practices. I wanted to stop that too. I also realized that “progress” was inevitable. The land would be developed, ideas would be imported –but I had hope then that maybe I could contribute to helping it develop better, more green.

So I approached an old friend of mine, my current director, initially with the idea of wanting to create some sort of non-profit brokerage where the commissions would just go toward a general non-profit fund for raising awareness to more natural and sustainable living and green development projects. I had (and still have) a dream of a sustainable school that taught movement studies like aikido, yoga, dance and things ranging from permaculture, to alternative health therapies such as traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, and raw food classes. Basically I wanted a wellness center/ school that would also serve as a cultural community center. I initially wanted this in Costa Rica. Basically I knew I wanted to do something … we had some initial ideas and for probably the first year after I came up with the idea, my director and I with the inspiration of Ken has evolved because he encouraged us to actually gear up, stop talking about what we wanted to do and start doing it.

What efforts does Green Wave support?
Education, collaboration, activism, and inspiration.

You seem to do a lot of work in Costa Rica. What makes Costa Rica so special?
Costa Rica is just special to me for different reasons but not really because I treasure Costa Rica over other places in the world. I don’t look at the world that way. I think everything is special and beautiful in it’s own right. What I want to do with Green Wave is be able to show others how to “be the change” (as taken from Gandhi’s iconic quote “you must be the change you wish to see in the world”). I feel that to “be the change” you do just that –you teach by example, you stick up for things you believe in and you do it within your own spheres of experience. So for example, I am a woman so I will have initiatives that I create based off of my gender because I want to contribute back to womankind. I am from Poway and San Diego so I want to be able to give back to the communities from which I am from. I now live in Los Angeles, so I want to give back to my local community. Ironically, Ken with a partner of his has a home in Costa Rica. So in a way, I have a home in Costa Rica. I know that we will be spending a good amount of time there throughout the years and I want to give back to that community. I also have a personal affinity towards wanting to help out developing nations as I feel they have the chance to truly develop sustainably from the ground up. I realized with that development job I had that “progress” is inevitable however, we can hopefully inspire people to build better (more sustainably) from the ground up.

NextAid is a Los Angeles based nonprofit organization committed to developing and implementing innovative sustainable solutions to the challenges facing African children.

How did you get hooked up with NextAID?
I had heard of NextAid here and there as I have been interested in the electronic dance music scene since my early twenties although I would have to say that it was at the back of my consciousness when I first became aware of the organization as it was not necessarily applicable or relevant knowledge for me at that time (this was pre-Green Wave). For instance, I remember being at a coffee shop called Red’s in Santa Barbara and picking up a flyer about a NextAid party. My boyfriend is one half of The Crystal Method. They are some of the Godfathers of the electronic dance scene (learn how they have “greened” the tour here), which is NextAid’s target market. So I remember they got asked to donate to NextAid maybe in 2007 when I first started dating Ken. It seemed like NextAid just kept popping up in my life.

I got “hooked up” with NextAid after I threw the 2008 L.A. Earthdance. NextAid is a beneficiary of some Earthdance events. I remember seeing them on the Earthdance website as a charity I could choose to donate to although I already had some picked out in addition to trying to raise money for Green Wave. After throwing the L.A. Earthdance, I became friends with Monica Salazar of the Green Addict group in San Diego who organizes the San Diego (and starting this year, the SoCal) Earthdance event. Through our friendship we decided that we wanted to collaborate on projects. She told me about the eco-village project NextAid was involved in and I felt that was something I wanted to back because it wasn’t just charity but trying to teach and inspire people to be sustainable on their own. NextAid’s mission is to help orphans of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

What projects are you working on with NextAID?
Mainly it’s what we are calling the “Green Wave House” project. It’s a concept to raise enough money for at least one structure in an eco-village in Kenya. I had the privilege of being able to tour with The Crystal Method. Part of “greening” the tour for the guys was to bring in what I called the eco-table initiative was to reach out to other environmental non-profits in each city and allow them to have a table to display their cause hoping to raise awareness amongst the attendees of the concert. I was given the o.k. by the guys to also represent Green Wave at the eco-table. I decided I would exhibit the Green Wave House project as part of the eco-table initiative. I thought it would be a good fit as NextAid works exclusively within the world of dance music events. I knew on tour I would also be the photographer and sometimes set up video shots so NextAid and I came up with a strategy to find NextAid volunteers that could represent the project at some of the shows. So the project got some national exposure on tour. It was mainly to raise awareness though vs. funds. To raise funds for the project, Green Wave has an upcoming benefit called Safari Soiree this coming Saturday, coincidentally falling on Nelson Mandela’s birthday, July 18th (now being proclaimed Mandela Day). Most of the funds from this event will go towards the eco-village project in Africa, although Green Wave will reserve some of the funds for the expansion of other Green Wave initiatives.

How can people contribute to the NextAID project?
Take a look at the Change.org site here.

So Green Wave has projects in Costa Rica and Africa, any US based projects?
Yes locally Green Wave currently creates awareness events, initiatives, and alliances. Alliances are an important aspect to Green Wave as I believe in order to create waves of change it will come by inspiring others to inspire their own “worlds” or spheres of influences as I addressed above. So far Green Wave has done awareness events for such as a green Earthdance party, an Eco-Yoga day, my birthday party, and now the upcoming Safari Soiree. In addition to the events, however, the biggest project we did this year was the eco-table initiative for The Crystal Method’s tour. There was a lot of work put in. I learned a lot and so I will probably work on fine tuning that idea/ project for the upcoming tours. I am currently doing a series for TheGreenGirls.com about the green initiatives on the tour, and the experiences I had. For future tours I will probably blog about as well but definitely Tweet!

If I wanted to get involved with Green Wave, how could I contribute?
Well of course people can donate. You can donate to Green Wave as we just obtained our 501c3 status or you can also attend one of our parties The next big one will be the SoCal Earthdance held in San Diego.

Of course there are other ways people can contribute. Contact me! I want people to do something. I want to inspire people. They can do it under my banner or under theirs, I don’t care –I want to inspire change however that comes about. The idea behind Green Wave was never to build up some new institution of thought but to be ever changing like waves, like the Ocean I so love. I want Green Wave to work with other people and organizations on collaborative projects and ideas. I feel waves of change can take place by inspiring people and organizations to take on ideas that they feel inspired by. So I have my own projects surely that I will want to see manifest, but more than that, I want to facilitate change large scale by working with other groups. It’s not about exclusively building my own agenda as I want to work with others. Obviously it is in the best interest of my company to receive credit for work done so we have a level of exposure and recognition so we are taken seriously but this can be achieved through collaborations. I don’t feel like there really are “new” ideas so to be attached and claim ownership to ideas is silly and egotistical (if we can say that about an organization). It’s about action. It’s about doing something. I want Green Wave “to do” and I want Green Wave to inspire others to action as well.

Outside of Green Wave, are you involved with any fundraisers or philanthropy?
Yes I am involved with Earthdance. As I exhaustively explained above (lol re: my connection with NextAid) … I threw the L.A. Earthdance last year. Green Wave is a little tricky as I am the founder but I am also myself and will help my friends. So I will with the help of L.A.’s Freddy B (Monday Night Social), be helping Monica Salazar and Jim Clayton of Green Addict expand the San Diego Earthdance event this year (Sept. 26, 2009) into a SoCal Earthdance so we can create an event that is closer akin to the amazing NorCal event in Laytonville.

If you don’t know what Earthdance is … they are a non-profit organization that promotes world peace through parties one day every year across the world. Promoters across the globe can throw an Earthdance party contingent that they choose one or more non-profits to dedicate a minimum of 50% of the profits from their event. What makes Earthdance special is the Prayer for Peace held at a certain time all across the world. So on one day, all at the same time, hundreds of thousands of people are in tune with a music track that promotes peace with hopes all the good vibes will raise the consciousness level of the world. I like the concept of peace because to me it is beyond being kind to one another, it starts with first being kind to yourself and then from that understanding comes compassion for others and then progressively to compassion for all of life which naturally leads to some level of inspired environmentalism.

What is next for Green Wave?
Immediately it is the fundraiser coming up on Saturday, the Safari Soiree in Hollywood for the Green Wave House project. Other than that there are also many things.

Check back with us in about 6 months! Green Wave will be working some administrative things like creating a newsletter to keep people better informed as to what Green Wave is up to. We will also be working to back The Edge Education a green pre-k curriculum. I currently have Green Wave Ambassadors in a few

Janine is a Contributing Editor and Green Guru for The Green Girls

different states. I will be working with my Ambassadors to create awareness events such as another Drive the Change event with Sabertec. We are also working on programs or initiatives to combine environmental awareness with music and art. I will probably be blogging about some of this so you can check out The Green Girls or follow me on Twitter @GreenGeisha