21 years of Images and Voices of Hope in Brazil

a victorious story of change in the way of doing communication

In order to celebrate the 21 years of IVOH in Brazil and to launch the new logo and digital platform, an online dialogue was held on April 14, 2021, bringing together around 35 communicators. Facilitated by Irineu Toledo, journalist, and broadcaster, the program was a partnership between Radio Positiva and the Brahma Kumaris. From the live, we captured the stories and visions of participants who were transformed by IVOH and who transformed others as well.

“IVOH started in Brazil about 20 years ago when we brought the North American founder, Judy Rodgers, to a dialogue in Rio de Janeiro. The purpose of this movement is to lead the communicator to recognize the importance he has and the values ​​present in the image or message he is bringing to the public. A communicator who is more aware and attentive of the impact his divulgation causes on people is capable of be an agent of change in his environment. He also goes through several challenges: the experience of stress, the need for clarity, precision, focus and attention. The role of the Brahma Kumaris, besides the issue of awareness and practice of values, is to provide the experience of peace and highlight the importance of getting to know this inner media before expressing it in the larger media, in social media.”

“The main objective of the new website is to bring the IVOH community closer, to make this space more collaborative and to reach and inspire more people. It is divided into several channels. In “About” we have the movement history, team and mission. In “Community” – the main vehicle of this platform – the communicators’ testimonies, the collective developed manifesto and events are gathered. Under “News” – the platform’s main content – there are stories, articles, experiences, initiatives, audios and videos. To assist new collaborators, the “How we do it” channel was created with, articles, methodology and presentations. In “In the media” there are articles that created an impact on communication.”

“What have we believed together over these years? (1) We believe that outer images and messages affect not only our inner states, but affect public conversation and discourse in the places where we live. (2) We believe that although we have to talk about bad things, because so many bad things happen, it seems that trauma has become the chronic medium in our times, but we shouldn’t just focus on one bad thing and the next bad thing and the next bad thing. (3) We have to have a reflexive practice to have the kind of vision that can see promise and hope even in a very difficult or dark time. We have to be able, through prayer, meditation or contemplation, to locate the source of goodness, love, peace, sympathy, care and happiness that lives in all human beings.

This job that we live in media is not just a job. We believe it is a vocation. It’s a call to serve our communities, our countries and the world because when people are sad or scared or worried or discouraged, they don’t need images that still make them even more disheartened, even sadder.

I remember a lecture given by Dadi Janki, former head of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, during a dialogue for leaders in England. The talk was about peace and when it was finished a young man from Africa who was in the group thanked her and said: “But where I come from it would be inappropriate to talk about hope, love and peace because things are not going well there. We have an Ebola epidemic, we have violence. There are so many distressing things for people.” Dadi Janki went to him and said:

‘There is no power in anger. Power is in the natural attributes of the soul. There is power in peace. There is power in love. There is power in gratitude. There is power in empathy and happiness. There is no power in righteous indignation.’

So when we tell stories about our times, we have to talk about the bad things that are happening, but we can focus on the narrative arc of restoration. Even from something very difficult, research tells us that 80% of people have resilient personalities, that they are knocked out, but they recover, they stand up, they get better. Often, after a very upsetting experience, people actually come back wiser and stronger. And our hearts tell us that kindness, love and hope are stronger than fear, violence and sadness. So to all of you who are leading this movement we call Images and Voices of Hope, congratulations for the 21 years. May you be courageous, creative and assertive in your commitment to bring hope to Brazil and the world.”

“I feel myself like a big IVOH activist. Not big for the repercussions, but inside my heart the IVOH has such a transformative role in my story that everything gets bigger. I met IVOH when I was in a moment of great hopelessness, very discouraged with the ways of communication and of performing in an universe that copes with brands. It was at an IVOH meeting in Rio de Janeiro that something very important emerged from me called hope. Not the hope from waiting, but to be hopeful. The hope of having a new energy in motion. And knowing that new energies in motion change scenarios. The first scenario they change is our inner scenario. After discovering this possibility of acting in the communications sector as a point of light, I started to look at the profession with different eyes. I realized that as an active point of light I have this role that can awaken in other human beings their respective roles as points of light wherever they are, whatever they are doing, whatever profession they are.

There is still a lot of hypocrisy in the business world, but we have to look at companies that are looking to do something good for the inner world, for the outer world, through what they produce, how they produce, how this impacts the lives of the whole natural universe. It seems that many young companies already come with this DNA. I decided to give a hand to anyone who wants to change the way they think about communication. It can be a content writer, it can be a company, it can be a brand, it can be a human being, it can be so much and it can be so many. I discovered that you can’t anymore build brands the way you used to. In the middle of the pandemic we created another way of working. It’s called HOLLUN. It is entirely Images and Voices of Hope. It is a child of Images and Voices of Hope. When we realize that a company is really wanting to shake its roots, bring light inside, oxygenate souls, then we will touch the roots. We need to feel if this is genuine, sincere. If it’s genuine, we’ll expand because we can work with more expressions of what’s true. I know my gift is communication. Through the IVOH, this gift was transformed into greater faith, in the certainty that each one of us is an Ocean of possibilities. And I try to live this Ocean that lives in me because it is God. When God lives in you, nothing limits you. I don’t have any limits. I have a lot of hope”

“IVOH’s new logo was created by my dear partner Luiz Lobo, brilliant and highly awarded art director. This new brand has the “e” very large. It’s a mix of lilacs, roses. Pink is the color of love. The lilac vibration is transmutation. The feminine also has these colors. And it’s not a sexist issue. The feminine as an ability to be nurturing. Ability to be the land that receives the seed. When you say Images and Voices of Hope it is “hope” that shines. This logo has many light reflections coming out from hope. Hope brightens. Images and Voices of Hope is light. It’s light in any profession, but above all it’s light in all of us who influence other professions. In all of us who plant hope or hopelessness. I chose to be this very big “e” spreading only light trails.”

“I received as a gift of life to be able to spend six years working in the communication of “Citizenship Action” with Betinho. I was already an advertising professional in crisis and Betinho gave me the lollipop: communication doesn’t have to sell products, it can sell ideas. He told me: it is unworthy for people to go hungry. Hope is translated into the solidarity. Just as I learned at Brahma Kumaris that we can have dialogues, this became such a fundamental tool that I developed a project called Essential Dialogues, totally based on the IVOH Appreciative Dialogues where we talk and try to make this conversation a generator of hope first for each one and second for what we are putting into the theme. I met Judy and had the experience of bringing her to a meeting at ABERJE (Brazilian Association of Business Communication) where 120 business communicators participated. My goal was to take her reasoning into this population, to communicators who have immense power because they are inside companies. And they became my great partners in life. They learned a lot with Images and Voices of Hope, facing, at times, incredible difficulties to implement dialogue between employees, between hierarchies and bring hope to all of them.

My world has gone from advertising people to internal communicators where I actually have a lot of friends. For me internal communication is critical because it brings that hope to traumatized people at work. And today, this challenge is even greater, people are working online, at home and the tasks are much more complex. It is a difficult time where we are being challenged to have a lot of hope. And more than ever Restorative Narrative. I even perceived in the Globo TV professionals the influence that IVOH had. André Trigueiro created “Cities and Solutions” where he denounces everything that happens in the environment, but created a program where he sought solutions to influence people. Leilane Neubarth often ended the TV News saying “good night, with hope”. I saw her bringing our IVOH meetings. Many newspapers today have the desire to end with positive news even though they are reporting death, death, death, here comes a story of a person with solidarity. IVOH was a silent movement. In silence it generated a profound transformation in communicators and in the product of communication. This gives me some hope. Of all the things that have been destroyed in recent times that I participated in the construction, IVOH has not been destroyed. He is there. IVOH has a victorious history of 20 years, victorious without fuss, victorious in the heart of each one of us who works with communication with an essential word which is love.”

“In 2007, I attended the IVOH Cone Sul (Caetés, MG). I was looking for references for a different work that would have a positive impact on the world. We are in the world to make it more beautiful. In IVOH I found the inspiration to do something from heart and values. After this event we created a path and from there people were inspired and many actions took place.

In 2008, there were meetings with Judy at three colleges bringing together around 500 students. In 2009, we created the IVOH Center with professionals from Belo Horizonte and region. We frequently started to make appreciative dialogues for communication and advertising professionals. We created the IVOH Minas blog with permanent updates. In 2016, we promoted the dialogue “New narrative in difficult times” in Igarapé, MG. It was a conversation with professionals from Minas, São Paulo and Rio. We gave an award that was a way of talking to journalists from Minas vehicles, valuing IVOH focus reports. During this period the tragedy of Mariana took place. Our city was very impacted by all this and journalists covered it with a human focus, listening to the stories. Reports from Radio Itatiaia, State of Minas, Revista Sorria were awarded by IVOH.

IVOH meant big impacts on my personal work. Debora Junqueira and I worked at the Minas Teachers Union, a place that many people think that has a very fierced agenda. However, influenced by the IVOH, we managed to dialogue with a focus on changing reality. We made TV shows that were broadcast by TV Bandeirantes and Rede Minas TV. There were more than 14 awards arising from the constructive guidelines that we chose to develop in our media. The magazine “Elas por Elas” received the national award for journalism with a gender agenda, something that we always wanted to address.

Telling a little of this story is to feed and revive the hope to move forward. Looking at history, we see how much we have lighted so far and also how much we still need to light in the times we are living.”

“As “Elas por Elas” magazine editor I was thinking about how we are going to apply this in practice? I couldn’t change news with a negative impact but we thought about solutions to problems. For example, the Minas Teachers Union ran a campaign called “Peace at Schools”. In addition to purposeful agendas, we were also able to work within the management. We take the IVOH’s appreciative dialogues to the meetings, including with our bosses. They were embarking on those ideas. One of them was a professor at University and he invited us to speak in his class. This was creating something positive there. And with all this history of protagonism, it was awakening in me the possibility of expanding this. So I started to implement another career plan as a coach with the aim of helping women since I was with the magazine.

I’m the curator of the facebook news (@IVOHbrasil). I’m always posting good news: the vaccine, a street called Hope, etc. But we also address the issue of restorative narrative, of seeking to do investigative journalism that goes deeper into what is behind the facts. Through News about crimes you get all the details, but which are these people’s stories? It’s the stories that connect.

I’m talking here about the influence of IVOH on my career. About making a choice for purposeful guidelines and that will lead me to success. And from there move to coaching and learn through powerful questions. I had a need to know what kind of impact my information was causing. Today my relationship 1 X 1 with a client gives me more personal satisfaction. My story here is through my transformation, having had positive sources and energies. And not just being a journalist or coach, but seeing myself as media. What do I share? Today I reflect much more on what I’m going to post. Everyone knows what the impact is when you pick up your cell phone and you watch the daily news. And at the end of the day, if you go to sleep you sleep bad. How this issue impacts people.

May this silent path of the IVOH goes to all corners, reach most people. As Mia Couto says, it takes courage to have hope in the world in difficult times, where people take it for granted that we should be sad and with feelings that are not the main values ​​of human beings. We can build not only communication but a civilization where we preserve nature with technology and more human persons.”

Finally, Irineu led the group to reflect on the future:

When I think about the future I think about silence. More and more quiet. But at work, because we have this call, I think about merging myself in the world of dissociated content. Contents that arise from the soul, that come out by itself. In fact what I see for IVOH is that a demand from audiences and co-creators is growing more and more. For future and for IVOH I see with great happiness more and more an immense and intense participation in the planet of people who take this genuine hope to others, whether by narrative they restore, appreciative investigations and playful work. When we play we get lighter and our awareness expands. In a world that is getting so dense, so heavy, I see a lighter future.

Christina Carvalho Pinto

Since the pandemic started, what I have been doing is content. I have no plans for the future. My plan is to let Cosmo take me as far as it thinks I should go. But my commitment and purpose, these will never be destroyed.

Nádia Rebouças

May we continue to make history in the next 10, 20 years and may this platform be able to reach more people, so that more people are inspired and have more good news in their daily lives. And that they also want to see all of our events as opportunities.

Cristiane Ramires

The future is this time of positive connections spreading good content.

Cecilia Alvim

The future is the next message you will share.

Debora Junqueira