OUR MISSION
We strive to connect digital media with the social fabric of our lives by working with projects that have underlying social, spiritual, cultural value.
We produce and support educational digital media projects & products that have social relevance or contribute to a deeper understanding of cultural, spiritual and civic involvement in the world.
ABOUT IRIS
Iris Arts & Education Group, a 501(c)3 organization, was founded by Jan Camp in 1992 to be a container for emerging visual artists to show and share their work. In 1997 Verona Fonte became the Executive Director and Chair of the Board of Directors, shifting the focus somewhat, working mainly in the emerging digital media arena to, first, assist young people to become competent visual storytellers using the internet as their distribution vehicle. In the last few years as the internet has transformed the production and distribution of media, art and education the organization has focused on the production of digital medium projects for other nonprofits organization in socially relevant arenas. We donate our services, productions, at times training and software to nonprofit organizations that have something to add in terms of educating, informing or inspiring projects in arenas where heart, head and the public good are aligned. When approached by funded sources who offer to pay us for our services, we accept, as this is how we maintain our funding. But this is never the basis for our project selection.
Iris support includes organizational consultation, fiscal sponsorship, the production of media, websites and promotional materials that aid an organization’s mission and objectives. These materials range from websites to short movies, posters, postcards to books.
Iris also continues to work with well known artists, creating short films with socially relevant narratives.
2013 FISCAL SPONSOR PROGRAMS
Iris provides interim fiscal sponsorship for selected projects that fit within the mission of the organization.
VOZ PROPRIA
Iris has provided consultation,digital media support to the Voz Propia Foundation since 2007. The primary objective of this foundation is the artistic and cultural development of socially challenged children and youth. Guadalupe Urbina is the founder and cultural manager of that organization. She continues to dedicate her work for the preservation and dissemination of the cultural identity of northwestern Costa Rica and the protection of natural resources and the environment by involving children is related projects. Iris is currently consulting and designing projects for Guadalupe Urbina and collaborating with the socio-environmental project Centro de Arte para el Desarrollo Integral in Longo Mai located in Finca Sonador (Sonador Farm), in Buenos Aires de Osa, southern Costa Rica. Children of this project are working in conjunction with UNAPROA, an organization of compesinos working to protect their watershed from run off from huge pineapple plantations that are in mountain areas.
Iris Arts & Education is currently developing and managing the fundraising campaign for the CASA MADREMONTE - the first building for the Centro de Arte Y Sostenibilidad in Longo Mai. To donate to this project go to our "Contributions" page.
THE EARTH COMMUNITY TRUST
The aim of the Eradicating Ecocide campaign is to stop the destruction of ecosystems by human activities, putting in place a law of Ecocide as the 5th International Crime Against Peace. A major campaign strategy of this initiative is to use a range of online sources (including our website, social media, visual arts,posters and short films) to build a global campaign to educate people about ecocide and give them tools to call on governments to agree for Ecocide to become a crime at Rio+20. Iris is the U.S. fiscal sponsor of this iniative. 2012 - present
BIOMEDLINK
BioMedLink is a start-up social venture designed to build community and commerce around affordable biomedical innovations. BioMedLink aims to bridge the gap between medically-underserved clinicians, innovators, and those who fund, manufacture, and distribute biomedical devices and mobile health apps throughout the developing world. 2013
“HEIST: Who Stole the American Dream” - The movie
HEIST premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival in 2011 and is stunning audiences across the globe as it traces the worldwide economic collapse to a 1971 secret memo entitled Attack on American Free Enterprise System. Written over 40 years ago by the future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, at the behest of the US Chamber of Commerce, the 6-page memo, a free-market utopian treatise, called for a money fueled big business makeover of government through corporate control of the media, academia, the pulpit, arts and sciences and destruction of organized labor and consumer protection groups. It has won awards across the U.S. and is a New York Times Critics Pick in 2012. Currently major US unions, as well as national NGOs are using the film as an educational tool across the country, an it is on TV in a number of European countries. 2010 - present
OLIVIA PHILANTROPíA GATHERINGS
These gatherings aim to bring to the dining table members of groups engaged in relevant social and cultural issue to discuss topics of mutual concern and to raise funds for their projects. At each events there will be delicious food, wine, a speaker on a subject related to the central theme of the project, and conversation. Events are facilitated through Iris Arts & Education Group, a 501(c)3, and the Chef/Host/Project Director is Nathan Peterson, former chef/proprietor of OLIVIA Restaurant in Berkeley. Events are held in the Berkeley Hills at a private home. Events are scheduled by invitation. Contact nathan@solarcat.com for more information. 2013
PEACE AS A HUMAN RIGHT PROJECT
Project Director: Roberto Zamora, Costa Rica
This project, headed by Roberto Zamora, seeks to strengthen and develop the concept of Peace as a Human Right by developing coalitions with people and organizations in the international community that embrace principles such as disarmament, gun control, peace as a “human right”, fair trade between nations large and small, the rule of law and access to justice. It seeks to challenge the practice of perpetual war, the “outsourcing” development of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to less dominant nations; the impact of the development of these weapons on struggling third world economies and the impact of weapons development and war on the environment and climate change. 2008 - present
POSITIVE PEACE WARRIOR NETWORK
The Positive Peace WarriorNetwork (PPWN) works towards a culture of positive peace through the institutionalization of Kingian Nonviolence. By providing communities with the opportunity to explore the skill and will of Dr. King’s philosophy, we will learn from the past, creatively apply lessons to our present and foster a better future. PPWN nonviolence trainers introduce community participants to the Kingian Nonviolence philosophy and the ways Kingian nonviolence, as espoused by Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. 2012 - present.
DISASTER PREPARATION
In response to the swine flu emergency Iris Arts has offered the comprehensive disaster preparation book "Bird Flu What To Do: Prepare To Survive" and a PDF copy of the updated version "What To Do: Prepare To Survive" both by Verona Fonté to non-profit, religious and community organizations who are interested in creating disaster resistant communities. The organizations need provide only the cost of shipping the books to their location.
Former Iris projects not included on this website: Digital Media Literacy & The Altruistic Archetype
