Cover story: Peace by piece -- Woodsider's international efforts show that one person can make a difference Cover story: Peace by piece -- Woodsider's international efforts show that one person can make a difference (January 12, 2005)

By Andrea Gemmet

Almanac Staff Writer

This week, if all goes well, more than $37,000-worth of donated medical supplies will depart for tsunami-devastated Colombo, Sri Lanka, bypass bureaucratic entanglements and other roadblocks to distribution, and go directly into the hands of a local aid organization. The relief effort was organized by Diane Eskenazi of Woodside, who used her connections with California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, a Sri Lankan nonprofit working in the Colombo area, and Federal-Express, which apparently really will ship things just about anywhere.

Ms. Eskenazi, a lithe, energetic woman with a penetrating gaze and a ready laugh, appears bent on proving the old adage about one person being able to make a difference.

The New York City native and one-time dance student works for the greater good by harnessing the power of mass media for both her livelihood and her life's work.

As a prolific producer of children's films, the Woodside resident has written, directed and produced 80 direct-to-video titles in less than 10 years, as well as written and published 200 songs. As the founder of Peace Builders Inc., a grass-roots nonprofit, she is dedicated to providing peace education for children with some "ooomph."

The films, which are mostly animated, are all nonviolent and have positive messages, she says.

"The success has been great. It's enabled me to do the nonprofit work," Ms. Eskenazi says.

Christine McMurry, the spokeswoman for California Pacific Medical Center, says hospital officials heard about Ms. Eskenazi's tsunami relief efforts through her sister Loren Eskenazi, a surgeon at the hospital.

"We've donated $25,000 worth of antibiotics, bandages, ointments -- standard hospital items that are really needed, but may be depleted," Ms. McMurry says.

While major organizations such as the Red Cross are encouraging monetary donations, the hospital's three campuses in San Francisco are collecting clothes, towels, sheets and other items, she says.

"There are people who can't afford to send money, but everyone has clean old towels, or clean sheets they can send," she says, noting that many tsunami victims lost even the clothes on their backs when the violent waves struck.

A trial shipment of clothes, sheets and towels arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday, via Memphis, Paris and Dubai. Ms. Eskenazi says she is still working with FedEx on the logistics of shipping the more-than 300 boxes of medical supplies. At the last minute, the shipment grew thanks to officials at Mills-Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame who donated $12,500 to purchase more medical supplies, she says.

Ms. Eskenazi's efforts for tsunami relief is in addition to her ongoing work with children's organizations around the world. With them she practices a person-to-person style of philanthropy by sending school supplies, clothes, vitamins -- whatever is needed -- directly to the recipients.

Thanks to the Internet, she stays in regular contact with orphanages in Afghanistan, Sierra Leon, India and other places, and she posts lists of needed items and addresses to send them to, on her peace-builders.com Web site.

For kids especially, being able to do something tangible for other children who are in need, and then hear back from them via e-mail, creates a connection that just can't be duplicated by sending a check, Ms. Eskenazi says.

"I want to stir their compassion, not by donating money -- that's too easy -- but by collecting the stuff that they need," she says.

Sheera, her 4-and-a-half-year-old daughter, helps collect supplies, and donates one of her old toys for each new toy she gets, Ms. Eskenazi says.

"I don't think it's ever too early to try to instill those values," she says. "Children need to learn compassion. They are the future, and we're not delivering to them such a great world. We need to see beyond borders, colors and religions."

Packing up the boxes, which always include a card with good wishes, is both a physical and a spiritual exercise, she says.

"We always say, 'Let us know if you got this,' and they do," she says. "It's technology that allows us to do this. Letters can take months, but the world is online -- even orphanages in Sierra Leone."

Ms. Eskenazi's latest project is "Peace on Earth," a 72-minute film that includes footage of children from all over the world, as well as a diverse group of locals from the Bay Area.

Intended to give children tools to achieve peace in their own lives, as well as teach about ethnic tolerance, forgiveness and compassion, it's scheduled to be released later this year. Ms. Eskenazi is still hammering out a distribution deal as well as permission to use the song "Where's the love" by the Black Eyed Peas.

There's a version of "Peace on Earth" geared toward younger children, and a more MTV-ish one for older kids. She says she asked the kids to talk, on a personal level, about how they resolve conflicts when they get into fights. Ms. Eskenazi organized the results into a "wheel of peace" with 12 elements, ranging from "do unto others..." to finding common ground and taking time to cool down.

"It all came from what they said," Ms. Eskenazi says. "It's not us adults talking down to them. The kids are talking to each other, and I'm just the conduit."

Everyone involved donated their time, including Oakland-based dance group New Style Motherlode and the Expressions Center for New Media in Emeryville, she says. The project got a lot of press last winter when, the night before filming was to start, 16-year-old Tiffini Reed, who was to sing in the film, was attacked and stabbed after attending a basketball game.

Tiffini is still rehabilitating from the incident, but she has recently done professional voice work on another album and she's back in school, Ms. Eskenazi says.

In one part of the film, the children, dressed in white and holding candles, were invited to say a prayer for peace.

"These were spontaneous prayers," she says. "As corny as that sounds, it was so moving, we were all crying -- even the reporters were crying."

Spiritual influence

Ms. Eskenazi jokes that the reason she is so dedicated to children's causes is because she's still a child herself. She says she had a Mother Teresa complex when she was younger, although her admiration for the Catholic nun who worked with the poorest of the poor in the slums of Calcutta did nothing to quash her fondness for the fashions of the Marlo Thomas "That Girl" era. "They used to call me Mother Teresa in a miniskirt."

"I still think about her all the time, that level of dedication she had," she confesses.

Wanting to follow more spiritual path, she dropped out of the dance program at Oberlin College in Ohio and went to work for UNICEF, Ms. Eskenazi says. Her experiences working with the press while a regional coordinator for UNICEF led her to journalism school at the University of Colorado.

"The best way to reach people is through the media, so I decided to learn about the financial aspects of funding films," she says.

Through her company, Golden Films, she made 1999's "Nuttiest Nutcracker" for Columbia Tri-Star, the "Enchanted Tales" series for Sony, and many more.

Walk into a Blockbuster, Wal-Mart or Target, and you'll find some of her films, she says. Because of their positive, nonviolent content, her films have been endorsed by KIDS FIRST!, and won ITA gold and platinum awards from the International Recording Media Association for the amount of sales they generate.

There were points in her life when Ms. Eskenazi wore only white and lived in an ashram, recalls her sister, Dr. Loren Eskenazi. Since then, she's grown more worldly, but has always maintained the same ideals, Dr. Eskenazi says.

"Even if you look at the way she's earned her money, they're all fairytales and they all have a moral lesson," she says of her sister. "She'd take a normal fairytale and give it a spin that's instructional and positive, energetically positive."

Ms. Eskenazi's previous documentary project, a post-9/11 film called "Under the Stars and Stripes," tapped the talents of students at the Northern Light School in Oakland, a private school for at-risk children. Over 400 children of diverse ethnic origins were filmed to make a documentary about patriotism and peace, Ms. Eskenazi says.

The Northern Light students who participated had no idea of the film's reach until, on an eighth-grade field trip to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the group saw the film prominently displayed in the museum's gift shop and called Michelle Lewis, the head of Northern Light School.

"They were screaming, 'We're famous!' They were so excited, they all bought one because it said Smithsonian on the package," Ms. Lewis says.

Ms. Eskenazi's determination to make children active participants in the world around them meshes well with the school's philosophy, Ms. Lewis says.

"She's a remarkable person and a great mother, says Ms. Lewis. "She has this incredible vision of what the world should be like, and through the lens of her camera, she's able to put that down for kids to see and learn from and emulate."

Ms. Eskenazi says she hopes that the connections made between children around the world will create ties of friendship and understanding.

"I'm just one person, and I'm not particularly special, but I've found you really can make a big impact," she says. "If I can affect that many lives, then my life has been worthwhile."
INFORMATION

For information about helping tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, as well as selected organizations for children in need around the world, go to peace-builders.com and click on "What you can do." There's also a link to the children's peace petition. Information and activities for children related to the post-9/11 documentary "Under the Stars and Stripes" is at underthestarsandstripes.com.

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