Introduction

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 June 2014 16:00

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Salam, my Iranian and Middle Eastern Friends, Friends of Iran, Advocates of Peace & the Environment, and Rotarians,

in Canada, Iran and 4 other countries:
As promised, "we have something new" and exciting for our UC presentation on January 24. The evening of learning and fun will feature:
  • a secret lady of the desert
  • traditional & modern music
  • a Persian Corner
  • a new team member
  • an imaginary journey
  • fun time (make you own Silk Road souvenir) with a prize
  • Silk Road snacks
  • an activated PPT of our trip in Iran
We will also present a short travelogue of our 8,400 km ecoStudy tour through 4 countries, an update on recent developments, a glimpse of future plans, question & answer session, and opportunities to participate and network.
Please forward this invitation to your friends in Calgary, to make this a truly international community event.
If you wish to help out with the Persian Corner, please bring a related item to share for the evening, such as photos or CD/DVDs, musical instrument or incense, table cloth or decoration, map or scroll, souvenir or spices, caravanserai or relic, book or poem, goat or camel. We can also display brochures of a business or commercial nature related to people and places of countries along the Silk Road.
There are many exciting developments as the project moves ahead.

Mibinamet

Jorg

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Introduction

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 June 2014 16:00

To our splendid team in Mashhad, including architects, engineers, city officials, historians, archaeologists, professors and other team members, a great THANK YOU and a very wonderful Yalda celebration and holiday, as you reunite in memory of the great times we had together in October exploring the Mashhad region as noted in the Thank You Letter and Certificates of Appreciation, below.

A special thank you to Dr. Prof. Hataminejad of the University of Tehran, Messrs. Bahram Resideh of Golden Brick Construction in Vancouver (1), and Behzad Resideh and Shoeib Ebdali of Faraeen Consulting Engineers in Mashhad.

Jorg
Reference:
1) http://www.goldenbrick.ca/


Slides

Silk Road to Peace fellowship+project, Iran 2013


Thank you letter 

Thank you letter link


Certificate of Appreciation:

Dr. Akbari

Mr. Abbass Amirian

Mr. Manoochehr Arian

Mr. Bahram Resideh

Mr. Behzad Resideh

Ms. Sepide Delasaei

Mr. Shoeib Ebdali

Dr. Hataminejad

Mr. Rajabali Labbaf Khaniki

Dr. Majid Labaff Khaniki

Ms. Maryam Najafi

Mr. Hasan Pourhosseini

Mr. Mehdi Seyedi

Dr. Ramezanali Shourabi

Mr. Jasem Teimoori

Mr. Ehsan Zare

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Letters of Support and Endorsements (1)

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 June 2014 16:00

Letters of Support and Endorsements of our Silk Road to Peace project will be posted as time permits, this one from Nader Tehrani, Head MIT School of Architecture, my alma mater. If you have a suggestion of other important people who may be willing to support this project in any way, please contact us.

نامه‌های تأیید و پشتیبانی از پروژه‌ی «راه ابریشم تا آشتی» تا آنجا که در مجال می‌گنجد، اینجا منتشر خواهند شد. این نامه از نادر تهرانی است، رئیس دپارتمان معماریِ ام. آی. تی، همان دانشگاهی که من هم در آن درس خوانده‌ام. اگر شخصیت‌های مهم و شناخته‌شده‌ی دیگری را هم در ذهن دارید که شاید مایل باشند این پروژه را تأیید یا به هر شکلی از آن پشتیبانی کنند، لطفاً پیشنهادهایتان را با ما در میان بگذارید. 

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Saturday November 30, 2013 at University of Calgary, Debriefing on the Silk Road to Peace 60 day ecoStudy Tour 2013: Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Iran

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 June 2014 16:00

The event attracted a good breed of independent thinkers and creative visionaries, generating great discussion and making innovative progress.

Our team is most grateful for all who attended, with your thoughts and participation, encouragement and support.

Delara, thought that learning Farsi is important in preparation for our next visit. She is right. She should know. She teaches Farsi. Helen remembered that our Chinese team member warmed the hearts of our Iranian team members by sharing simple words of Farsi that she had learned, during meal times. So Helen thought one could learn Farsi even better in the context of cooking. That got Dr. Arthur Clark all excited. He remembered Conflict Kitchen in the US. Team member and artist Marilyn also supported this idea. Irene chimed in by adding music (thank you for your homemade bread) and Judith went on to invite oil patch CEOs to the quickly evolving Silk Road Food Fun(d) Raiser or Festival. So Helen and Dr. Arthur Clark will discuss organizing a special event early in the New Year. Many were excited by combining these possibilities. If you wish to help, please let me know. Maybe we will try a beta version at Christmas? Food for thought, food for stomach.

Dr. Clark also reiterated his wish that a group of emissaries from Calgary accompany us on our next mission. He originally stated this after seeing a very nice presentation on the Silk Road to Peace by Sara Tehranian, Anahita Atashbiz and Marilyn Mora at the November 2 Vision 2020 conference.

Our next plans for Nowruz 2014 encompass a short series of educational vacations that combine seminars and "hands-on" workshops on relevant topics such as solar cookers, peace permaculture, food security, passive solar rammed earth greenhouses, and water conservation and ganats. The ecoVacation is capped with a guided heritage tour.

I met with a group of Iranians after the presentation. One of them followed up afterwards. Subsequently, I also met with a local electrical engineer willing to assist with contacts and experts in Iran. A professional engineer sent her resume and wants to join the team, as a volunteer.
Here are a few unsolicited comments given as feedback, for your entertainment:

1) "....A bit of a miracle happened at your talk! ..." BH
2) "....you are always so kind and considerate.  Thank you for a very informative and uplifting evening, Cathy and I greatly enjoyed ourselves...Best wishes on your ongoing journey." RC
3) "You are a true philanthropist with a poetic soul! The event might have been a little long but a lot of your pictures and commentaries were fascinating! I still think a cooking programme on City TV or other similar station might do a lot to promote Iranian culture through food ! ...Thank you and your wife Helen again for all the energy you put into that most edifying event about the fascinating Caravanserai~.... maybe you never know, Martin and or I might come on an excursion...." JA
4) "Thank you for the wonderful presentation.  I enjoyed being there ...  I saw your passion that you have for the project, to rebuild the Silk Road.  It would be probably a long term project.  If you need any help from me, as a volunteer or not, let me know."
5) "As usual your latest was fascinating." MF
6) "Thank you for this evening's presentation. It was informative and inspiring. I have added traversing the Silk Road to my bucket list and hope to visit a recofitted caravanserai or two in the course of the journey. I gather that recofit is a term that you have coined to describe an ecologically sustainable re[tro]fitting of a structure. You may find it useful to add this term to Wikipedia in order that others may come to understand the meaning and concept."

The next presentation will be on Friday January 24 (time and location to be announced) for those who could not attend, and those wanting to see further developments. 3 new documents should be available for introduction and review:

1) a formal written report on our trip
2) draft 1 of an applied scientific RD&D proposal (research, development and deployment), for circulation
3) a proposal to ICHTO to seek permission, partnership and start of the actual recofit of 4 historical structures.

Here are 3 shots by Saeid Saeedi that captured the spirit of a wonderful evening of discussion and exchange, encouragement and support. Thank you all you generous companions and intellectual minds. If you have a photo or two of the evening, will you please send it to me? If you have a friend who also believes in pragmatic approaches to peace, please let me know.

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Silk Road to Peace Presentation at Univeristy of Calgary

Last Updated on Wednesday, 11 June 2014 16:00

We want to share the good news and pragmatic progress on the Silk Road to Peace project with you on Saturday, November 30, 2013 at 7:00 pm. We have invested a lot of time and effort, faith and trust in Iran, when very few others did. Saturday's pragmatic debriefing is a tribute to the special people and places inside of Iran, without political agendas or imperial propaganda. If you like to learn from history and travel, make friends with people and breath in nature, finding joy and splendor, work together as a multidisciplinary team, this may interest you.

We seek like-minded partners and patrons, visionaries and independent thinkers, professionals and laypeople, to join us as we rebuild the old Silk Road into a sustainable bridge between East and West, the past and future, - a lasting road to peace, one caravanserai at a time. You too can be a stakeholder in this leading-edge demonstration project and international paradigm shift.

Please RSVP, jdo at ecobuildings dot net or j.ostrowski at ucalgary dot ca. Seating is limited.

To find room 3257, use the "interactive room finder": http://www.ucalgary.ca/fmd/buildings/professional_faculties.

Thank you for considering this invitation to hear our plans and see our progress to:

• build peace, not war

• rely on truth, not deceit

• promote cooperation, not hostility

• include, not exclude

• advance education and ecotourism 

• collaborate, not sanction

• seed sunrise, not sunset industries

• give, not deprive

for the people and places in a land called Iran, the starting point for this transcontinental mission, as we continue to research and inspect, plan and design, initiative and test, the beginning of the Marco Polo Trail and BioSphere from Istanbul Turkey to Xi'an China, over the next 10 years.

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