Gills, Dedan: - Dedan Gills (1945-2015) was a poet and active member in one of the first urban intentional environmental communities in the country, the L.A. Eco-Village. Certified in Permaculture, he was a founding member of the L.A. Permaculture Guild. His poems have appeared in the International Sufi Association Journal. Born in Watts, California, Dedan was instrumental in the formation of the Black Student Alliance movement in Southern California and for a time was a member of the Black Panther Party. The demise of the Black Liberation movement was followed by years of despair while trying to find his activist footing on a different ground. He became an unrelenting advocate for human rights and Mother Earth. Dedan worked to integrate principles of permaculture design, sustainability, environmental awareness, and the greening of the inner spirit for healing and recovery. He gave tirelessly to groups of people abandoned by mainstream culture-the homeless and those suffering from addiction and incarceration. With Belvie Rooks, he co-founded Growing a Global Heart, a vision to inspire the ceremonial planting of trees to honor the forgotten souls of our past-from the transatlantic slave trade in West Africa to urban violence in the United States. Dedan touched many souls while actively addressing the physical, material, and emotional wounds. As he was known to say, "Things come and go, but the soul is eternal. When souls embrace, it is like a kiss that lasts forever!"Rooks, Belvie: - Belvie Rooks, who currently lives in northern California, is a writer, educator, and human rights activist whose work weaves together the worlds of spirituality, feminism, ecology and social justice. With her late husband, Dedan Gills, she is co-founder of Growing a Global Heart, a vision to inspire the planting of millions of memorial trees to honor the forgotten souls of our past. They have engaged in memorial tree-planting projects along the Trans-Atlantic Slave Route in West Africa, the Underground Railroad in the US and Canada and also for victims of urban violence. As an educator she was a member of the founding faculty of the College of Social Justice at the State University of New York (SUNY) Old Westbury. She has been a board member of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), Bioneers, and the Ella Baker Center.
