Heartbeat of the World

CELEBRATING CULTURAL DIVERSITY THROUGH UNIVERSAL PARALLELS

​​Heartbeat of the World is a new youth-focused Alaska World Arts Festival project celebrating cultural diversity and universal parallels. The results of this endeavor will be available to schools and educators across the USA and worldwide.

Team Members

Our team is working with additional support of travel and video professionals Kebebe Dache (Ethiopia), Adnane Benajiba (Morocco), and other worldwide educators.

​Jake Bevis has a masters degree in multimedia journalism and is currently working as a video editor/photographer at an NBC affiliate news television station in Portland, Oregon. 

Sara Haugen works at a San Francisco Bay Area land trust. She has degrees in Spanish and international studies with a focus on international development and sociological research.

Chris Laing is a Habitat for Humanity family partner and has worked worldwide with non-profits  focusing on community building, 
organizational planning, program development, & communications.

Simon Marijsse is a world traveler from Belgian finishing his PhD in cultural anthropology. Simon speaks 9 languages and has crossed most of the African Republic of the Congo by foot.

Sally Oberstein is the director of Alaska World Arts. She holds an undergraduate degree in art and her graduate work is in community development and education. She has traveled in over 100 countries.

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization. — GANDHI