Thank You for committing to Celebrating Your Challenges on 24 November

It takes courage to Celebrate Your Challenges and can only happen after you have processed the pain and grief associated with your challenges and you have embarked on a journey of healing and forgiveness for yourself and the situation you found
yourself in now and in the past.
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage,
you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” ― Maya Angelou
 

WHAT IS INTERNATIONAL DAY TO CELEBRATE CHALLENGES?

This day has been established to bring light and awareness to the blessings inherent in our challenges.
We have all experienced challenges in life! Some have experienced apparently ‘harsher’ challenges than others – but irrespective of what challenge you have experienced past or present – there are gifts in them and they can be used to serve you.
There are skills and tools that you have learned from those experiences that you can apply to create the life you would love to live now.
You have shown incredible courage and you will have had the experience of connecting with your inner self to draw on great strength; strength you never thought you had.

So 24 November is a day dedicated to you, to celebrate the great gifts, skills, courage and strength you have to create the life you would truly love to create – the life that you know in your heart is there for you to live!

Through Celebrating Your Challenges you gain deeper self love, confidence and compassion; you gain clarity on your purpose in life and the inspiration to do what it takes to live that purpose and as the song goes – ‘Climb every mountain…‘ to achieve it, and in doing so you life a phenomenally fulfilled life.

“Being courageous is not the absence of fear – but it is to do in the face of fear and uncertainty”.

Judy van Niekerk

To Mark International Day to Celebrate Your Challenges 2016 we are launching

Reflections of Perceptions

The Seer, The Seeing and The Seen are the Same

The Seer =  The Photographer
The Seing =  The Audience
The Seen = The Subject

I Celebrate PROJECT

By

Celebrate Foundation

A photographic exhibition of men and women who have experienced

challenges in life but today can celebrate those experiences as they live

a fulfilled life of joy and enrichment.

This is an inspiring exhibition that demonstrates and showcases two important messages –

  1. Celebrating our uniqueness – to empower and promote tolerance of each others individuality – no matter what that is.
  2. There is no challenge bigger than we are and we can find joy and inner peace after challenge and in doing so we are greater versions of ourselves with a greater capacity for love and compassion.

At a time when there is so much focus on tragedy and suffering – it is our intention to show that through the process of healing, love, tolerance and compassion there is greatness and a profound capacity for generosity that we use to empower and lift each other up.

We aim to promote a greater level of understanding around Mental Health issues

We aim to promote a greater level of tolerance and incorporation of those we may see as different

We all have our path to walk in this life and on that path we will all experience challenges – we will all handle those challenges in our own unique way that is perfect for us – and for that no one deserves to be judged – just loved.

We aim to show that there is no challenge bigger than we are and that there is such incredible inner peace and a enormous capacity for love and compassion once we have been through the healing and learned to accept, forgive and hold sincere gratitude for our life as it is.

 

The exhibition is dedicated to demonstrating that there is no earthly challenge bigger than we are. We have incredible resilience and inner power to transform our lives from crushing challenge to celebration.

The greater the level of challenge you have experienced the deeper levels of inner strength you have. In that journey of surviving the challenge you have experienced, you gained a deep and powerful inner connection with your pure authentic self and that is the resources you needed to use to pull through and it is acknowledging that deep inner connection and remaining in touch with your inner authentic self you start the celebrate and experience tremendous depths of self love and appreciation.

There is so much agony, suffering and pain in the world today. So much fear and stress leading to depression and sadness; we will show that no matter what you have experienced after the pain, grief and healing there is celebration for the inner peace, self acceptance and forgiveness you can achieve.

Too often we remain stuck in the suffering and battling our way through the quagmire of healing – as anyone who has been on a healing journey will agree – it is a messy journey. Whereas if we start to consciously shift our focus away from the suffering on the healing journey to self enquiry and ask ourselves what gifts the experiences held for us we experience a paradigm shift in perception which opens a whole new horizon that leads to love, compassion, forgiveness, trust and joy for ourselves and others.

So if you experienced the violation of abuse, the agony of disease, the humiliation of failure, the trauma of loss of a loved one be it a spouse, child or parent, the loneliness of divorce, the horror of a terrorist attack, or the tragic loss of your home and income – whatever it is, if you would love to share your story we would LOVE to hear from you. As well as the Photographic Exhibition we will also be compiling a book with the images that will also include the stories – your stories – of celebration. Click on this link to submit your story

Project Photographers

Elin Robinson

Elin loves capturing the pure essence of her subjects. She loves capturing the radiant light and uniqueness in everyone of her portraits.

 

Cemanthe McKenzie

Cemanthe has been a photographer since an early age, just without a camera! She acquired her first manual camera at the age of 21, after asking people to give her money rather than gifts. Since then she’s added to the camera collection with more manuals, digital, a polaroid for nostalgia, and a double lens camera from 1955. Her favourite thing to do with a camera is to capture the essence, the story, and the life of the people in the lens.

Judy van Niekerk

Judy has been capturing images through her paintings and photographs since her childhood. She loves to capture the light and uniqueness of eyes – as they are the window to our soul and it is through eyes we perceive. Her favourite photos are pictures of eyes that reflect something that her subject loves to see.

WHAT IS THE MISSION BEHIND THE INTERNATIONAL DAY TO CELEBRATE CHALLENGES?
 It is our intention to create a global movement to encourage people across the world to see the gifts in their challenges. As the saying goes “Every cloud has a silver lining” this is appropriate to our challenges. By acknowledging the gifts in our challenges we unlock greater depths of healing, love, compassion and forgiveness for ourselves at the present time and also circumstances of times past.
WHY IS IT NECESSARY TO HAVE AN INTERNATIONAL DAY TO CELEBRATE CHALLENGES?
For too long now we have been drowning in the ‘victimhood’ of our challenges and it is the negative focus that swamps our life. In doing so we become totally focused with the trauma of challenges and deny ourselves the ability to acknowledge the gifts in them which means they lie dormant. In the meantime life becomes more and more anguished as you re-live the suffering. But when we start to acknowledge the gifts there is a shift in perspective and once we actually see the gifts, clearly, that is when we can actually deliberately use them in our daily life. That is when we also realise just how incredibly strong and powerful we are individually and collectively.

What are the benefits of Celebrating our Challenges? You experience a considerable shift in perspective when you start to celebrate your challenges. You start releasing yourself from the painful memories and become less plagued by them as you start to see what you have gained from them. It helps the healing process and in fact allows you to go to deeper levels of healing. It gives you a deep sense of inner peace and control over your life. You become so much more empowered as you gain tremendous clarity on what you would love to do in your life and you will have the certainty that you have all you need to do exactly that. You experience greater levels of empathy for yourself and others. You open your heart and you dissolve judgements as you become receptive to incredible opportunities that allow your life to flow with ease and grace. You gain deep levels of inner peace, self trust, self confidence and self esteem and in doing so you are able to love and have compassion for humankind in your immediate sphere of influence and beyond.

Do our challenges have a purpose?

This is a very broad topic and too complex for a simple FAQ style answer however in a nutshell and briefly yes, It is our belief that they do have a purpose. We believe that our challenges are there to nudge us into living our life of purpose. Our childhood challenges give us the tools, life experience, voids, and traits to live the life were were born to have. This does not in any way take away from the suffering we experience through our challenges, nor do we advocate that we need to start to celebrate all the time regardless of what has happened or as soon as we have experienced something that has been traumatic – absolutely not. Celebrating your Challenges takes time, a lot of time. It is different for everyone and the journey differs hugely from person to person. That journey will have several phases and that also differs from person to person. It is very important to note that you need to absorb what has happened to you, feel it, allow yourself time to grieve. You will know when you are on the healing journey and only then will you start to become receptive to the notion of celebrating your challenges. However it is our mission to make you aware that this is part of the journey. To know that one day maybe tomorrow, maybe next year you will be able to Celebrate all that is Divinely perfect in your Challenges, whether that is treasuring the wonderful moments of a loved one who has passed without feeling the suffering or appreciating the traits you developed that make you a powerful person today as a result of an abusive relationship in the past – whatever it is – it will be different for everyone. But the incredible depth of love, compassion, inner peace and forgiveness is the same.

Why 24 November? The team at Celebrate Foundation decided on 24 November as it is just before the United States celebration of Thanksgiving, so we thought it was an appropriate date. 24th November we celebrate ourselves, our courage, resilience and contribution to humanity. Then on Thanksgiving we celebrate and give thanks for everyone in our lives; all who have shaped us and contributed to our life journey. So in a space of one week we celebrate both what is inside us and outside.

Are Celebrate Your Challenges and “I Celebrate” Project companies?

International Day to Celebrate Your Challenges is a movement, a movement to raise awareness. Celebrate Foundation is a CIC (Community Interest Company – which is a Non Profit Organisation) The Celebrate Foundation amongst its other activities promotes International Day to Celebrate Your Challenges and is the founder of the “I Celebrate” Project

SPONSORS

There are many contributors and sponsors to Celebrate Foundation who give their time, expertise and creativity to inspiring others, empowering them to be all they can be –

Judy van Niekerk’s life story has captured global media, including CNN, The BBC and many others after she requested that the court trial of her father for what the judge said was the worst case to come to the High Court of Ireland of violent and sexual abuse be held out of camera, the first time this ever happened at the time in 2000. After she courageously shared her story of sexual abuse from her father. The reporting of sexual assault in Ireland increased 75% as a result. Committed to making a difference through her childhood challenges, Judy found her passion in empowering people to love and honor themselves regardless of what happened in their lives Judy is an international best selling author, speaker, an award winning entrepreneur and philanthropist

Tiny van Niekerk is a Director at Tiny and Judy Consulting Ltd and is a senior professional with a background in Project and Program Management. Tiny dedicates a considerable amount of time on project managing the various activities of Celebrate Foundation

The Digital Bra is not just a high-tech innovation. It allows women to finally embrace and love their bodies. A perfect fit comes from The Digital Bra technology, the first of its kind. The Digital Bra’s innovative App allows you to scan your body using the camera on your smartphone like a 3D scanner, from the privacy of your home. The scan takes more than 120 measurements to create an outline silhouette of your body on their secure server, allowing them to manufacture a bra that is the perfect fit. Once scanned, you select a bra from their range perfectly suited for you. Using a set of complex algorithms, the digital bra software makes the customized adjustments to create a bra pattern that is a 100% perfect fit. The bra is manufactured and sent to you by courier.

The Evolutionary Business Council is a community of influencers from around the world. Their  vision is to connect and assist like-minded thought-leaders whose collective mission is to make the world a better place. The members of the Evolutionary Business Council give their time and expertise in spreading the word about International Day to Celebrate Your Challenges and “I Celebrate” Project.