Monarch Visionaries are those who cure the pain of the collective heart by realizing the inner power to actualize their spiritual purpose upon the Earth in service of the will of Divine Mother Universe. This month, we spotlight humanitarian and child welfare activist, Randi Thompson, CEO, President and co-founder of Kidsave International, as we discover how deeply our love and sense of duty can penetrate into the depths of consciousness to illuminate a path of empowerment that awakens our dormant spiritual abilities to weather all storms in attunement with the guiding force of a higher power.

Scientifically acknowledged for their heightened empathy and superior intelligence, dolphins have greater cognitive abilities than great apes and rival human cognitive abilities in many aspects, in particular their biosonar abilities that include echolocation and electroreception.

While dolphin brains are similar in size to humans in relation to their body mass, their neocortex is thinner with much more area and is more folded, meaning that they have much more surface area for greater connections. The degree to which the cerebral cortex is folded is a measure of intelligence. The more folded the cortex, the more room within the brain to house additional neurons to perform processing of information.

Relative to humans, who have between 12,000 -18,000 million neurons in the neocortex, dolphins are estimated to have approximately 48,000 million neurons. This allows dolphins to process complex sensory stimulus and cognitive functions much faster and more robustly than humans.

Based off years’ of research to confirm that dolphins and whales have a human-like level of self-awareness, the motion was made at the 2010 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada, the world’s largest scientific conference, for a Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans, respecting the spiritual liberties of such majestic creatures.

While a pod of wild dolphins can travel up to 100 kilometers a day in the open ocean, captive dolphins may spend up to 50 years living in misery as a captive dolphin’s tank is nearly 200,000 times smaller than a dolphin’s natural range. As dolphins are highly emotional and social creatures, being deprived of the complex societal behaviors leads to a lifetime of stress, depression and PTSD. Dolphins have been witnessed to commit suicide both during captivity and hunting practices by holding their breath under water.

In 2010, the Helsinki Group issued the Declaration of Cretacean Rights to specifically grant dolphins and whales the right of life, liberty and wellbeing, and to inspire protection under international legislation from hunters, aquariums, and marine parks.

Since the declaration, many countries have followed suit in some variation, including: India, South Korea, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, India, Luxembourg, Nicaragua, Norway, Slovenia, South Korea, and Russia.

Randi continues, “I just had to do something about this, knowing that this existed. In my world, people wanted children. As an adopted parent, I wanted my children so badly, and you jump through hoops to make that happen. And, yet, here is a world, where kids were just languishing with no one. How is this possible? Once you know that, how can you go back? Once, you know that this exists in the world, it is such an imbalance, you must act.”

Upon extensive research, Randi and Terry realized that the neglect caused by orphanage living creates brain damage, psychological problems and slows development. They found no organization was exclusively focused on permanent family care for these children who had been left and forgotten, who were no longer the desired little babies, and who truly needed champions to advocate for their future fulfillment.

Randi and Terry believed these children deserved a voice, families and community. They deserved a right to thrive. These children deserved a miracle. They would be their champion.

Kidsave International was founded on October 16, 1997, with a profound vision: “We wanted to end this harmful institutionalization. We did not want children to grow up without parents; the government makes a terrible parent, and it was truly our duty to help to save these kids who did not have anybody to advocate for them. Given our past social marketing background and training, we felt that we could bring them out of the shadows and into the light.

Really it was shining a light on these kids so that people knew that they existed, to give them an opportunity to be seen, to be heard, so that they could thrive. We made it easier for people who want to do something by bringing children back into the community where people can meet them and then allow for the organic connections to occur.”

Through its first Summer Miracles program, on Randi’s birthday, June 25, 1999, Kidsave gave 177 older children living in orphanages summer vacations in the U.S. with American families and 97% were adopted. It was a miracle for these children and for Terry and Randi it provided the basis for creating Kidsave’s Family Visit Model, a program that has now been successfully tested in Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Ukraine and the U.S. as a way to help older children in orphanages and foster care find parents and committed mentors.

Kidsave International currently operates programs in the U.S., Ukraine, Sierra Leone and Colombia: Family Visits, Reunification, and Corporate Monitoring:

• Family Visits: is a unique approach that gives caring adults the opportunity to connect with older children living in foster care or orphanages, through in-person events, scheduled visits, and regular Zoom calls that allow them to get to know one another over time. Within the U.S., the Weekend Miracles Program in Los Angeles, Houston, and Virginia employs the Family Visit Model. For children living in foster care and orphanages in Colombia who have been unable to find a family in their own country, the Summer Miracles program allows them to visit the U.S. and connect with families here.
• Reunification: is a four-step program where every effort is made to return children to their biological families, if possible. Workers gather information to assess living relatives and see if the living situation is suitable for child unification. Once a child is placed with family, social workers follow-up to ensure placement satisfaction, and lastly, the program grants microloans to support parents in establishing businesses to enhance their incomes.
• Super Corporate Mentoring: programs provide an opportunity to safely build connections between kids in foster care and the public while providing productive experiences and caring relationships for the youth. Mentorship programs engage business, citizens and faith communities that give kids internships, jobs, and, ideally, a lasting mentoring relationship.

Kidsave has positively impacted the lives of nearly 600,000 children since 1999.

In 2016, Kidsave International began working in Ukraine at the request of the Ukrainian government to contribute to child welfare reform and assist in connecting children in orphanages and institutions with families. In 2018, Kidsave launched two programs in Ukraine: Family Visits (Weekend Miracles) and Corporate Mentoring (Pathway to Success).

Randi shares, “We are always looking to find our ‘dolphins,’ those you can swim with, work together with, and we’ve always found them somehow. As we go into a new city, a new region, a new country, or we go into a city, we look for and find those people that want to collaborate, want to work together, want to really create change for children. We seek those same dolphin characteristics in our team. We want collaborators and have no room for sharks. There are too many sharks around, and they do not get you anywhere.”

On the day the Russia-Ukraine War initiated, on February 24, 2022, Russian troops marched into Kherson on their way to capture Mykolaiv. These were two cities where kids and families in Kidsave’s pilot programs lived. At this point in time, Kidsave had placed 117 kids with families, and were inspired to deliver these families to safety.

Immediately, Kidsave pivoted its operations from training, mentoring, and family-finding to emergency evacuation and rescue. The brave team in Ukraine, which started with only three Kidsave team members, gradually grew to include over 300 selfless volunteers and a fleet of 60 vehicles. These heroes, known as “Angels of Hope” in Ukraine, risked their lives daily to evacuate women, children, and families out of active combat zones and into safety.

“We were able to make the decision to pivot, rapidly, and then the resources came for us to execute. Our goal has always been to get children to families, and, in this case, our goal was to get people to safety, just so there would be another day for them to be alive,” Randi recalls.

After delivering the 117 children and their families to safety in nearby cities and neighboring countries, Kidsave expanded its scope to 1,000 children and their families. Guided by their humanitarian initiative, Kidsave was in a position to get resources deeply into where they were needed as well as get people out of danger. Due to the team’s ability to develop a response very quickly, they were able to rescue a total of 32,000 people out of active war zones, and into neighboring countries that were willing to help.

KIDSAVE continues its humanitarian efforts in 20 different villages where people are unable to leave. Meanwhile, in Western Ukraine, Kidsave recently opened the Miracles Center, a place to provide orphaned children with respite and trauma therapies. The Center will also host adults looking to meet and connect with kids, in alignment with Kidsave’s core mission of helping move children out of institutions and into families.

As one collective organism, diamond-light bonded across all planetary and cosmic species, space and time, the pain in each one heart serves as awareness of the suffering of all life, and such is the calling of the soul of the Cosmos to make a positive impact with every chance we are given. By easing our own suffering through unconditional service to others, we gracefully evolve into the hero that we were born to be, realizing infinite depths of gratitude within our hearts as we personally experience the inner workings of the Supreme Reality.

By championing the rights of the vulnerable and weak, we are able to overcome our own oppressive forces as we unleash our potential by channeling the Universal Spirit by serving those in the greatest need. It is no secret that fear clouds our minds, limits our perceptive capabilities, depletes our immune systems and weakens our skeletal structure. Ancient wisdom practices of Kundalini and Kriya Yoga support us in clearing and empowering the pranic and emotional connections within our subtle energy bodies to restore our sacred life force energies and activate the dormant potential of our brains.

A dolphin’s brain is heavily infused with fast acting neurons that allow it to be swift, nimble, and powerfully aware of its environment. Humans also have the potential to amplify the charge of our existence by transforming the darkness of our soul into the brilliance of hope that guides us through the darkest moments of our lives as we resurrect our Inner Christ to serve valiantly as we are called to rise. By taking a stand to support all species in overcoming their suffering, we partake in the blessings of genetic activations that allow us to experience life more fully. The pain in our hearts is our calling to live life truly.

When we come together with a common vision, the unified fire of our hearts clears a path for the holy spirit to ignite our senses with the power to take affirmative action.

As we ground and connect with Mother Earth, and the telluric fields of the Natural Kingdoms, with open and empathetic hearts, we receive the blessings of the planetary lifeforce energies to vitalize our cells and ease the stress upon our minds – as scientifically demonstrated by the 2019 HeartMath Institute Heart-Lock study.

The cure we seek to society’s collective ills lies within our very vessels, only to be activated by the choices we make that develop the convictions that drive the meaning of our existence into fruition. We are a garden of hope, and it is through the radiance that we emit, as faithfully pour forth, that we awaken the meek to realize their potential for freedom – no soul is ever alone.

On Saturday, November 9, 2024, Kidsave will be holding its annual HIKE WITH YOUR HEART events in four cities to raise funds and awareness for older kids in foster care. These community events will gather individuals with a vision of service to the youth of the world.

The hikes will be held in the Bay Area, Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. and more information can be found at kidsave.org/hike

Additional ways to make a difference in the lives of older children who need families can be found at www.kidsave.com