The power of ancient mythological tales

Political and environmental pressures have threatened the stability of many of the world’s indigenous cultures in recent decades. Ancient sources of wisdom, primarily held through oral traditions, art, rituals, and music are rapidly vanishing. The goal of the Global Voice Foundation is to share these valuable insights of that sustain their culture.

The Global Voice Foundation is a fiscal sponsorship program operating under The Legacy Global Foundation, a public 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Global Voice has produced documentaries and books, recorded music, given over 40 lectures to adults and children, and is developing a publishing arm with the goal of several museum exhibits. In conjunction with Pitt Rivers Museum and Radio France’s Radio Ndjoku we have begun to digitize thirty-five years of Louis Sarno’s recordings of the BaAka Pygmies music and forest rituals in Central African Republic, broadcasting—which will go worldwide in late 2023.

GVF explores cultural myths to understand how stories, art, and music solidify a society, that these forms of expression hold tremendous value for adults, children and the world at large, creating understanding, intersectionality between different people groups. Global Voice believes the values and lessons contained in these stories of the three people groups we work with: the BaAka, the San Bushmen, and the Maasai expand our minds and hearts, especially in today’s technology-driven society.

Global Voice’s President, Dr. I. Murphy Lewis, author and illustrator of the book, Why Ostriches Don’t Fly, and Other Tales From the African Bush, has spent 30 years documenting the cultural wisdom of indigenous people with an emphasis on the San Bushmen and Maasai Warrior communities in Africa. She continues to research, document, and communicate their wisdom, as well as other sources of indigenous wisdom around the globe.