It is with great personal pleasure and that of Let’s Rethink This to announce our September’s Impact Artist as filmmaker and image maker Patrick de Warren. This French-born expatriate to the U.S. arrived on these shores in 1988 wanting to experience a new adventure and step into the unknown.”

Patrick started working as a Fashion Photographer when he first picked up a camera in 1991 to in 2000 becoming a Creative Director for New York’s Pier 59 Studios. A move down to Miami to become an art Director for the Opium Group in Miami and then a move back to NYC to be invited by Sotheby’s to work as  a Collections and Work of Art Photographer where he worked on a project by project basis on and off for seven years.

Tucking that safely away into his resume, he proceeded to satisfy his wanderlust by making a transatlantic crossing of the Atlantic ocean on a 32 ft Sailing Boat, sailing from Westport CT to Sagres, Portugal. “Passing by Bermuda and the Azores and sailing three weeks without seeing land was a transformative personal experience,” Patrick describes it.

Patrick flew back to the U.S. and NYC in 2011 just in time to walk into Zuccotti Park to film a once-in-a-lifetime event that shifted America’s conversation and awareness about its internal ills – Occupy Wall Street. At first it was filming “out of curiosity” but it turned into something bigger. “I captured some remarkable footage – everything needed to make a meaningful black and white film, sharing the story as I experience it,” he says.

Patrick and I met at the Bernie Sanders rally down on Washington Square park in 2016  (where I was covering the event  for my Huffington Post blog) and our conversations served to shift his attention America’s healthcare debacle. Coming from a country where healthcare debt is of little concern, he felt compelled to turn his attention to my work.

A tale and trail of mutual interest

Patrick de Warren and Jerry Ashton, NYC

As co-founder of RIP Medical Debt and needing someone to help chronicle our work which started in 2014, I invited Patrick to film not only the general mood of Americans awakening to the outrage being done to our citizens – that fact that one can lose a home or go bankrupt simply by getting hurt or sick – but to record the pioneering work our charity was doing to right a portion of these wrongs. Specifically, abolishing that medical debt.

This led to Patrick covering some of RIP’s early organizing meetings, two of our first-ever summits on medical debt, an End Medical Debt evening in Washington DC and numerous other mini happenings.

When I retired to the RIP Board in late 2020 to start Let’s Rethink This, I invited Patrick into accepting a role as our Director of Photography and Film to cover my new focus of activism – to record and illuminate the trials and tribulations of America’s warriors, our veterans. 

LRT is now involved in a two-fold campaign. The first is to see that some $6 billion in unpaid medical debt burdening our vets be made available by the VA system for full and complete forgiveness – no strings attached. Visit #EndVetMedDebt where you will find Patrick’s filmed interviews with veterans and learn more about this important effort. 

The second is to reduce the horrific quantity and rate of veteran suicide – ranging by estimates from 17 to 30 per day! Here, we have formed a veteran-civilian collaboration in a year-end campaign – to which we invite our reader to join – we call Mission Possible located at MediaIgnite.

Patrick’s personal stake – his Great Aunt’s World War II experience.

“In World War II, my great aunt was a nun in the monastery of Jouarre in France at the time and hiding an American Nurse being hunted by the gestapo. The city was liberated by General Patton with whom they developed a friendship, and this became a treasured part of our family lore. To this day, Patrick’s family maintains a friendship with members the Patton family.

“The work I am doing now with today’s American veterans is in a way an homage to that Legacy. Sharing veteran’s stories is part of my current film project as I work to help raise awareness about their issues,” he adds. “The goal of these years of work is to make a film with a different view about U.S. approaches to healthcare, the environment, economics, politics and social justice and connect the dots as filmed through the lens of the Occupy Wall Street movement.”

Patrick’s larger motivation? To tie all his Occupy/RIP/LRT/Activist work together in a film which will share the stories without trying to tell the viewers what’s right or wrong – “just let them decide for themselves.”

In order to connect with Patrick, write him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. For a more extensive view of his work, visit www.collectivedreamsproject.com and  www.patrickdewarren.com

The stars aligned to cause disabled Marine Cpl (veteran) kenneth james to first be tapped by #EndVetMedDebt to have his artwork – “Suicide Bridge” – become the landing page art for a major campaign launch regarding veteran medical debt, and then to become selected as our Impact Artist for the month of May. A month officially designated as Military Appreciation Month, coincidentally.

The End Veteran Medical Debt campaign and its website was launched earlier this year by Let’s Rethink This (LRT) for the express purpose of motivating and enabling the VA Hospital System to make the millions of dollars in unpaid and unpayable medical debt in its coffers available for full and complete forgiveness.

“What better person than someone like Cpl. james to not only be the artist who can best put a serviceman’s soul into the work he needed to do to work his way back from the despair of being disabled, homeless and fighting PTSD, but to serve as a reminder that America still has a long way to go to bring its warriors back to health when they return home,” says LRT’s founder and Navy veteran, Jerry Ashton.

The art piece, “Not on My Watch - Suicide Bridge” came out of an event by Wellness Works of Glendale in which james participated in for several years in order to help veterans and reduce veteran suicide.

“i am hoping that (this artwork) can bring healing to those who suffer from PTSD as well as depression and other related disabilities,” says james. “i hope it adds beauty to the lives of people with an added element of opening up communications of how we can love people and our world better.”

For more information about this artist and access to a gallery of his work, go here: https://1-kenneth-james.pixels.com. 

Editor’s Note: Cpl. kenneth james prefers to refer to himself using lowercase letters.

We at LRT are getting a reputation for practicing the “Go Big or Go Home” approach to life and business, but we may well have shattered that ceiling. We’re not featuring one impact artist – we’re featuring 200 million of them!

Almost unbelievably, that’s in India alone. But then, India is the globe’s seventh largest country by area, second-most in population (1.38 billion people in 2020) and the most populous democracy. In retrospect, what better and more impactful way to begin the year 2022?

Few people realize the size of the artisan sector within their country’s borders. Even though this unique body of people is the world’s – yes, the world’s – second largest global employer, the public at large has scant awareness of its importance.

200 Million Artisans (200M) is about to change that, beginning with its home country.

Founded in 2020, 200M set out to rethink and reimagine the potential of India’s vibrant artisan economy. What is breathtaking about this organization is its growth, trajectory and the urgency of its mission. 

“Briefly, 200 Million Artisans is an India-based ecosystem enabler,” states the organization, “committed to reimagining the potential of the artisan economy. We bridge gaps in knowledge, resources and partnerships for artisan-producers and impact enterprises with the goal of driving greater inclusion and self-reliance in (that) sector.”

A “Made in India” Goldmine

According to 200M, “Crafts aren’t just India’s heritage, they are her global competitive advantage. They have the potential to ensure the overall well-being of the country’s youth, its women and its diverse communities.”

Their team has been busy driving research-based advocacy starting with unveiling Business of Handmade, a beautifully illustrated website that focuses on the relationship between the cultural economy and informality.

The Catalytic Capital Consortium(C3) recently awarded their enterprise $148,000 to further their mission and build on their existing work. 200M was one of only 14 organizations, and the only one in India, to receive the New Venture Fund’s Grant. 200M will be required to study, document and make recommendations for the role of catalytic capital in India’s artisan sector while mapping investment needs. 

This is the kind of left-of-center thinking (dare we say rethinking) that is needed when an organization wants to attract the attention of global actors like the Consortium which has its own grand plans: to create research projects that will help build an evidence base that will fuel additional risk-tolerant investments necessary to address critical global challenges.

This confirms LRT’s view and experience that impactful organizations and movers can change the world for good – if only people will become aware of them! Hats off to the New Venture Fund for recognizing and supporting enterprises such as 200M. NVF plays an important role in searching out these hidden heroes and heroines and providing the evidence that will encourage risk-tolerant investments.

It won’t be easy, but it will be rewarding.

What are the particular challenges unique to this sort of enterprise? We will be following up this article with a personal interview with the organization’s leaders – Priya Krishnamoorthy and Aparna Subramanyam – to find those answers.