Tess Cacciatore brings over 25 years of expertise to the global stage, to facilitate her mission to empower youth. As a visionary and modern day renaissance woman, Tess's career spans but is not limited to an award-winning multi-media producer, children's book author, international transformational speaker, program designer to empower youth and her love of capturing the human spirit on film has garnered her the title of the world-traveling, "photographer of light" - photographing children and people from all cultures as well as iconic world leaders such as: Nelson Mandela, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Dali Lama and more.
Tess has spoken at the United Nations on several occasions (Geneva Switzerland and New York) and in 2003 she was proudly presented with the Medaille d' Excellence for her work, alongside the Nelson Mandela Foundation, in the area of Edu-tainment.
Her cutting-edge approach and technology expertise has given her the opportunity to produce events that have bridged the gap of communication for indigenous leaders of North and South America in Geneva, Switzerland and Ottawa, Canada, as well as the follow up conferences on the global stage of the World Conference Against Racism, World Summit on Sustainability in South Africa and the "Quest for Global Peace" in Bali with amazing leaders such as Bishop Desmond Tutu.
As a multi-media producer, Tess has had the vision to bring cultures together through the internet since the mid-nineties. After visiting Africa and falling in love with the people and the culture, Tess sought to find other places in the world to help through her work as the Founder of the World Trust Foundation (since 1994) where the umbrella of the foundation gives Tess a base to explore the world to learn about the cultures and to bring this knowledge to the children of the world, so that they can learn that "we all have as similar pulse and meet on a common ground."
The World Trust Foundation has accomplished many wonderful feats over the years with the power of collaboration. It is one of Tess's missions to "break the paradigm in the nonprofit arena and to create a place of collaboration instead of competition." Through the collaboration model, WTF was been able to quickly and efficiently build 38 homes in Sri Lanka in answer to the tsunami, plant trees in Guatemala to help indigenous farmers, educate youth in Los Angeles on the environment for Earth Day, bring sewing machines to El Salvador to begin a vocational school for women. WTF has also helped children in orphanages in South Africa, Cambodia, Thailand and more.
There is nothing that will stop Tess in completing her vision of bridging cultures and empowering youth, as it is her mission in life to see a place where future generations have a safe place to live and for her to leave a legacy that represents her love for children.
