Raffi Cavoukian
Raffi Cavoukian | Founder of Child Honouring – The Centre for Child Honouring
RAFFI CAVOUKIAN—the founder of Child Honoring—is a renaissance man known to millions simply as Raffi: a renowned Canadian troubadour, record producer, systems thinker, author, entrepreneur and ecology advocate, once called “the most popular children’s singer in the English-speaking world” (Washington Post).
President of the highly successful independent record label Troubadour Music, Raffi was a pioneer in music for children and families: his albums and DVDs have sold over 14 million copies in Canada and the US, and his books, more than 3 million copies. A generation saw him in concert and grew up singing Down by the Bay and his signature song Baby Beluga. “Beluga grads” often tell him that they’re now raising their own kids with his songs.
A recipient of the Order of Canada and the United Nations’ Earth Achievement Award, Raffi has recently been awarded two honorary degrees: Dr of Music, from the University of Victoria, and Dr of Letters, from the University of British Columbia. He is associated with many NGOs, including the Council of Human Development, the Darwin Project Council, the Center for Partnership Studies, the Center for Children’s Health and the Environment, and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
In his three-decade career, Raffi has refused all commercial endorsement offers, and his triple-bottom-line company has never directly advertised or marketed to children. He is a passionate advocate for a child’s right to live free of commercial exploitation. For example, he has sent an open letter to Rogers Wireless urging them to stop marketing cellphones to kids, and turned down a Baby Beluga film proposal whose funding depended on direct advertising to children.
Raffi has now become a “global troubadour”, lecturing and networking to help create a viable future: a restorative, child-friendly world for ourselves and for those to come. His original philosophy, Child Honouring, is gaining support among eminent thinkers as a holistic organizing principle for a culture of peace. His Covenant for Honoring Children is widely circulated among child development, education, ecological economics and environmental health circles (available for download at childhonouring.org and Raffinews.com).
In the groundbreaking anthology Child Honouring: How To Turn This World Around (ed. Raffi Cavoukian & Sharna Olfman, Homeland Press, 2006), luminaries from a number of disciplines join the call for a new covenant with the world’s children. The anthology has been published in Portuguese in Brazil and a paperback edition will be released in September 2010.
Raffi’s most recent album, Communion (2009) is a spiritual work of grace and grit—an evocative collection of original compositions and guests artists to move the heart, mind and soul.
Resisto Dancing: Songs of Compassionate Revolution, Raffi’s CD of inspirational songs for educators, decision makers, parents, and “beluga grads”, broadcasts the Covenant and its Principles with an infectious and diverse blend of world rhythms.
Raffi Renaissance is a DVD that shows the path of Raffi’s evolution into a system thinker on the major themes of our time. It includes Raffi and the Dalai Lama in conversation, Raffi’s performance for Nelson Mandela, new music videos, and much more.
With Child Honouring, Raffi Cavoukian is a leading catalyst for change at a defining point in human history—with an idea whose time has come.
Raffi is chair of the Board of Directors for the new Centre for Child Honouring on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. It will serve as an education hub for the advancement of Child Honouring as a universal ethic.
