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A Condensed Life Story The educational and environmental work of Viktoria Vidali, founder-director of United Eco-Action Fund (UNECO), brought the following approval from Vice President Al Gore in 1997 in his letter from the White House accepting membership on UNECO's roster of Honorable American Wilderness Heritage Guardians:
Viktoria was born November 9, 1953, and spent her formative years in North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Washington, D.C., Germany, and California. She graduated from Pacific High School, San Bernardino, California, in 1971, and went to college. After receiving her degree from UC Berkeley with a Major in German in 1975, Viktoria gathered experience and depth in a variety of professional activities. She worked at the National Association of Securities Dealers in San Francisco and Los Angeles, at Graham & James, Los Angeles, an international law corporation. Thereafter, she was hired by Kaplan, Berkowitz & Selvin, Beverly Hills and was later employed in the same town by Fain, Lavine, Kaufman & Young. In 1980, she obtained a Certificate of Paralegal Studies from University of West Los Angeles. The following year Viktoria moved to Hawaii and worked with Teri Tico, Esq., Lihue, Kauai, in general practice as a paralegal. After her marriage in 1982 to Aldo Vidali, a writer and documentary director engaged in environmental activism, came the birth of her first son, Orlando Francesco. During this time she served two years as corporate secretary for Alaska Capital Corporation in Malibu, California.
In 1984, with her husband and young son, she ventured on a four-year ocean voyage on the 57' sailing ketch ARCANA built by her husband that would take them across 40,000 nautical miles in the Eastern Pacific (Sea of Cortez, Marquesas, Tuomotus, Society and Hawaiian Islands, and the Puget Sound). After surviving Hurricane Ima in Moorea and a North Korean vessel's assault at sea, she co-authored sailing articles and other works with her husband. Her second son, Lorenzo Matteo, was born in Washington State while living board their vessel. Viktoria and family returned to Southern California where she assisted environmental activists in efforts to save the Cleveland National Forest, one of 18 most threatened ecosystems in the world. Her homeschooling and volunteer work were supported in part by giving piano lessons. She free-lanced as a confidential ghostwriter-editor for a Texas author. Viktoria continued as a writer, editor, and administrative assistant to clients in the environmental arena in San Diego, California (1992-1997). Seeing the immense need for environmental education, she formed United Eco-action Fund, a nonprofit California public benefit corporation, and became its Executive Director.
Her love of children and her environmental vision blended in organizing the Eco-Kids, a United Eco-action Fund program, which created community gardens and promoted education on self-sustainability.
It sponsored the Big Island's first Memorial Day Youth Concert, group hikes, and camping into the wild valleys of Pololu and Honokanenui. She also coordinated talent activities for the local homeschool association in Kapa'au, Hawaii.
Viktoria believes in being on the leading edge, so she studied web design and became webmaster for companies and individuals in California and Hawaii (1998-2000). Her work in Hawaii involved designing graphics and copy writing for Cherry Blossoms in Kohala. Viktoria has begun a new program to benefit the West Coast environment through United Eco-Action Fund and administers an expanding website for accomplished new writers at Goodwriters.Net. She collaborates with her husband on documentary films and has produced and contribued to several shows for community television. In 2006, Viktoria launched Greetings With Heart, a company specializing in handmade greetings and giclée works of art. She continues to write music and poetry.  |
