Community

Co-Op Rhody Introduces Equity Into Cannabis-Based Business Model

November 2, 2024 Malikia Johnson, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cannabis, Community, Cooperatives, Marijuana, Racism

Co-op Rhody is a grassroots coalition of worker-entrepreneurs and organizers from local groups such as UFCW Local 328, Reclaim RI, and Break the Cycle Cooperative Hub. It also includes national cooperative and industry specialists who share a commitment to the vision of a worker-owned economy in Rhode Island. We had a conversation with Co-op Rhody members Andre Dev, David-Allen “Bear” Sumner Sr., and Emma Karnes discussing their journeys into the worker cooperative movement, the complexities of implementing social equity in the cannabis industry, and the need for hope that is strategic and withstanding.

How To Build An Ecological Economy

October 30, 2024 Patrick Mazza, Resilience. Create! Communities, Community, De-growth, Food Security, Green Economy

This is the second part of a scenario for how a city comes together to address the multiple economic, social and environmental crises facing our world. The first part of the scenario is here. It covers how the city creates basic frameworks of life. How it gains control of its own finances and local economy through creating a public bank. How it ensures everyone has shelter through creation of social and community housing. How clean energy is supplied while energy use is reduced through creation of community energy cooperatives. In this part, the scenario will cover how the city develops the basics of an ecological economy not dependent on endless economic growth.

Former Prisoners Are Making Sure No One Leaves Prison Alone

October 18, 2024 Cinnamon Janzer, Next City. Create! Community, Criminal Justice and Prisons, New Jersey (NJ), Prisons, Returning Citizens

When Antonne Henshaw was released from a New Jersey prison in 2018, he walked out alone. His sister had planned to pick him up, but she got the time wrong. She made it a few hours later and brought him to stay at her home — but just a few months later, she had to sell her home and move away for a new job, leaving Henshaw alone once again. Henshaw had managed to save $13,000 during the 30 years he was in prison. It was a sizeable sum, considering the paltry pay for prison jobs, but he soon discovered it wouldn’t be enough to get him the apartment he now needed.

Nebula: A Community Centered Approach To Domestic Violence

October 14, 2024 Malikia Johnson, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Community, domestic violence, Police, Tenant organizing

Nebula describes itself as a group that supports “survivors of battering, SA, IPV and DV with community & physical resources in crisis and in their empowerment”. They also “ assist neighbors and mutual aid groups learning how to build liberatory practices in their groups.” Two of the core members came together in the context of tenant organizing. They realized a connection between tenant organizing and domestic violence support. They noticed that often organizers involved in tenants’ rights ended up being involved in domestic violence support because homes are often the center of the violence.

No Coal No Gas Builds On Recent Victory With Focus On Community

October 6, 2024 Siobhan Senier, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Community, Fossil Fuels, New England, New Hampshire, Oil and Gas, Victory

David Graeber once posited that “the biggest problem facing nonviolent direct action movements is that we don’t know how to handle victory.” He observed that, by the time activists recognize some of our initial successes, those gains tend to be obscured by infighting and/or repressive backlash. More to the point, he said, activists unsatisfied with anything short of a total revolution miss the steady gains that our movements make. A New England-based campaign to phase out fossil fuels provides a helpful counter-example. Activists with No Coal No Gas, or NCNG, have shown that we do know how to handle victory.

Gig Organizing 101

October 6, 2024 David Rovics, This Week with David Rovics. Organize! Aaron Swartz, Art, Community, culture, Music, Organizing

The great Seattle-based songwriter, Jim Page, was coming to the east coast back in the mid-1990's. I was living in Boston then, and offered to organize a gig. I was already well into my twenties, but I had never done such a thing before. Jim was and is fairly well-known in Ireland, with one of Ireland's most revered musicians, Christy Moore, having recorded a number of his songs, one brilliant example of which became a real anthem for anti-nuclear sentiment in Ireland, "Hiroshima-Nagasaki-Russian Roulette." Boston had (and has) a large population of people who were born and raised in Ireland, and a much larger population of people of Irish descent.

When You Suffer For Your Sanity And Struggle To Get Free

September 27, 2024 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Community, COVID-19, mental health

In 1930, Clément Fraisse (1901–1980), a shepherd from France’s Lozère region, was confined in a nearby psychiatric hospital after he tried to burn down his parents’ farmhouse. For two years, he was held in a dark, narrow cell. Using a spoon, and later the handle of his chamber pot, Fraisse carved symmetrical images into the rough, wooden walls that surrounded him. Despite the inhumane conditions in these psychiatric hospitals, Fraisse made beautiful art in the darkness of his cell. Not far from Lozère is the monastery of Saint Paul de Mausole in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where Vincent van Gogh had been confined four decades earlier (1889–1890) and where he completed around 150 paintings, including several important works (among them The Starry Night, 1889).

‘We Can’t Arrest Our Way To Liberation’

September 26, 2024 Eyad Zeid, In These Times. Strategize! Community, Israel, Palestine, Police, Violence

Palestinians and Palestinian businesses have been frequent targets since the genocide in Gaza began. When we opened, we thought that it would only be a matter of time before someone attacked us. And on a recent evening, someone smashed the window where we displayed our flag. At least two other nearby businesses, the bookstore Women & Children First and the clothing store Naaz Studios, were also attacked in recent months in similar ways. And as we know all too well, attacks on businesses that support Palestinian liberation are just a small slice of the overall violence we have seen over the past year.

Creating A Co-Owned Pocket Community

September 24, 2024 Kirsten Dirksen, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! California, Community, Housing, Intentional Community, Oakland

Phil Levin and Kristen Berman wanted to live with their friends, but they didn’t want to sacrifice their privacy, so they started their own intentional community where you can choose your neighbors and eat together but still have your own home. Today, on their one-third-acre lot in Oakland (California), there are 20 adults and 4 babies living in 6 buildings with 10 units. There's a 4-plex with 5 adults, 2 apartments with 2 or 4 adults upstairs and families downstairs, and 2 houses with families. They started with a group of friends who joined together to create an LLC to buy a lot with 3 buildings, but once California changed the ADU laws, they added 2 extra structures of around 900 square feet each: one now houses a single family, and another is their community house with a kitchen, dining room, living room, and coworking space.

The Battle For Car-Free Streets And Community Celebration

July 23, 2024 Asia Mieleszko, Resilience. Resist! Carfree, Community, culture, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Urban Design

I first found myself in West Philadelphia in 2019 during Porchfest, an annual music festival that exists because approximately two square miles of Philadelphians collectively decide it should. And so it does, whether the city grants the annually requested street closures or not. In 2019, almost every other street was closed to motorized traffic, lined with rehomed cones and handmade signs stretching from one end of the intersection to the other to communicate the closure. Free from cars, the streets welcomed sprinklers, grills and bouncy castles. Swarms of kids muraled the asphalt with chalk while musicians crooned from the hallmark wooden porches of West Philly’s twin Victorian homes.

The Government Is Failing To Meet Refugees’ Basic Needs

July 13, 2024 Sophia Kelleher, Next City. Create! Community, Government, Human Rights, Refugees, Washington D.C.

In the days after the fall of Kabul in August 2021, the U.S. military evacuated tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans to U.S. military bases. But their assistance ended there. “The military bases that were hosting the Afghan families reached out to my family’s mosque, asking for volunteers to bring supplies,” says Yasmeen Zargarpur, co-founder of One Community Social Services. Despite its leading role in the Afghans’ devastating circumstances, the government only offered temporary shelter to those fleeing. My conversations with local organizations and leaders in the resettlement space across Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia revealed a clear pattern of government agencies slacking in sustainably supporting refugees and immigrants arriving to the region — leaving community members to fill that gap.

A Seattle Urban Garden Models What Community Input Should Look Like

June 13, 2024 Jennifer Caddick, Next City. Create! Community, Environment, Gardening, Parks, Seattle, Urban Gardens, Washington

More than 20 parks across Seattle support urban gardens developed and managed in partnership with local communities. From small community garden plots to large orchards, the gardens provide fresh, healthy food to community members across the city. Seattle Parks and Recreation, through itsUrban Food Systems Program, provides the land and the infrastructure for these projects. But community members are at the heart of each project, determining what to grow and how to plant and manage their gardens. One such project — the Rainier Community Center’s new urban garden — has received the2024 Toro Urban Park Innovation Award.

Power Plants To Parklands

June 1, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Create! Coal, Community, Michigan, Parks, Power Plants

There are currently more than 200 coal-fired power plants in operation in the United States, but the country has been scaling back since reaching its coal generation peak in 2011. By the end of 2026, the U.S. is projected to have retired half of its coal capacity. Coal plants emit toxic pollutants into the air, water and soil, leaving a legacy of contamination that must be cleaned up after their decommission. But what happens to coal plants after they shut down? Michigan’s Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) sees retiring coal plants — once viewed as industrial scars on the landscape — as “canvases for the creation of new greenways, parklands, wildlife habitat, and clean energy development,” a press release from ELPC said.

Nepal’s Self-Managing Forests And The Duck That Dares To Love

May 31, 2024 Ryan Jones, Resilience. Create! Community, Environment, Forests, Nepal, Water

Nepal’s unique approach to community-based conservation means the country’s 118 different ecosystem variants are very much alive. The country boasts more than 950 species of birds, 13,067 species of plants, and 17,097 species of animals, including one-horned rhinos, Bengal tigers, Asiatic elephants, gaurs, and red pandas. Thanks in part to 22,500 forest community user groups, forest cover in Nepal has risen from 25% to 45% since the 1990s, making it one of the few developing countries to expand its forest cover. Nearly 40% of Nepali households are involved in some way. This is supported by the fact that now more than 23% of Nepal’s land is protected by the government.

A Unique Community Land Trust Making Homeownership Affordable

May 23, 2024 Barry Greene, Jr, Next City. Create! Community, community land trusts, Housing, land banks, Richmond, Virginia

When Michael Haggins’ credit score disqualified him for a mortgage preapproval in 2021, he was crushed. A single father who grew up in Richmond, Haggins dreamed of owning a house in his hometown where his two sons could play freely. A shortage of just five credit score points — plus systemic inequities and a national housing crisis — left them all living with his mother. But today, Haggins is the proud owner of a home in Church Hill, thanks to Richmond’s Maggie Walker Community Land Trust (MWCLT) and its pioneering model for creating permanently affordable housing. “I don’t think I could’ve done it without their help, honestly,” says Haggins.

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