Community

Brothers EMpowered Is Building That Village We All Need to Thrive

April 3, 2021 Eric Ortiz, Popular Resistance. Organize! Community, Minneapolis, Peace, Youth Activism

Charles Caine has a dream. Just like Martin Luther King understood civil rights include economic rights, Caine wants to give all people an opportunity to prosper. That mission starts with his two sons (ages 16 and 13) and the other youth he mentors in North Minneapolis as the president and executive director of Brothers EMpowered. Caine founded the community mentorship organization in 2014 to help men of color overcome the barriers in their lives and the lives in their communities. His inspiration came from years of struggling as a young Black man in urban America. After overcoming many challenges and barriers in his life, from gang violence to chemical dependency, the turning point came when he became a father.

In Community We Trust

May 22, 2020 the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. Create! Alternative Currency, Community, Money, New Economy

Frank Tortoriello was the owner of a popular deli on Main Street in Great Barrington. He turned to SHARE when he lost his lease and the bank refused him a loan to renovate his new location. But Frank didn’t need SHARE’s circle of grandmothers; he already had a circle of his own in his customers. SHARE suggested that Frank issue Deli Dollars as a self-financing technique. The notes would be purchased during a month on sale and redeemed after the Deli had made its move. A local artist, Martha Shaw, designed the note, which showed a host of people carrying Frank and his staff, all busy cooking, to their new location. The notes were issued in 1989 and were marked “redeemable for meals up to a value of ten dollars.”

Mutual Aid: ‘When The System Fails, The People Show Up’

April 23, 2020 Eleanor Goldfield, ROAR Magazine. Organize! Community, COVID-19, Mutual Aid, Pandemic

The badges are both for security and for building relationships. We want our community corner stores to know us as those who are looking out for the people. And we want the people to know who we are in case they need help or can lend a hand. We want cops and other government entities to acknowledge and respect that we are essential workers getting supplies and services to our community. It is not a fail-safe, but for scrappy DIY mutual aid teams, nothing ever is. We roll with what comes as best we can. We are unpaid and many folks are brand new to this work. And yet, we still manage to do a better job than the almighty politicians and their corporate overlords. For instance, here in DC, several offices under the purview of Mayor Bowser, along with city-partnered nonprofit organizations, have routed calls for help to mutual aid networks around the city.

Challenging The Oil Industry Through Community Action

April 13, 2020 By Wangũi wa Kamonji, Open Global Rights. Resist! Community, Oil and Gas, Solidarity, Uganda

The Hoima-Kaiso-Tonya highway connects the Ugandan fishing town of Kaiso to Hoima town, the headquarters of the Bunyoro Kingdom and Hoima District. Kaiso is on the south-eastern edge of Lake Mwitanzige, in a region with an estimated potential three billion barrels of crude oil. The Hoima-Kaiso-Tonya road was built to enable access to the lake for oil prospecting and as an investment for future petroleum production, so the residents call it “Oil Road”. For many, however, the road takes away more than it brings. To carve out space for the road, the Uganda National Roads Authority took land from Kaiso residents. Valuation and compensation, handled by an outside consultant, were arbitrary and low (going by the number of doors on a house for example), without taking full account of past investments and future livelihood losses.

Twelve Reasons The Glass Is 1% Full

March 29, 2020 Michael Shuman. Create! climate crisis, Community, Environment, New Economy

The damage COVID-19 is wreaking—in terms of deaths, sickness, business closures, unemployment, and misery—is incalculable. But this crisis is changing the world in subtle ways that may ultimately improve our lives. So…in the spirit of Winston Churchill, who once implored not to let a good crisis go to waste, here are the positives I’m observing. (1) Resilience – Never again will a sober economic developer argue that local resilience and self-reliance do not matter. Crises like this one remind us that a community with a rich diversity of businesses will survive a disaster better than one completely dependent on the outside. (2) Local Investment – Wall Street is toast (again). Even after a few positive days, the market has lost nearly a third of its peak value earlier in the year. Once families assess the damage to their life savings, I suspect millions will start thinking more seriously about how to reinvest in local businesses, projects, and people.

Reclaim The Block Urges Invest In Community, Not In Police

January 20, 2020 Isabella Garcia, Riseuptimes.org Create! Community, Divestment, Minneapolis, Police

In dramatic effect, a Minneapolis resident dumps a bag of money onto a podium during public comments at the final City Council meeting on the 2020 budget last month. The person with them, who identified himself as David, is addressing the council members. “This is $193.40,” David says, then begins to explain that the money represents the $193 million budget Mayor Jacob Frey proposed to give the Minneapolis Police Department in 2020, more than one-third of the city’s general fund.

Forget Billionaires: Let’s Build Our Own System To Fund The Transformation Of Society

June 24, 2019 Michael Edwards, Opendemocracy.net Create! Capitalism, Community, Money

“Gone to the Dogs,” Paul Higgins’ canine-friendly café in Carlisle, may seem an unlikely place to look for inspiration in transforming the ways we think about funding for social change. But through ‘pay-it-forward’ fundraising and ‘creative up-cycling’ to re-use resources, Higgins has made the café a center for community in which money builds connection instead of division - a radical reversal of the inequalities that lie at the heart of big philanthropy, foreign aid and government contracting.

Amazing Things Happened When 206 Ugly Vacant Lots In Philly Were Landscaped

July 31, 2018 Melissa Breyer, Treehugger.com Create! Community, Land, New Economy, Philadelphia

Almost one in five American adults report some form of mental illness; more than 16 million adults experience depression alone every year. Yet patient mental health services only account for an estimated 5 percent of total medical care spending in the United States. Noting that “spending time and living near green spaces have been associated with various improved mental health outcomes, including less depression, anxiety, and stress,” a group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania set out to determine if by changing the places near where people live, they could affect change in mental health outcomes. Their conclusion may come as little surprise to those of who know the health benefits of green space: “Greening vacant urban land significantly reduces feelings of depression and improves overall mental health for the surrounding residents.”

Chicago-Based Assata’s Daughters Announces Food Justice Through Gardening Project

April 23, 2018 Imani Jackson, Blackyouthproject.com Create! Black Youth, Community, Food and Agriculture

Assata’s Daughters is a Chicago-based collective that embraces a Black radical perspective to serve their Washington Park community. One of their newest programs is a food justice-oriented garden. Members will provide food to the community, share knowledge about gardening and conservation, and teach “the importance of self-sustainment as a tool of resistance.” They also just announced a free farm stand and a partnership with a nearby corner store to provide free produce to their neighbors all summer. As Blavity noted in their report on the initiative, increasing access to fresh, nutrient-rich foods is key for Black communities, which are often disproportionately affected by food deserts. After cyber-sharing their wishlist for the garden project earlier this week, Assata’s Daughters announced on Tuesday that each item on it had been ordered and sent.

Community Members Defy El Cajon Ordinance Against Feeding Homeless

December 1, 2017 Bella Ross, thedailyaztec.com Resist! Community, Homelessness, Legislation, Texas

By Bella Ross for The Daily Aztec - “We call it ‘Break the Ban,’” said Mark Lane, a 1989 San Diego State alumnus and the primary organizer of the event. On Oct. 27, the city of El Cajon passed an ordinance prohibiting “food-sharing” events in public spaces, including city parks. Lane said members of anywhere between 30 and 40 organizations came out with the goal of standing against the ordinance. “The goal, number one, is to get them to overturn the ban because it’s a discriminatory ban and it’s a ridiculous ban,” Lane said. According to a news release from the city, the ban on food sharing was in response to the growing Hepatitis A outbreak — an outbreak that is concentrated among the homeless population. “With the trolley system, the homeless population is pretty transient, so it flows throughout the entire city area,” El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells said. “People that were homeless in San Diego today might be homeless in El Cajon tomorrow.” The mayor said there have been a concerning number of Hepatitis A cases in El Cajon. “All we’re saying is, if you have a feeding program that’s going on in the parks, we’d rather you did that in a kitchen and not in the parks because the people that feed people in the parks don’t have food handlers permits and they’re putting boxes of food on the ground.,” Wells said.

How Ceasefire Has Changed This Organizer And Baltimore

November 19, 2017 Lisa Snowden-McCray, www.baltimorebeat.com Organize! Baltimore, Community, Homicide, Police abuse

By Lisa Snowden-McCray for Baltimore Beat. Baltimore, MD - Just a few days after the second 72-hour Baltimore Ceasefire weekend, which ran from Nov. 3-5, Erricka Bridgeford and I are sitting in her car in her old Rosemont neighborhood escaping the cold and rain. She has a bit of a cough and she’s just off a speaking engagement at the Community College of Baltimore County’s Essex campus, but Bridgeford has gamely agreed to take a few moments to share her thoughts about the second ceasefire, meant to pause the violence in the city and connect with and create community.

Using Public Spaces To Organize Communities

November 18, 2017 Sam Allen, transitionnetwork.org Resist! Community, Organizing, Public

By Sam Allen for Transition Network - One summer night in 2014, Lucille Burns, a 34-year-old mother, was shot and killed while trying to break up a fight. Tamar Manasseh, a mother of two who had already seen too much gun violence in her Chicago neighborhood of Englewood, was devastated. Then she sprang into action. As she wrote in her recent op-ed for Truthout, “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had a theory, though: If enough adults, mainly moms, sat outside in lawn chairs and eye-catching shirts, violence would cease. I knew how much my own teenagers hated to be watched and how different their behavior was when they were, so I figured all teenagers would pretty much react the same way to supervision. So, I started my project: Mothers Against Senseless Killings. Every evening, we set up our lawn chairs and a barbecue grill on the block where that shooting took place — a block that had also seen high levels of gun violence in the past. We fed not only the bodies of the people in the community, but also their souls.” In the three years since MASK was formed, not a single act of violence has taken place on their block – not even a fistfight. Volunteers sign up to feed the block every summer night, and special events draw crowds to the corner, like the MASK Back-to-School Block Party with backpack giveaways, DJs, barbers, braiders, face painters, and tattoo removal services.

Perverse Mobility: From BaltimoreGhetto To HabanaStation

October 1, 2017 Cliff DuRand, www.popularresistance.org Educate! Baltimore, Community, Cuba, wealth inequality

By Cliff DuRand for The Center for Global Justice. Last year’s film hit in Cuba was “HabanaStation”, directed by Ian Padron. It is the touching story of a developing friendship between two boys from very different social backgrounds: one from a materially comfortable family living in Miramar, the other living in a “poor” barrio of Havana. For many foreign views of the film it is a shocking window into economic inequality in Cuba. For Cubans, it is a welcome public acknowledgement of a well-known reality. But the comments I’ve seen on “HabanaStation” overlook what makes it a powerful revolutionary film.

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