February News - Community Supported Activism!

Hello Good People!

Want to support health justice and get a gorgeous handmade journal? Here is your golden opportunity. This year, I am trying something new, different, and unprecedented in my own work! You have heard of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) - where families pay a monthly fee to a farmer, who then provides them with fresh food for the duration of the growing season - but have you heard of Community Supported Activism?

 

This year, I have the privilege of serving as the Rock Dove Collective's representative on the National Coordination Team for the Health and Healing Justice Track at the Allied Media Conference, which takes place in Detroit on June 23-26, 2011. This means that I will be working with two other incredible organizers, Adele Nieves and Anjali Taneja, to create and facilitate a process at the conference where healers, health workers, and health justice organizers can gather, share strategies, and learn from each other. We will also be organizing a healing practice space at the conference, so that attendees in need of care can have access to what they need.

 

As you can imagine, this is a big job and it will take a lot of time and careful planning. Most of you know that the Rock Dove Collective is a no-budget organization, meaning that we do not raise money for our work unless absolutely necessary. In order to engage in this national process, we have determined as a collective that raising funds for my position is a necessity. But we want to raise this money in a way that represents our values and our firm belief that the resources we need to heal each other and to heal ourselves can be found within ourselves and within our communities.

 

So I am asking you to become a part of a new kind of CSA, where you donate money to make it possible for me to do this critical work. Read on for details of how this works, and why it works!

 

How do you donate and how much can you give?

If everyone on this list donated just $5, we would raise enough money to pay me a monthly stipend of $600 for the work of national organizing from February-June. How much you donate is up to you, and any amount is appreciated. You can donate a small amount monthly ($5-10), or you can make a one-time donation of any size.

• You can send money to me online using Paypal by clicking here, or click on the Donate link on my website.
• You can send a check to me directly. Ask me for my mailing address!
• You can make a tax deductible donation - ask me how!

What will I do with the money?

My work as a national coordinator involves organizing the national health and healing justice community to propose sessions that fit with the vision of the track, reviewing and selecting session proposals for the conference, managing the logistics of the healing practice space, and coordinating fundraising efforts across the country to get presenters and organizers to the conference, with a strong emphasis on making it possible for people of color, young people, elders, queer and genderqueer people, and low-income people to attend.

 

What do you get in return?

Everyone who makes a donation will be added to my donor-list, and you will receive monthly updates on the progress the National Coordination Team is making in our work on the track. You will also be the recipient of a video blog at the end of June, made by yours truly, that gives you a taste of what people experienced in the Health and Healing Justice Track.

 

For people who make a donation of $50 or more, you will receive a unique, hand-made book, which I make using paper that is locally constructed from sustainably-harvested Minnesota grass as well as other locally sourced materials! Or I can bake you some cookies.

 

What is the Allied Media Conference?

The Allied Media Conference, held every summer in Detroit, unites the worlds of media and communications, technology, education and social justice. From this unique intersection, some of the most innovative community organizing models emerge each year. The AMC cultivates strategies for a more just and creative world. We come together to share tools and tactics for transforming our communities through media-based organizing.

The Allied Media Conference is the only conference I have ever attended where I felt that we were truly building the world we wished to see in that space. It is a visionary gathering, and it is organized in a truly participatory way!

What is the Health and Healing Justice Track?

The theme of the track is Health is Dignity, Dignity is Resistance. Our vision is to build a national movement for healing justice by answering two important questions: 1) How do we utilize and decentralize all forms of media so as to build a post-capitalist health care system here and now? 2) How do we imbue our social justice movements with a healing framework that frontlines conversations about race and racism, bodies and connectedness, and alternative resourcing?

Who are you and Why should you donate?

You are community organizers and community developers, artists and media makers, faith leaders and community leaders, healers and health workers, educators and mediators, facilitators and union workers, anarchists, libertarians, democrats, and green-workers - you are people who have touched me and who have in some way been a part of my work. You are someone who shares my vision for a better, more just world, and shares my hope that we can and are creating it NOW. You should donate because participating in alternative models for resourcing the work of changing the world is EXACTLY what it takes to change the world!!

 

Thank you so much for always supporting my work. And thank you in advance for any financial contribution you can make to this project, which is so dear to my heart, and which is so critical to the movement.

 

In this edition of Iambrown:

• Center for Whole Communities is Hiring a Chef!
• The Never Again for Anyone Speaking Tour with Hajo Meyer - Feb. 8th
• Tou SaiKo Lee and Grandma of Fresh Traditions perform at Wee Cabaret - Feb. 18th and 19th
• Cultural Organizing Workshop, New Orleans - Feb. 18th-21st
• White Folks Soul, by Any Dance Necessary - Feb. 18th
• 2011 Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers 
• Una Osato in JapJAP - Begins Feb. 25th
• You Don't Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One - March 10th

-----

Center for Whole Communities is Hiring a Chef!

 

The Center for Whole Communities, a land-based leadership development organization, is now hiring for the summer season at Knoll Farm, Vermont. In addition to a new team of interns, they are looking for a cook to source, plan, prepare wholesome delicious local foods for the transformative retreats that take place throughout the summer.  

This position is full time for the period of early June to early October. If you or anyone you know is interested, please visit to the homepage of the website to apply, www.wholecommunities.org. 

-----
The Never Again for Anyone Speaking Tour: An Evening with Hajo Meyer in St. Paul, MN

Tuesday, February 8th, 7PM
John B. Davis Lecture Hall 
Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center - Macalaster College 
1600 Grand Ave, St. Paul, MN 55105

Donations accepted at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds.

This year international Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27th. A time for reflection and commitment, please join Dr. Hajo Meyer in hearing about his experience in Auschwitz and the lessons he has learned: Never Again for Anyone. Dr. Meyer will be joined by Palestianian activist, Osama Abu Irshaid, founder and editor of the newspaper Al Mezan, and Coya White Hat-Artichoker, a Lakota activist for indigenous rights. 

Dr. Hajo G. Meyer: 

Meyer was born in Bielefeld, Germany, in 1924. In 1939, at the age of 14, he fled alone to Holland to escape the Nazi regime. After the Germans occupied that country, he was captured by the Gestapo in 1944, and survived ten months in Auschwitz. After the war, he studied theoretical physics and became a researcher at Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven. He received his Ph.D. in 1956, and in 1974 became managing director of the lab. Retiring in 1984, he became a maker of violins, selling his instruments to professional musicians. He has devoted himself full-time to his work as an activist and essayist.

Sponsored By: American Muslims for Palestine, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the Middle East Children's Alliance.

Endorsed by: Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Middle East Peace Now, Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign, Women Against Military Madness – Middle East Committee, National Lawyer’s Guild, Jewish Voice for Peace - TC, Opposed to War and Occupation

For more information about the tour and the speakers, go to www.neveragainforanyone.com or call888.404.4267

-----
Fresh Traditions performs at Wee Cabaret in Minneapolis, MN

Friday, February 18th, 2011 at 7:00 PM 
and
Saturday, February 19th, 2011 at 7:00 PM

Form + Content Gallery
210 North 2nd Street 
Minneapolis, MN 55401

WEE CABARET, a performing art series being produced by Form + Content Gallery, will present all performing arts disciplines, including music, dance, spoken word, theater and performance art.  Participating artists are encouraged to try something unusual, create something site specific, and/or explore new ideas in an incredibly intimate venue that emphasizes the unique dynamic between the spectator and the artist.

Performers include: 
Sophia Shorai and DVRG
Tou SaiKo Lee and Grandma of Fresh Traditions
HIJACK

Please click on links to purchase tickets:
http://www.formandcontent.org/fc_exhibitions/wee_cab/wee_cab.htm
for Friday:
http://weecabaretfeb18.eventbrite.com/
for Saturday
http://weecabaretfeb19.eventbrite.com/
Here is a youtube video of what we do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIrN9hV62D8
 

-----
Cultural Organizing Workshop, New Orleans - February 18th-21st

This convening, sponsored by Moving Stories Dance Project, The Arts and Democracy Project and New Voices Fellowship, is a space where artists and organizers will learn effective ways to deepen their work and strengthen capacity to use the tools of creativity, imagination and organizing in community building.

Activities begin Friday night with dinner & an inspirational conversation among veteran cultural organizers,and concludes Sunday
at lunch. Session leaders include Linda Parris-Bailey (Carpetbag Theater), visual artist Ricardo Levin Morales, Tufara Muhammad Waller (Highlander Center), Stephanie McKee and Wendi O'Neal (New Voices Fellows). Registration is easy, just click on the registration link: http://surveymonkey.com/s/NewVoicesRegistration

All travel arrangements and accommodations are the full responsibility of the individual. Registration (which includes Friday
night dinner and lunch both days) is on a sliding scale, from $50-$75. After you fill out the on-line registration form, you can
reserve your slot by sending Kathie de a check (made out to State Voices, which is the umbrella agency for Arts and Democracy Project)

Call Kathie deNobriga if you have any questions.
PO Box 1087 * Pine Lake * GA 30072-1087
404-299-9498 (home, office & fax)
678-427-9673 (cell)

 

-----

White Folks Soul, by Any Dance Necessary presents Moving the Movement in New York City
 
An interactive workshop and performance with Zahava, Alexis, & Jesse 

White Folks Soul: By Any Dance Necessary
at the Anti-Racist Potluck
Friday, February 18th
6 - 9 pm  

28 E. 35th St. btw Park & Madison 

Come ready to move your body and your relationship to what's possible in a powerful community committed to ending racism.

-----
Intermedia Arts Announces ... 2011 Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers 

DEADLINE TO APPLY: 6PM Friday, February 25th, 2011

Intermedia Arts' Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers (formerly the SASE Jerome Grants for Emerging Writers), is a fellowship program that awards grants of up to $4,000 to four to six emerging Minnesota writers each year. In addition to their grant award, recipients also participate in a 12-month fellowship program that provides community, mentorship, guidance, workshops, and resources throughout the program year. Intermedia Arts' Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers places a particular emphasis on increasing the visibility of and providing a platform for emerging writers whose voices have historically been underrepresented in the literary arts.

Application and complete program information available here: http://intermediaarts.org/beyond-the-pure-fellowships

This program is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of the Jerome Foundation. 

-----
Keep It Movin' Production presents...JapJAP

 

JapJAP is written and performed by Una Aya Osato, and directed by Moises Belizario.

 
"JapJAP is trying to find out who she is, tearing down borders and tearing off clothes. Her body is her only road map as she embarks on a journey through identity, culture, and history. Join award-winning team, performer/playwright Una Aya Osato and director Moises Belizario, for the world premiere of Una's newest, freshest, full-bodied one-woman show: JapJAP."
 
for more info visit www.playjapjap.wordpress.com

 

in the FRIGID NY Festival:
Friday, February 25th, 5:30PM
Saturday, February 26th, 2:30PM
Tuesday, March 1st, 10:30PM
Friday, March 4th, 7:00PM
Sunday, March 6th, 7:00PM

The Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street (btwn. 2nd Ave & Bowery)
NY, NY 10003
$15/$10 students/seniors/struggling artists

Buy your tickets now!
www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?EID=&showCode=JAP6&BundleCode=&GUID=

-----

You Don't Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One

Featuring Majora Carter
March 10th, 2011 | 7:30 p.m.

 

Majora Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001 to bring community-building jobs and a healthier environment to the neighborhood in which she grew up. Today, as president of the Majora Carter Group, she’s advising cities, foundations, universities, businesses, and communities around the world on how they can unlock their local economic potential to benefit everyone.

http://environment.umn.edu/momentum/eventseries/speakers/majora_carter.html

Hello Good People!

Want to support health justice and get a gorgeous handmade journal? Here is your golden opportunity. This year, I am trying something new, different, and unprecedented in my own work! You have heard of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) - where families pay a monthly fee to a farmer, who then provides them with fresh food for the duration of the growing season - but have you heard of Community Supported Activism?

 

This year, I have the privilege of serving as the Rock Dove Collective's representative on the National Coordination Team for the Health and Healing Justice Track at the Allied Media Conference, which takes place in Detroit on June 23-26, 2011. This means that I will be working with two other incredible organizers, Adele Nieves and Anjali Taneja, to create and facilitate a process at the conference where healers, health workers, and health justice organizers can gather, share strategies, and learn from each other. We will also be organizing a healing practice space at the conference, so that attendees in need of care can have access to what they need.

 

As you can imagine, this is a big job and it will take a lot of time and careful planning. Most of you know that the Rock Dove Collective is a no-budget organization, meaning that we do not raise money for our work unless absolutely necessary. In order to engage in this national process, we have determined as a collective that raising funds for my position is a necessity. But we want to raise this money in a way that represents our values and our firm belief that the resources we need to heal each other and to heal ourselves can be found within ourselves and within our communities.

 

So I am asking you to become a part of a new kind of CSA, where you donate money to make it possible for me to do this critical work. Read on for details of how this works, and why it works!

 

How do you donate and how much can you give?

If everyone on this list donated just $5, we would raise enough money to pay me a monthly stipend of $600 for the work of national organizing from February-June. How much you donate is up to you, and any amount is appreciated. You can donate a small amount monthly ($5-10), or you can make a one-time donation of any size.

• You can send money to me online using Paypal by clicking here, or click on the Donate link on my website.
• You can send a check to me directly. Ask me for my mailing address!
• You can make a tax deductible donation - ask me how!

What will I do with the money?

My work as a national coordinator involves organizing the national health and healing justice community to propose sessions that fit with the vision of the track, reviewing and selecting session proposals for the conference, managing the logistics of the healing practice space, and coordinating fundraising efforts across the country to get presenters and organizers to the conference, with a strong emphasis on making it possible for people of color, young people, elders, queer and genderqueer people, and low-income people to attend.

 

What do you get in return?

Everyone who makes a donation will be added to my donor-list, and you will receive monthly updates on the progress the National Coordination Team is making in our work on the track. You will also be the recipient of a video blog at the end of June, made by yours truly, that gives you a taste of what people experienced in the Health and Healing Justice Track.

 

For people who make a donation of $50 or more, you will receive a unique, hand-made book, which I make using paper that is locally constructed from sustainably-harvested Minnesota grass as well as other locally sourced materials! Or I can bake you some cookies.

 

What is the Allied Media Conference?

The Allied Media Conference, held every summer in Detroit, unites the worlds of media and communications, technology, education and social justice. From this unique intersection, some of the most innovative community organizing models emerge each year. The AMC cultivates strategies for a more just and creative world. We come together to share tools and tactics for transforming our communities through media-based organizing.

The Allied Media Conference is the only conference I have ever attended where I felt that we were truly building the world we wished to see in that space. It is a visionary gathering, and it is organized in a truly participatory way!

What is the Health and Healing Justice Track?

The theme of the track is Health is Dignity, Dignity is Resistance. Our vision is to build a national movement for healing justice by answering two important questions: 1) How do we utilize and decentralize all forms of media so as to build a post-capitalist health care system here and now? 2) How do we imbue our social justice movements with a healing framework that frontlines conversations about race and racism, bodies and connectedness, and alternative resourcing?

Who are you and Why should you donate?

You are community organizers and community developers, artists and media makers, faith leaders and community leaders, healers and health workers, educators and mediators, facilitators and union workers, anarchists, libertarians, democrats, and green-workers - you are people who have touched me and who have in some way been a part of my work. You are someone who shares my vision for a better, more just world, and shares my hope that we can and are creating it NOW. You should donate because participating in alternative models for resourcing the work of changing the world is EXACTLY what it takes to change the world!!

 

Thank you so much for always supporting my work. And thank you in advance for any financial contribution you can make to this project, which is so dear to my heart, and which is so critical to the movement.

 

In this edition of Iambrown:

• Center for Whole Communities is Hiring a Chef!
• The Never Again for Anyone Speaking Tour with Hajo Meyer - Feb. 8th
• Tou SaiKo Lee and Grandma of Fresh Traditions perform at Wee Cabaret - Feb. 18th and 19th
• Cultural Organizing Workshop, New Orleans - Feb. 18th-21st
• White Folks Soul, by Any Dance Necessary - Feb. 18th
• 2011 Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers 
• Una Osato in JapJAP - Begins Feb. 25th
• You Don't Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One - March 10th

-----

Center for Whole Communities is Hiring a Chef!

 

The Center for Whole Communities, a land-based leadership development organization, is now hiring for the summer season at Knoll Farm, Vermont. In addition to a new team of interns, they are looking for a cook to source, plan, prepare wholesome delicious local foods for the transformative retreats that take place throughout the summer.  

This position is full time for the period of early June to early October. If you or anyone you know is interested, please visit to the homepage of the website to apply, www.wholecommunities.org. 

-----
The Never Again for Anyone Speaking Tour: An Evening with Hajo Meyer in St. Paul, MN

Tuesday, February 8th, 7PM
John B. Davis Lecture Hall 
Ruth Stricker Dayton Campus Center - Macalaster College 
1600 Grand Ave, St. Paul, MN 55105

Donations accepted at the door. No one turned away for lack of funds.

This year international Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27th. A time for reflection and commitment, please join Dr. Hajo Meyer in hearing about his experience in Auschwitz and the lessons he has learned: Never Again for Anyone. Dr. Meyer will be joined by Palestianian activist, Osama Abu Irshaid, founder and editor of the newspaper Al Mezan, and Coya White Hat-Artichoker, a Lakota activist for indigenous rights. 

Dr. Hajo G. Meyer: 

Meyer was born in Bielefeld, Germany, in 1924. In 1939, at the age of 14, he fled alone to Holland to escape the Nazi regime. After the Germans occupied that country, he was captured by the Gestapo in 1944, and survived ten months in Auschwitz. After the war, he studied theoretical physics and became a researcher at Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven. He received his Ph.D. in 1956, and in 1974 became managing director of the lab. Retiring in 1984, he became a maker of violins, selling his instruments to professional musicians. He has devoted himself full-time to his work as an activist and essayist.

Sponsored By: American Muslims for Palestine, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network and the Middle East Children's Alliance.

Endorsed by: Coalition for Palestinian Rights, Middle East Peace Now, Minnesota Break the Bonds Campaign, Women Against Military Madness – Middle East Committee, National Lawyer’s Guild, Jewish Voice for Peace - TC, Opposed to War and Occupation

For more information about the tour and the speakers, go to www.neveragainforanyone.com or call888.404.4267

-----
Fresh Traditions performs at Wee Cabaret in Minneapolis, MN

Friday, February 18th, 2011 at 7:00 PM 
and
Saturday, February 19th, 2011 at 7:00 PM

Form + Content Gallery
210 North 2nd Street 
Minneapolis, MN 55401

WEE CABARET, a performing art series being produced by Form + Content Gallery, will present all performing arts disciplines, including music, dance, spoken word, theater and performance art.  Participating artists are encouraged to try something unusual, create something site specific, and/or explore new ideas in an incredibly intimate venue that emphasizes the unique dynamic between the spectator and the artist.

Performers include: 
Sophia Shorai and DVRG
Tou SaiKo Lee and Grandma of Fresh Traditions
HIJACK

Please click on links to purchase tickets:
http://www.formandcontent.org/fc_exhibitions/wee_cab/wee_cab.htm
for Friday:
http://weecabaretfeb18.eventbrite.com/
for Saturday
http://weecabaretfeb19.eventbrite.com/
Here is a youtube video of what we do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIrN9hV62D8
 

-----
Cultural Organizing Workshop, New Orleans - February 18th-21st

This convening, sponsored by Moving Stories Dance Project, The Arts and Democracy Project and New Voices Fellowship, is a space where artists and organizers will learn effective ways to deepen their work and strengthen capacity to use the tools of creativity, imagination and organizing in community building.

Activities begin Friday night with dinner & an inspirational conversation among veteran cultural organizers,and concludes Sunday
at lunch. Session leaders include Linda Parris-Bailey (Carpetbag Theater), visual artist Ricardo Levin Morales, Tufara Muhammad Waller (Highlander Center), Stephanie McKee and Wendi O'Neal (New Voices Fellows). Registration is easy, just click on the registration link: http://surveymonkey.com/s/NewVoicesRegistration

All travel arrangements and accommodations are the full responsibility of the individual. Registration (which includes Friday
night dinner and lunch both days) is on a sliding scale, from $50-$75. After you fill out the on-line registration form, you can
reserve your slot by sending Kathie de a check (made out to State Voices, which is the umbrella agency for Arts and Democracy Project)

Call Kathie deNobriga if you have any questions.
PO Box 1087 * Pine Lake * GA 30072-1087
404-299-9498 (home, office & fax)
678-427-9673 (cell)

 

-----

White Folks Soul, by Any Dance Necessary presents Moving the Movement in New York City
 
An interactive workshop and performance with Zahava, Alexis, & Jesse 

White Folks Soul: By Any Dance Necessary
at the Anti-Racist Potluck
Friday, February 18th
6 - 9 pm  

28 E. 35th St. btw Park & Madison 

Come ready to move your body and your relationship to what's possible in a powerful community committed to ending racism.

-----
Intermedia Arts Announces ... 2011 Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers 

DEADLINE TO APPLY: 6PM Friday, February 25th, 2011

Intermedia Arts' Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers (formerly the SASE Jerome Grants for Emerging Writers), is a fellowship program that awards grants of up to $4,000 to four to six emerging Minnesota writers each year. In addition to their grant award, recipients also participate in a 12-month fellowship program that provides community, mentorship, guidance, workshops, and resources throughout the program year. Intermedia Arts' Beyond the Pure Fellowships for Writers places a particular emphasis on increasing the visibility of and providing a platform for emerging writers whose voices have historically been underrepresented in the literary arts.

Application and complete program information available here: http://intermediaarts.org/beyond-the-pure-fellowships

This program is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of the Jerome Foundation. 

-----
Keep It Movin' Production presents...JapJAP

 

JapJAP is written and performed by Una Aya Osato, and directed by Moises Belizario.

 
"JapJAP is trying to find out who she is, tearing down borders and tearing off clothes. Her body is her only road map as she embarks on a journey through identity, culture, and history. Join award-winning team, performer/playwright Una Aya Osato and director Moises Belizario, for the world premiere of Una's newest, freshest, full-bodied one-woman show: JapJAP."
 
for more info visit www.playjapjap.wordpress.com

 

in the FRIGID NY Festival:
Friday, February 25th, 5:30PM
Saturday, February 26th, 2:30PM
Tuesday, March 1st, 10:30PM
Friday, March 4th, 7:00PM
Sunday, March 6th, 7:00PM

The Kraine Theater
85 East 4th Street (btwn. 2nd Ave & Bowery)
NY, NY 10003
$15/$10 students/seniors/struggling artists

Buy your tickets now!
www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?EID=&showCode=JAP6&BundleCode=&GUID=

-----

You Don't Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One

Featuring Majora Carter
March 10th, 2011 | 7:30 p.m.

 

Majora Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001 to bring community-building jobs and a healthier environment to the neighborhood in which she grew up. Today, as president of the Majora Carter Group, she’s advising cities, foundations, universities, businesses, and communities around the world on how they can unlock their local economic potential to benefit everyone.

http://environment.umn.edu/momentum/eventseries/speakers/majora_carter.html