February 2012 - A Rare and Intimate Love
Hello Good People!
I had the privilege last Friday night of hearing the great Cornell West speak at nearby St. Cloud State University. The experience was fulfilling in so many ways, not the least of which is that it was the first time since moving to St. Cloud where I entered a space where the vast majority of people in the room were also people of color. Wow! What an unexpected pleasure. I also had the unprecedented honor of being comp'ed by...Cornell West! Several of my friends had traveled up from Minneapolis to attend West's talk, but we all arrived to find that it was sold out. While standing around in the lobby trying to figure out if we could sneak in, one member of our group left to fill her water bottle. She returned with one of West's security guards, who escorted us into the auditorium. As it turns out, she ran into Mr. West in the hallway, and after lamenting the fact that she would not be able to hear him speak, he invited her to attend as his special guest! And she, in turn, requested that all of us be his special guests.
But in the days after his talk, I was also reminded that the dying and the living cannot happen alone. No one of us, no matter how magnanimous or inspiring, can manifest that new world by ourselves. We need to build communities and systems that stand outside of the normative relationships of exploitation, consumption, and detachment, while simultaneously not pretending that we ourselves can stand outside of those relationships. We must build the new world in the shell of the old, but not forget we are the ones who are building it, and that we are broken people just like that shell of a world is broken. If we are going to build that new world through shared leadership, we will have to learn to love and accept each other in our brokenness. That love will be shown in relationships of equity, transparency, honesty, and shared power.
During the Q&A after West's talk, a Black police chief got up and asked, "What can we do about the gross inequities in our treatment of convicted felons? How can we ensure that these individuals can re-enter society as full citizens?" Later, another Black man stood up and said, "I am on of those convicted felons the police chief spoke of, and since being released from prison I cannot get a job because no one wants to hire a felon. What should I do?" The police chief then called out across the auditorium, "Call me! I will help you!"
I burst into tears. I could feel the love in the midst of the brokenness.
- Interpreters Without Borders (New York)
- SmartMeme 2012 Advanced Story-based Strategy Practitioner’s Training (National)
- Friends for a Non-Violent World is Hiring - Alternatives to Violence Project Coordinator (Minnesota)
- Offerings from the Facilitating Racial Equity Collaborative (Minnesota)
- Call for Public Art in Minneapolis (Minnesota)
- Birth Markings (Anywhere)
- The Naked I: Wide Open (Minnesota)
- Support The Coyote Way Film Project (Minnesota)
- What Occupy Has Accomplished So Far (Everywhere)
Please support Telesh Pascual Lopez , Karen Johana Lopez-Acero and Ana del Rocío in developing their skills to create an Interpreter and Translator Coop - Interpreters without Borders! Please donate today!
Your donations will help Telesh, Karen, and Ana to raise funds to complete a course with Green Worker Cooperatives' Coop Academy, a
Please share this announcement with folks who know the importance of language justice across communities.
Help raise $1,296 by Feb. 15, 2012!
Donate Here
SmartMeme 2012 Advanced Story-based Strategy Practitioner’s Training:
April 15-19th 2012 Essex, MA
Are you a smartMeme training alum or a story-based practitioner that wants to expand your strategy toolbox? Learn how to reframe your issue? Join us!
The Advanced Training is designed as a full immersion 5 day, 4 night residential experience. This training aims to grow a powerful network of story-based strategy practitioners and leaders throughout the social & ecological justice movements. This advanced training is a one-of-a-kind leaning experience that delivers the best tools and thinking from the only national strategy center dedicated to amplifying the impact of grassroots organizing for social and ecological justice with the power of narrative and memes.
SmartMeme has trained over 4,000 activists since 2002 and collaborated and consulted with over 200 social change organizations to apply the story-based strategy framework to critical campaigns. The Advanced Training provides deeper exposure to smartMeme’s story-based strategy framework and training-of-trainers practicum elements. Participants will learn how to integrate narrative power analysis into their campaign work and get hands on experience facilitating story-based strategy exercises such as the Battle of the Story. Intensive team-based simulation sessions led by dynamic national campaigning organizations provide an opportunity to apply story-based strategy concepts to current issues and shared organizing challenges and to create narratives, memes, and point-of-assumption actions.
The Essex Retreat Center provides a beautiful and comfortable location on the coast just north of Boston. The multiday format, offers a chance to step out of the daily grind of campaigns and organizing in order to deepen skills, shift thinking and learn collectively with a community of highly skilled and motivated practitioners and organizers from leading groups from across the country and cutting-edge national alliances.
The Advanced Training for: Alumni of smartMeme trainings and workshops; organizers and communicators from organizations who have engaged with smartMeme; senior communications and campaign staff of social justice groups and alliances; seasoned facilitators, communicators and trainers that have a track record of supporting alliances in smartMeme's network. (All accepted applicants will receive a copy of Re:Imagining Change and be expected to both read this book and participate in a pre-training webinar tele-conference.)
This Advanced Training is: A intense boot-camp style residential training with a sophisticated learning community exclusively focused on smartMeme's story-based strategy methodology and model of narrative and campaign development for movement organizations and alliances.
What the Advanced Training is NOT: A media 101 training. A 101 organizing training. An anti-oppression training. A messaging consultation for your organization. An introduction to story-based strategy.
The full tuition for this advanced training is $1,500 and includes pre-retreat webinar, book, lodging, meals, ground transport, all advanced training materials and five days of intensive training. Partial scholarships are available. Please apply and we will follow up with you about supporting your fundraising efforts and/or supporting your tuition costs with scholarship solidarity funding, if you are accepted.
SmartMeme's 2012 Advanced Training is made possible with the generous support of the Akonadi Foundation, The Ben & Jerry's Foundation, The Levinson Foundation, The Solidago Foundation, the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, and donors like you. THANK YOU!
THE 2012 ADVANCED PRACTITIONER’S TRAINING will take place near Boston, MA at the beautiful Essex Conference Center and Retreat from April 15-19, 2012. Apply Now! Spots are very Limited! Questions? email training (at) smartmeme dot org...
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Friends for a Non-Violent World is Hiring - Alternatives to Violence Project Coordinator
* We welcome resumes with a cover letter from all between today and Monday, February 6, 5:00 pm.
* FNVW will acknowledge receipt of the resume
* We will notify applicants by February 24th if they are invited for an interview
Electronic: Send to info@fnvw.org, attaching or pasting in your resume and cover letter
Postal mail:
AVP Hiring
Friends for a Non-Violent World
1050 Selby Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55104
JOB DESCRIPTION
Position Title: AVP Coordinator
Reports To: AVP Steering Committee and FNVW Managing Director
Type: Part-Time / 12 hours, with the potential for hours increase
Salary: The equivalent of $14/hour.
Benefits: No health or dental; vacation & sick pay accrues.
Shift: Hours vary daily depending upon need.
ORGANIZATION SUMMARY:
Friends for a Non-Violent World (FNVW) is a Quaker-inspired organization of people who share a commitment to advancing nonviolence as an ethic and strategy for achieving justice and peace.
FNVW’s programs are focused on providing nonviolence training and support to inmates in Minnesota’s correctional facilities and assisting in their successful re-entry to the community; on educating the public on the history, ethics and strategies of nonviolent personal and political action; and on organizing communities to generate and advance peaceful foreign and nonviolent national security policies, as well as to prevent – and end – our country’s wars.
National Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP-USA) has been training inmates and communities in nonviolence and conflict resolution for 37 years. Through AVP, inmates have the opportunity to transform their means of survival from violence to nonviolence and come out of prison with spirit, heart and hands more integrated. AVP-MN has done this work for 21 years.
POSITION SUMMARY:
Complete basic administrative tasks associated with AVP (in partnership with FNVW’s Administrative Manager); maintaining and publicizing the yearly workshop schedule; coordinating community and in-prison workshops; supporting and in some cases supervising AVP volunteers.
Maintain key relationships
- Correctional Facility contacts
- AVP-USA
- AVP-MN Facilitators
- Prospective community workshop participants
- AVP governing board, the Steering Committee
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
- High school diploma or equivalent required.
- Commitment to nonviolence as a personal ethic and a force for social change.
- Solid organizational and oral/written communication skills.
- Ability to work with diverse ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups, including inmates, ex-offenders, and other marginalized communities.
- Ability to manage projects independently and prioritize multiple tasks effectively.
- Eagerness and ability to be proactive and to contribute to the team/consensus-based approach of the organization.
- Strong computer skills and experience with Windows-based applications including Microsoft Word, Excel and Access (database).
- Commitment to maintain confidentiality of sensitive materials and information.
PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES (to be prioritized with AVP SC):
- Answer (or distribute as needed) voicemail, email, mail, and phones for AVP-MN
- Communicate regularly with AVP detention facility coordinators, sharing schedule information, facilitator specifics, workshop participant lists, facility rules, etc.
- Coordinate occasional workshop logistics, including stocking of supply box, registration and reminders, room set-up, refreshments/meals, clean up, thank you notes, arrangements for out-of-town participants, and return of all materials used, (such as prepared food pots and pans).
- Create and/or distribute AVP promotional material when needed.
- Create yearly schedule for AVP workshops.
- Communicate with the AVP Steering Committee representative on FNVW’s board to help ensure that AVP is represented adequately at FNVW board meetings, and that AVP-related board meeting items are reported to the AVP Steering Committee each month.
- Help plan and execute AVP events (i.e., gatherings and Spruce-Up sessions).
- Maintain Stillwater inside facilitator lists, including dates and levels of previous facilitation, individual facilitator limitations, etc.
- Help sign up facilitators for each AVP workshop.
- Notify all registrants and facilitators when AVP workshops are cancelled.
- Process AVP-related communications from inmates, distributing to appropriate parties or notify senders that communications from inmates cannot be forwarded to others.
- Attend occasional Department of Corrections meetings.
- Provide guidance to AVP volunteers on database entry requirements and expectations of various volunteer roles.
- Promote and publicize AVP workshops when possible, in coordination with volunteer Outreach Committee.
- Recruit participants for AVP community workshops when possible.
- Send confirmation letter to detention facility or community partner two weeks prior to workshop.
- Stay current on detention facility rules for facilitators, communicating changes and ensuring that facilitators meet every requirement of a given facility.
- In coordination with Administrative Manager, update AVP database with contact information, release date, etc.
Please note: This list summarizes the coordination tasks and responsibilities needed for AVP-MN to thrive. To do all of these things in 12 hours a week is not realistic, so working with the AVP Steering Committee at monthly meetings to prioritize tasks is a central part of the job.
The White Racial Frame: Sharing Understandings
Join a guided book study: Reading together, reflecting together, applying what we come to understand – all are welcome to join in shared study of the important new contributions to antiracism thinking, Joe Feagin’s The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing (2010).
We meet for ten sessions, discussing specific chapters each session with related exercises and videos. Your attendance at all ten sessions will both benefit you and provide continuity for the circle. However join for as many sessions as you are able.
Dates: Saturdays February 4, 11, 18 and 25; March 3, 17, 24 and 31; and April 14 and 21 (no gatherings on March 10 or April 7)
Times: 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. with breakfast at 8:30 a.m.
Location: 371 West Baker Street, St Paul MN 55107, on St Paul’s West Side
Cost: $10/session, includes all food and materials
Participants will need to purchase a copy of the Feagin 2010 text (approximately $30)
Obtain the text from a bookstore, Amazon, or ASDIC (see registration form)
Pre-registration requested, for sake of food and space preparations.
FFI: www.asdic-circle.org/
or contact Margery at motto@asdic-circle.org
or Herbert Perkins at 651-224-2728
Offered by: ASDIC Metamorphosis, Antiracism Study-Dialogue Circles
Herbert Perkins and Margery Otto, co-facilitators
Presented with the Financial Support of: The Saint Paul Foundation
and the Antiracism Ministry Team of Cherokee Park United Church
Starting this year, trained racial justice facilitators will have the chance to expand their knowledge and skills at trainings year-round. In addition, the YWCA is now offering a Level 1 and Level 2 certification process for facilitators.
If you are interested in becoming a racial justice facilitator and leading conversations at community dialogues, YWCA workshops, and our annual It’s Time to Talk: Forums on Race event, please contact Sarah Super. Trainings start in February! You can apply online to be a racial justice facilitator.
The YWCA of Minneapolis provides many tools, resources, and trainings to make your vision for justice a reality. Learn how you can get more involved in our programs in our section of the YWCA of Minneapolis site.
Please email Sarah Super ssuper@ywca-minneapolis.
The 2012 Multicultural Forum on Workplace Diversity
The 2012 Multicultural Forum on Workplace Diversity will be held on March 20-22, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Produced in partnership with the Twin Cities Chapter of the National Black MBA, the Forum expects to attract over 1,000 attendees. Keynote speakers include Carol Evans, President of Working Mother Media and CEO of Diversity Best Practice, Steven Frost, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Ltd., and Sergio Rial, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cargill, Inc.
OCB Forum Volunteers are now being recruited. Depending on your volunteer assignment you are able to attend sessions on the day you volunteer. Becoming a volunteer is a great way to experience this outstanding event firsthand and learn from some of the finest diversity and inclusion experts in the country.
To apply as a Forum Volunteer please go to: Volunteer link
To learn more about the 2012 Multicultural Forum go to: www.stthomas.edu/mcf
For questions, please contact Barbara Voorhees Blaha at bjvoorheesbl@stthomas.edu.
The Corcoran Neighborhood Organization (CNO) seeks proposals for public art projects, each to be completed by an artist with adult and youth volunteers during the summer of 2012 in the Corcoran neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The purpose of the projects is to engage and involve residents of the neighborhood in public art creation and contribute to the livability of the neighborhood. The selected slate of projects will be presented as an arts participation program for neighborhood youth and families, and recruitment of volunteers will be the responsibility of CNO. The projects will produce permanent or semi-permanent artworks to be displayed in the public realm, i.e. highly visible locations in the neighborhood. Depending on location, projects may be subject to approval by the City of Minneapolis or another agency. In these cases CNO will play a lead role in seeking the necessary permits and approvals.
Interested artists are encouraged to learn more about CNO and the Corcoran neighborhood prior to submitting, by visiting the Corcoran Neighborhood Website.
WHO MAY APPLY?
All Minnesota artists are eligible to apply.
PROJECT LOCATIONS AND TYPES
Projects must be permanent or semi-permanent and appropriate for an outdoor placement. Strong proposals will demonstrate how the artist will involve 25 or more volunteers in the creation (installation and ideally also design) process.
Following are some types of projects and some locations that are possibilities. The strongest proposals will identify preferred installation location(s) and rationale. Applicants are encouraged to contact CNO to inquire about feasibility of location(s) you may be considering. Applicants may submit more than one project type and more than one possible location.
Lake Street / Midtown light rail transit station: utilize the steep landscape or the clear glass of the station in the installation, without permanently altering the station. Proposals will be subject to approval by Metro Transit.
Susan Hensel Gallery, 3441 Cedar Ave S, southern façade of building.
Yarn Bombing: to be installed on trees or utility boxes or other locations proposed by the artist and approved by the property owner.
Pavement Mural: one pavement mural design and installation project will be selected, to be installed on an intersection selected by CNO. Proposal for a pavement mural must include clear plans to involve volunteers in the design process. Proposals will be subject to approval by the City of Minneapolis.
Proposals for other locations or types of projects are welcome! Be sure to look at Corcoran 2011 murals to see the projects we completed in 2011 and earlier, as this may give you some ideas.
INSTALLATION DATE(S)
Installation of selected projects will take place on one Saturday or two successive Saturdays. In your application, please indicate which of the following dates are workable for you and whether you have any preferences. If your project involves design meetings to occur prior to installation, please explain. May 12, June 2, June 9, June 16, or June 23. Other Saturdays will also be considered.
REMUNERATION and SUPPLIES
Chosen artist(s) will be paid $30 per hour for up to 22 hours of work per project (Pavement mural project artist will paid $30 per hour for up to 42 hours of work). This is the maximum amount available for labor. Strong proposals will include a detailed budget or rationale demonstrating a realistic scope of the work (hours and materials) and project costs.
If latex paint or pavement paint is required, it will be furnished by the Valspar Foundation at no cost to the project budget. Other supplies are provided by a budget line item up to $450 per project.
PROPOSAL DUE DATE
March 15, 2012.
HOW TO APPLY Send proposals by e-mail to Eric Gustafson at eric@corcoranneighborhood.org. You will receive an e-mail confirming that we received your proposal.
Submit a one-page narrative (Word document or body of an e-mail) including:
o Description of each project and how you would organize it for implementation in close collaboration with 25+ volunteers of all ages. Describe your experience with similar public art or community projects and working with volunteers.
o Description and cost estimate of materials your project will require.
o Be sure to include your name, address, phone and e-mail contact information.
Submit as attachments 3-5 high quality images (JPG is preferred) of designs you would envision for this project and/or images of completed public projects you have worked on. You may propose more than one project. Selected artists will be expected to provide further information for promotional purposes.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT A jury of residents will meet in late March to review the proposals. If the jury is interested in your proposal, we will contact you to discuss further by phone or in person.
All applications will be notified by March 31.
MORE QUESTIONS?
E-mail is preferred. Eric Gustafson: eric@corcoranneighborhood.org - or - 612-724-7457
A new 19 minute documentary about how giving birth transforms our bodies. The film reframes and destabilizes the observer's reaction to the changes in a woman's body after she's given birth. The Film refocuses on the dynamism and lives experiences rather than the commodified image. Women talk with ambivalence, humor and love about the scars, marks and stretched skin that brands them as mothers. Priced at $120 (including $10 Shipping and Handling fees), the documentary is expensive, but that is because it includes public performance rights. You can screen it at an event or in class.
What Occupy Has Accomplished So Far
Hello Good People!
I had the privilege last Friday night of hearing the great Cornell West speak at nearby St. Cloud State University. The experience was fulfilling in so many ways, not the least of which is that it was the first time since moving to St. Cloud where I entered a space where the vast majority of people in the room were also people of color. Wow! What an unexpected pleasure. I also had the unprecedented honor of being comp'ed by...Cornell West! Several of my friends had traveled up from Minneapolis to attend West's talk, but we all arrived to find that it was sold out. While standing around in the lobby trying to figure out if we could sneak in, one member of our group left to fill her water bottle. She returned with one of West's security guards, who escorted us into the auditorium. As it turns out, she ran into Mr. West in the hallway, and after lamenting the fact that she would not be able to hear him speak, he invited her to attend as his special guest! And she, in turn, requested that all of us be his special guests.
But in the days after his talk, I was also reminded that the dying and the living cannot happen alone. No one of us, no matter how magnanimous or inspiring, can manifest that new world by ourselves. We need to build communities and systems that stand outside of the normative relationships of exploitation, consumption, and detachment, while simultaneously not pretending that we ourselves can stand outside of those relationships. We must build the new world in the shell of the old, but not forget we are the ones who are building it, and that we are broken people just like that shell of a world is broken. If we are going to build that new world through shared leadership, we will have to learn to love and accept each other in our brokenness. That love will be shown in relationships of equity, transparency, honesty, and shared power.
During the Q&A after West's talk, a Black police chief got up and asked, "What can we do about the gross inequities in our treatment of convicted felons? How can we ensure that these individuals can re-enter society as full citizens?" Later, another Black man stood up and said, "I am on of those convicted felons the police chief spoke of, and since being released from prison I cannot get a job because no one wants to hire a felon. What should I do?" The police chief then called out across the auditorium, "Call me! I will help you!"
I burst into tears. I could feel the love in the midst of the brokenness.
- Interpreters Without Borders (New York)
- SmartMeme 2012 Advanced Story-based Strategy Practitioner’s Training (National)
- Friends for a Non-Violent World is Hiring - Alternatives to Violence Project Coordinator (Minnesota)
- Offerings from the Facilitating Racial Equity Collaborative (Minnesota)
- Call for Public Art in Minneapolis (Minnesota)
- Birth Markings (Anywhere)
- The Naked I: Wide Open (Minnesota)
- Support The Coyote Way Film Project (Minnesota)
- What Occupy Has Accomplished So Far (Everywhere)
Please support Telesh Pascual Lopez , Karen Johana Lopez-Acero and Ana del Rocío in developing their skills to create an Interpreter and Translator Coop - Interpreters without Borders! Please donate today!
Your donations will help Telesh, Karen, and Ana to raise funds to complete a course with Green Worker Cooperatives' Coop Academy, a
Please share this announcement with folks who know the importance of language justice across communities.
Help raise $1,296 by Feb. 15, 2012!
Donate Here
SmartMeme 2012 Advanced Story-based Strategy Practitioner’s Training:
April 15-19th 2012 Essex, MA
Are you a smartMeme training alum or a story-based practitioner that wants to expand your strategy toolbox? Learn how to reframe your issue? Join us!
The Advanced Training is designed as a full immersion 5 day, 4 night residential experience. This training aims to grow a powerful network of story-based strategy practitioners and leaders throughout the social & ecological justice movements. This advanced training is a one-of-a-kind leaning experience that delivers the best tools and thinking from the only national strategy center dedicated to amplifying the impact of grassroots organizing for social and ecological justice with the power of narrative and memes.
SmartMeme has trained over 4,000 activists since 2002 and collaborated and consulted with over 200 social change organizations to apply the story-based strategy framework to critical campaigns. The Advanced Training provides deeper exposure to smartMeme’s story-based strategy framework and training-of-trainers practicum elements. Participants will learn how to integrate narrative power analysis into their campaign work and get hands on experience facilitating story-based strategy exercises such as the Battle of the Story. Intensive team-based simulation sessions led by dynamic national campaigning organizations provide an opportunity to apply story-based strategy concepts to current issues and shared organizing challenges and to create narratives, memes, and point-of-assumption actions.
The Essex Retreat Center provides a beautiful and comfortable location on the coast just north of Boston. The multiday format, offers a chance to step out of the daily grind of campaigns and organizing in order to deepen skills, shift thinking and learn collectively with a community of highly skilled and motivated practitioners and organizers from leading groups from across the country and cutting-edge national alliances.
The Advanced Training for: Alumni of smartMeme trainings and workshops; organizers and communicators from organizations who have engaged with smartMeme; senior communications and campaign staff of social justice groups and alliances; seasoned facilitators, communicators and trainers that have a track record of supporting alliances in smartMeme's network. (All accepted applicants will receive a copy of Re:Imagining Change and be expected to both read this book and participate in a pre-training webinar tele-conference.)
This Advanced Training is: A intense boot-camp style residential training with a sophisticated learning community exclusively focused on smartMeme's story-based strategy methodology and model of narrative and campaign development for movement organizations and alliances.
What the Advanced Training is NOT: A media 101 training. A 101 organizing training. An anti-oppression training. A messaging consultation for your organization. An introduction to story-based strategy.
The full tuition for this advanced training is $1,500 and includes pre-retreat webinar, book, lodging, meals, ground transport, all advanced training materials and five days of intensive training. Partial scholarships are available. Please apply and we will follow up with you about supporting your fundraising efforts and/or supporting your tuition costs with scholarship solidarity funding, if you are accepted.
SmartMeme's 2012 Advanced Training is made possible with the generous support of the Akonadi Foundation, The Ben & Jerry's Foundation, The Levinson Foundation, The Solidago Foundation, the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, and donors like you. THANK YOU!
THE 2012 ADVANCED PRACTITIONER’S TRAINING will take place near Boston, MA at the beautiful Essex Conference Center and Retreat from April 15-19, 2012. Apply Now! Spots are very Limited! Questions? email training (at) smartmeme dot org...
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Friends for a Non-Violent World is Hiring - Alternatives to Violence Project Coordinator
* We welcome resumes with a cover letter from all between today and Monday, February 6, 5:00 pm.
* FNVW will acknowledge receipt of the resume
* We will notify applicants by February 24th if they are invited for an interview
Electronic: Send to info@fnvw.org, attaching or pasting in your resume and cover letter
Postal mail:
AVP Hiring
Friends for a Non-Violent World
1050 Selby Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55104
JOB DESCRIPTION
Position Title: AVP Coordinator
Reports To: AVP Steering Committee and FNVW Managing Director
Type: Part-Time / 12 hours, with the potential for hours increase
Salary: The equivalent of $14/hour.
Benefits: No health or dental; vacation & sick pay accrues.
Shift: Hours vary daily depending upon need.
ORGANIZATION SUMMARY:
Friends for a Non-Violent World (FNVW) is a Quaker-inspired organization of people who share a commitment to advancing nonviolence as an ethic and strategy for achieving justice and peace.
FNVW’s programs are focused on providing nonviolence training and support to inmates in Minnesota’s correctional facilities and assisting in their successful re-entry to the community; on educating the public on the history, ethics and strategies of nonviolent personal and political action; and on organizing communities to generate and advance peaceful foreign and nonviolent national security policies, as well as to prevent – and end – our country’s wars.
National Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP-USA) has been training inmates and communities in nonviolence and conflict resolution for 37 years. Through AVP, inmates have the opportunity to transform their means of survival from violence to nonviolence and come out of prison with spirit, heart and hands more integrated. AVP-MN has done this work for 21 years.
POSITION SUMMARY:
Complete basic administrative tasks associated with AVP (in partnership with FNVW’s Administrative Manager); maintaining and publicizing the yearly workshop schedule; coordinating community and in-prison workshops; supporting and in some cases supervising AVP volunteers.
Maintain key relationships
- Correctional Facility contacts
- AVP-USA
- AVP-MN Facilitators
- Prospective community workshop participants
- AVP governing board, the Steering Committee
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
- High school diploma or equivalent required.
- Commitment to nonviolence as a personal ethic and a force for social change.
- Solid organizational and oral/written communication skills.
- Ability to work with diverse ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups, including inmates, ex-offenders, and other marginalized communities.
- Ability to manage projects independently and prioritize multiple tasks effectively.
- Eagerness and ability to be proactive and to contribute to the team/consensus-based approach of the organization.
- Strong computer skills and experience with Windows-based applications including Microsoft Word, Excel and Access (database).
- Commitment to maintain confidentiality of sensitive materials and information.
PRIMARY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES (to be prioritized with AVP SC):
- Answer (or distribute as needed) voicemail, email, mail, and phones for AVP-MN
- Communicate regularly with AVP detention facility coordinators, sharing schedule information, facilitator specifics, workshop participant lists, facility rules, etc.
- Coordinate occasional workshop logistics, including stocking of supply box, registration and reminders, room set-up, refreshments/meals, clean up, thank you notes, arrangements for out-of-town participants, and return of all materials used, (such as prepared food pots and pans).
- Create and/or distribute AVP promotional material when needed.
- Create yearly schedule for AVP workshops.
- Communicate with the AVP Steering Committee representative on FNVW’s board to help ensure that AVP is represented adequately at FNVW board meetings, and that AVP-related board meeting items are reported to the AVP Steering Committee each month.
- Help plan and execute AVP events (i.e., gatherings and Spruce-Up sessions).
- Maintain Stillwater inside facilitator lists, including dates and levels of previous facilitation, individual facilitator limitations, etc.
- Help sign up facilitators for each AVP workshop.
- Notify all registrants and facilitators when AVP workshops are cancelled.
- Process AVP-related communications from inmates, distributing to appropriate parties or notify senders that communications from inmates cannot be forwarded to others.
- Attend occasional Department of Corrections meetings.
- Provide guidance to AVP volunteers on database entry requirements and expectations of various volunteer roles.
- Promote and publicize AVP workshops when possible, in coordination with volunteer Outreach Committee.
- Recruit participants for AVP community workshops when possible.
- Send confirmation letter to detention facility or community partner two weeks prior to workshop.
- Stay current on detention facility rules for facilitators, communicating changes and ensuring that facilitators meet every requirement of a given facility.
- In coordination with Administrative Manager, update AVP database with contact information, release date, etc.
Please note: This list summarizes the coordination tasks and responsibilities needed for AVP-MN to thrive. To do all of these things in 12 hours a week is not realistic, so working with the AVP Steering Committee at monthly meetings to prioritize tasks is a central part of the job.
The White Racial Frame: Sharing Understandings
Join a guided book study: Reading together, reflecting together, applying what we come to understand – all are welcome to join in shared study of the important new contributions to antiracism thinking, Joe Feagin’s The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing (2010).
We meet for ten sessions, discussing specific chapters each session with related exercises and videos. Your attendance at all ten sessions will both benefit you and provide continuity for the circle. However join for as many sessions as you are able.
Dates: Saturdays February 4, 11, 18 and 25; March 3, 17, 24 and 31; and April 14 and 21 (no gatherings on March 10 or April 7)
Times: 9:00 – 11:00 a.m. with breakfast at 8:30 a.m.
Location: 371 West Baker Street, St Paul MN 55107, on St Paul’s West Side
Cost: $10/session, includes all food and materials
Participants will need to purchase a copy of the Feagin 2010 text (approximately $30)
Obtain the text from a bookstore, Amazon, or ASDIC (see registration form)
Pre-registration requested, for sake of food and space preparations.
FFI: www.asdic-circle.org/
or contact Margery at motto@asdic-circle.org
or Herbert Perkins at 651-224-2728
Offered by: ASDIC Metamorphosis, Antiracism Study-Dialogue Circles
Herbert Perkins and Margery Otto, co-facilitators
Presented with the Financial Support of: The Saint Paul Foundation
and the Antiracism Ministry Team of Cherokee Park United Church
Starting this year, trained racial justice facilitators will have the chance to expand their knowledge and skills at trainings year-round. In addition, the YWCA is now offering a Level 1 and Level 2 certification process for facilitators.
If you are interested in becoming a racial justice facilitator and leading conversations at community dialogues, YWCA workshops, and our annual It’s Time to Talk: Forums on Race event, please contact Sarah Super. Trainings start in February! You can apply online to be a racial justice facilitator.
The YWCA of Minneapolis provides many tools, resources, and trainings to make your vision for justice a reality. Learn how you can get more involved in our programs in our section of the YWCA of Minneapolis site.
Please email Sarah Super ssuper@ywca-minneapolis.
The 2012 Multicultural Forum on Workplace Diversity
The 2012 Multicultural Forum on Workplace Diversity will be held on March 20-22, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Produced in partnership with the Twin Cities Chapter of the National Black MBA, the Forum expects to attract over 1,000 attendees. Keynote speakers include Carol Evans, President of Working Mother Media and CEO of Diversity Best Practice, Steven Frost, Head of Diversity & Inclusion, London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Ltd., and Sergio Rial, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Cargill, Inc.
OCB Forum Volunteers are now being recruited. Depending on your volunteer assignment you are able to attend sessions on the day you volunteer. Becoming a volunteer is a great way to experience this outstanding event firsthand and learn from some of the finest diversity and inclusion experts in the country.
To apply as a Forum Volunteer please go to: Volunteer link
To learn more about the 2012 Multicultural Forum go to: www.stthomas.edu/mcf
For questions, please contact Barbara Voorhees Blaha at bjvoorheesbl@stthomas.edu.
The Corcoran Neighborhood Organization (CNO) seeks proposals for public art projects, each to be completed by an artist with adult and youth volunteers during the summer of 2012 in the Corcoran neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The purpose of the projects is to engage and involve residents of the neighborhood in public art creation and contribute to the livability of the neighborhood. The selected slate of projects will be presented as an arts participation program for neighborhood youth and families, and recruitment of volunteers will be the responsibility of CNO. The projects will produce permanent or semi-permanent artworks to be displayed in the public realm, i.e. highly visible locations in the neighborhood. Depending on location, projects may be subject to approval by the City of Minneapolis or another agency. In these cases CNO will play a lead role in seeking the necessary permits and approvals.
Interested artists are encouraged to learn more about CNO and the Corcoran neighborhood prior to submitting, by visiting the Corcoran Neighborhood Website.
WHO MAY APPLY?
All Minnesota artists are eligible to apply.
PROJECT LOCATIONS AND TYPES
Projects must be permanent or semi-permanent and appropriate for an outdoor placement. Strong proposals will demonstrate how the artist will involve 25 or more volunteers in the creation (installation and ideally also design) process.
Following are some types of projects and some locations that are possibilities. The strongest proposals will identify preferred installation location(s) and rationale. Applicants are encouraged to contact CNO to inquire about feasibility of location(s) you may be considering. Applicants may submit more than one project type and more than one possible location.
Lake Street / Midtown light rail transit station: utilize the steep landscape or the clear glass of the station in the installation, without permanently altering the station. Proposals will be subject to approval by Metro Transit.
Susan Hensel Gallery, 3441 Cedar Ave S, southern façade of building.
Yarn Bombing: to be installed on trees or utility boxes or other locations proposed by the artist and approved by the property owner.
Pavement Mural: one pavement mural design and installation project will be selected, to be installed on an intersection selected by CNO. Proposal for a pavement mural must include clear plans to involve volunteers in the design process. Proposals will be subject to approval by the City of Minneapolis.
Proposals for other locations or types of projects are welcome! Be sure to look at Corcoran 2011 murals to see the projects we completed in 2011 and earlier, as this may give you some ideas.
INSTALLATION DATE(S)
Installation of selected projects will take place on one Saturday or two successive Saturdays. In your application, please indicate which of the following dates are workable for you and whether you have any preferences. If your project involves design meetings to occur prior to installation, please explain. May 12, June 2, June 9, June 16, or June 23. Other Saturdays will also be considered.
REMUNERATION and SUPPLIES
Chosen artist(s) will be paid $30 per hour for up to 22 hours of work per project (Pavement mural project artist will paid $30 per hour for up to 42 hours of work). This is the maximum amount available for labor. Strong proposals will include a detailed budget or rationale demonstrating a realistic scope of the work (hours and materials) and project costs.
If latex paint or pavement paint is required, it will be furnished by the Valspar Foundation at no cost to the project budget. Other supplies are provided by a budget line item up to $450 per project.
PROPOSAL DUE DATE
March 15, 2012.
HOW TO APPLY Send proposals by e-mail to Eric Gustafson at eric@corcoranneighborhood.org. You will receive an e-mail confirming that we received your proposal.
Submit a one-page narrative (Word document or body of an e-mail) including:
o Description of each project and how you would organize it for implementation in close collaboration with 25+ volunteers of all ages. Describe your experience with similar public art or community projects and working with volunteers.
o Description and cost estimate of materials your project will require.
o Be sure to include your name, address, phone and e-mail contact information.
Submit as attachments 3-5 high quality images (JPG is preferred) of designs you would envision for this project and/or images of completed public projects you have worked on. You may propose more than one project. Selected artists will be expected to provide further information for promotional purposes.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT A jury of residents will meet in late March to review the proposals. If the jury is interested in your proposal, we will contact you to discuss further by phone or in person.
All applications will be notified by March 31.
MORE QUESTIONS?
E-mail is preferred. Eric Gustafson: eric@corcoranneighborhood.org - or - 612-724-7457
A new 19 minute documentary about how giving birth transforms our bodies. The film reframes and destabilizes the observer's reaction to the changes in a woman's body after she's given birth. The Film refocuses on the dynamism and lives experiences rather than the commodified image. Women talk with ambivalence, humor and love about the scars, marks and stretched skin that brands them as mothers. Priced at $120 (including $10 Shipping and Handling fees), the documentary is expensive, but that is because it includes public performance rights. You can screen it at an event or in class.
What Occupy Has Accomplished So Far