DemocracySpace.org

Friday digest-open thread 5/16/08

"One city ... thousands of voices heard ... democracy is here." That's the message of the winning video from the Indianapolis Neighborhood Resource Center, which took the $1,000 prize this week in Everyday Democracy's "Making Every Voice Matter" YouTube video contest. Using dozens of photos, music that moves from dramatic to energetic, and inspiring quotes about outcomes, the INRC entry shows how change is happening in neighborhoods throughout Indianapolis. As Everyday Democracy deputy communication director and operations manager Carrie Boron wrote on our website, "The video shows that all kinds of people are having a voice in improving Indianapolis neighborhoods. And it demonstrates that by employing simple production techniques, a community can use video to showcase its work in a medium accessible to lots of people." Read more here.

Everyday Democracy got another major media mention this week, this time in an essay, "Where Racial Healing Happens," from Rob Corcoran in the Christian Science Monitor. Quoting a friend who told him that "change happens from the bottom," Rob writes, "And he's right: Ordinary people are coming together to do extraordinary things. Healing conversation is already under way. In hundreds of local efforts across the US, diverse groups of citizens are bridging the traditional boundaries of race, class, and culture. Thousands have engaged in dialogue, symbolic acts of reconciliation, and collaborative problem solving. Organizations such as Everyday Democracy and Hope in the Cities (a project of Initiatives of Change) are facilitating this." Read it all here. Rob is national director for Initiatives of Change in the United States.

The past two weeks have been horrible ones for natural disasters including the cyclone in Burma and earthquake in China. A discussion at the Skoll Foundation's Social Edge website has been asking social entrepreneurs and community organizers to think about both how people can help affected areas now and what they'd do if a disaster hit their area. For example, author Jill Finlayson asks, "Are there grant applications or proposals for programs that you need funded that you can pull off the shelf and submit after a disaster?  Having these written in advance can enable you to promptly take advantage of funds that become available (before interest and support wanes), without having to start from scratch or take time away from the critical response efforts at the point of an emergency." Read more and join the conversation here.

Everyday Democracy executive director Martha McCoy spoke Thursday at the United Way's annual national conference in Baltimore. Her talk focused on "Engaging the Community, Building Community Knowledge." Also Thursday, United Way president Brian Gallagher outlined a new 10-year campaign focused on halving the number of high-school dropouts and working families that are struggling financially. "The country is at a crossroads right now," Gallagher said. "I've never felt a time in my career where there's this combination of enough pain, feeling of a lack of progress, feeling like we've stalled, combined with a next generation of leadership demanding change." Gallagher took questions about the goals in this live discussion at the Washington Post website.

Don't forget: There's now less than a week to catch the early-bird rate for Everyday Democracy's national meeting June 12-14 in Denver. Go here for more info, including the entire conference program now available in pdf form.

Welcome to the Learning Exchange

About 50 people have gathered in East Hartford, Connecticut, this week from around the country to join in the first of two Learning Exchanges for Communities Creating Racial Equity. Everyday Democracy executive director Martha McCoy (below) greeted us by saying that the program is "a step in a dream we've had for a long time."

Formerly known as the Study Circles Resource Center, Everyday Democracy began focusing on racism during the 1992 civil disturbances in Los Angeles after the Rodney King beating. But in the 16 years since then, America has changed the way we talk about racism, McCoy said.

Early discussions were driven by King's plaintive question, "Can't we all just get along?" At first, it was enough for tens of thousands of people to come together in communities nationwide to talk about racial differences. Eventually, however, communities - and SCRC - understood that real change had to come on the institutional and policy level. Today, Everyday Democracy helps lead the effort to turn community organizing and dialogue into substantive change.  "We're working on two of the leading edges in the country," McCoy said: racial equity and making democracy work better.

CCRE participating communities include South Sacramento County, California; New Haven and Stratford, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Hopkinsville, Kentucky; Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland; Syracuse, New York; Burlington, Vermont; and Lynchburg, Virginia. Today at the conference, communities will tell their stories, discuss structural racism, and learn tools for evaluation and communication. Tomorrow, participants will look forward to the next six to 12 months of work, using markers of progress we'll identify this week (and backed by action grants that Everyday Democracy will award via generous funding from the Kellogg and Mott Foundations).

And along the way - via DemocracySpace, our website, and other tools - we'll share much of the communities' progress with you so that cities and towns beyond the initiative can take what we're learning and make it your own.

Friday digest-open thread 11/30/07

Wow! Where did November go?

Most of our news this week has to do with using dialogue-to-action programs - often called study circles - for youth in schools and other settings. Please add other interesting links or your thoughts on these issues in the comments below.

As seen on our website, Education World is showcasing an in-depth look at how schools use study circles to boost parent involvement and generate greater community participation. Through interviews with Amy Malick, communications director for the Study Circles Resource Center; SCRC associate John Landesman, who has helped study circles become part of the culture at one of the nation's largest school districts; and Jim Noucas of the very successful Portsmouth Listens program, writer Ellen Delisio describes the positive impact study circles are having in school districts across the country. “It’s getting people together on a level playing field,” Noucas told Education World. “At a traditional public hearing, there is no interaction. The school board does not respond to speakers. When you get people together in small groups, they all can contribute and create a marketplace of ideas.” Read more about how communities are using study circles as an inexpensive, inclusive way to address issues ranging from racial equity to redistricting.

Earlier this fall, we wrote about the new Youth+Adults+Dialogue=Action program then just getting under way in Lewiston, Maine. More than 100 people spanning nine decades of age took part in four weeks of discussion, and next Thursday, they'll meet for their action forum. Lewiston Mayor Laurent F. Gilbert Sr. says that they all came up with creative ideas, "and the action forum will no doubt be an exciting kick-off towards making some of those ideas a reality." Read more in this City of Lewiston press release.

A Fort Wayne, Indiana, area school district plans to begin student study circles coordinated through the local United Way in the wake of a recent incident in which students said they'd found racist notes in their lockers. The incident has dominated local headlines over the past week, with a story yesterday reporting that the students had changed their stories - but one noting that he only did so after being threatened with expulsion by the school principal. Whatever the truth, this incident shows yet again how school districts must summon the courage to face racism head on.

P.S. Two weeks ago, we held a water cooler live blogging session to talk about organizing youth-focused study circles. If you missed it, you can click here to read the transcript. Don't forget: Our next water cooler will be at 1 p.m. Eastern on December 13 right here at DemocracySpace. Join us for a lively hour of discussion on how communities nationwide are using dialogue-to-action programs to address poverty.

Friday digest-open thread 10/12/07

The future of the "SCHIP" children's health insurance program has been a major news item this week. Although the bill passed with strong bipartisan support, President George W. Bush vetoed it. Proponents are now working to get more support for the legislation before an override vote that's scheduled for next Thursday. Health and Human Services Sec. Mike Leavitt has urged a compromise on the measure, but Families USA estimates that the current reauthorization legislation would cover only about half of the nearly 10 million children in America. HHS has used citizen engagement as a way to address pandemic flu. Perhaps the federal government could again look to the public for help finding creative ways to cover more of those children, as well as the estimated 47 million total people without health insurance in the United States.

Mychal Bell of the Jena Six is back in jail today after a judge revoked his probation and sentenced him Thursday on charges that predated the beating of a white classmate. The Rev. Al Sharpton told The Washington Post that the 18-month sentence "was a cruel and unusual punishment and is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement," while organizers of Toward a More Perfect Union in Palm Beach, Florida, wrote in a recent letter to the editor that teen study circles in Jena and elsewhere could help remedy the root problems that led to the Jena Six saga.

Lee Derby, a principal in the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools and a participant in that district's robust study circles program, has been honored with an award that recognizes "an exceptional ability to encourage academic excellence, positive human relations and strong community outreach." Meanwhile, today is the registration deadline for a round of education study circles set to start soon in Lowell, Indiana.

Yesterday was the annual National Coming Out Day. The current issue of Minnesota's Lavender magazine features the life-affirming stories of five people who have chosen to live openly as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people. One of them, Rodney Weck, recalls, "My family has been such a huge support…they have reiterated that their biggest concern was my happiness. I think back to how scared I was to tell them and how I had all of the fears of rejection or abandonment, and realized that none of them came even close to coming true.”

Thanks to Study Circles Resource Center administrative assistant Myriah Pahl for passing along several of today's items. Do you have a tip for the weekly digest? Send it to jfanselow at studycircles dot org, or just post it in the comments below. This is your space; we appreciate links to whatever you are reading and thinking about or working on.