I first learned of Jane Wanjiru Muigai Kamphuis watching the HBO documentary, A Small Act. The film told the story of Chris Mburu—Jane’s cousin—whose primary education in a rural village in Kenya was sponsored by a woman he’d never met in Sweden. Both Jane and Mburu grew up to become Harvard-educated human rights lawyers, and one day, Mburu got the idea for the two of them to start their own […]
Tag Archives | community
Edgar S. Cahn | Time Banking: A currency based on community
Time Banking was invented 30-plus years ago as a means of counteracting the cuts in social programs that took place during the Reagan years. It has enjoyed growing popularity during the current recession, enabling the unemployed, who are long on time, to acquire services they can’t afford to pay for. And Time Banking may yet provide a transition to a more equitable, sustainable economy by creating a medium of exchange […]
Raul Ramos y Sanchez | The demons of La Yuma
Miami, 1961 An eerie wailing from the front door startled abuela as she cracked another egg into the sizzling cast-iron skillet. The shrill voices were insistent and demanding. In her sixty-seven years, she’d heard nothing like it. “Triko-tree! Triko-tree!” After the recent evidence of brujería (witchcraft) in the neighborhood, abuela was wary. More evil sorcery might be afoot here in La Yuma. She inched to the kitchen doorway and peered […]
Chris Henrikson | The community cure for a violent culture
Chris Henrikson is the founder of Street Poets, Inc., a non-profit poetry-based violence intervention program for high-risk youth in the juvenile detention camps, continuation schools and streets of Los Angeles County. Henrikson also calls it “a poetry-based peace-making organization,” which uses the creative process as a vehicle for individual and community transformation. I first learned of Street Poets at a Malidoma Somé ancestor ceremony in Ojai, California, which two young […]
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