Category Archives: Intentional Communities

(Courtesy Kate Marquez)

This is the latest installment of the interview seriesMeet the Art Community of the US Southwest. Check out our past interviewshere.

Kate Marquez has worked in the nonprofit and government sectors for the entirety of her professional career, working alongside local and national nonprofit organizations to help advance their independent fundraising capabilities and to secure financial and developmental sustainability. A Tucson native, Kate attended the University of Arizona with a focus on Political Science and Religious Studies.

In July of 2006, Kate accepted a position as the first full-time Development Director for the Greater Oro Valley Arts Council and would later transform the organization into the arts and cultural organization, the Southern Arizona Arts and Cultural Alliance (SAACA). SAACA has since grown to become one of the largest multi-disciplinary arts organizations in the region, dedicated to the creation, preservation, and advancement of the arts. Each year SAACA provides thousands of opportunities for artists in the community to present and exhibit their work through culinary, arts, and music events and festivals as well as groundbreaking arts and healthcare integrated programming and education outreach.

Kate founded the Statewide Arizona Business Committee for the Arts which establishes groundbreaking arts and business integration programs through the enhancement of business practices, strengthening our economy, increasing employee engagement, and improving creative thinking skills through creative approaches. Kate is the 2017 winner of the Inside Tucson Business Nonprofit CEO of the year, and two-time nominee for the Arizona Governors Arts Awards, and currently serves on the Americans for the Arts Private Sector Advisory Council. In 2019, Kate founded a new 14,000 square foot center for arts and culture in Southern Arizona, CATALYST Collaborative Arts & Maker Space, which includes a teaching kitchen, robotics and engineering lab, arts and crafts studio, and music and digital arts production studio.

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Where were you born?

I was born in Dallas, Texas, but moved to Tucson at only 3 months old, and have lived here ever since.

Whats your first strong art memory?

I come from a particularly musical family. My mother was a professional vocalist, signed with Capitol Records at only 17 years old. She met my father who ran stage crew for her touring band. My first art memories were of my mother and father singing together she sang most every day. A formative memory in my childhood was when my grandmother took me at six years old to see CATS when it was touring through Arizona. She bought me a brand new dress, and rented a limo to take my cousins and siblings all together. I remember being enthralled with the entire production of it all. I was lucky enough to attend a Montessori-type arts focused school from kindergarten through sixth grade, where we took every test to classical music, and arts classes were a daily occurrence field trips were to the opera and museums, and our extracurricular activities were the school musical production, literary arts, and participating in cooking and creative projects. It was a unique way to learn, and it instilled in each of us the power of creativity at a very young age.

What was your favorite exhibition you saw this year?

My grandmother, who I was very close to, passed away this summer. Although this year I was given the opportunity to visit Barcelona, Madrid, Nashville, and Minneapolis, and in each place had extraordinarily moving arts experiences, by far my favorite was getting to take my grandmother to see CATS when it toured here in Arizona once again this past March. It is a timeless play that now holds a very special place in my heart, and of all of the moving experiences I have had in the arts, this one will never leave me.

What are you currently working on?

Our organization just recently opened a new 14,000 square-foot first-of-its kind arts and make space. It has been a dreamed fulfilled, to bring such a unique space here to our community. We envisioned a place where we could put all the creativity which thrives in our community under one roof. A place to celebrate together. A space where intentional ideas and collaborations thrive. A project that would continue to reshape our community through building a stronger sense of place through the arts, while advocating for artists and organizations to grow. We named the project CATALYST, which demonstrates our ambitious goals. We hope to build something that will become a regenerative space for arts and culture, experience and creativity. We opened the space on December 3, 2019, in the center of a large shopping center, and are collaborating with over 100 artists and nonprofit organizations on the project. 2020 will be an exciting year for our organization as we strive to make deep impact through creative collaborations in CATALYST. The space is very unique and it is intentional that we have invested in a teaching kitchen alongside a robotics and engineering lab, and an arts and crafts studio alongside a music and digital arts space. Each of these spaces provides opportunity for learning and teaching, sharing and collaboration, and opportunities to gather unite around what connects us. For our youth, this will be a place where workforce development programs connect creativity and innovation. For artists, CATALYST will be a space to showcase, share, and expand their work.

What guides your process?

The process which I personally attach to is the concept that we learn by doing. Taking risks, making mistakes, and doing it hand in hand with others is how we learn our shared value for our community.

Whats the best book youve read recently?

I must admit that I am really a hard sell on keeping attention towards a full book I am more of a film buff than anything else. I tend to read a lot online, and still value news from a printed newspaper. Over the past 10 years, if I have invested in a book, it has typically been a read focused on leadership. It is always something I am trying to improve upon in myself, and am fascinated by some of the worlds best change leaders. I am particularly smitten with Simon Sinek, and have collected each and every one of his books. He is a passionate speaker and leader, and has an amazing way of attaching lessons to real life experiences that really seem to hit home for me personally.

Do you prefer to see art alone or with friends?

I am a strong believer that art is all around us. Gone are the days of people expecting to only see and experience art in a museum or a theatre it exists in the murals and graffiti that surround us, to the public art and preservation of buildings, street buskers and street art from corner to corner. Accessibility to art is so different today than in the past. From the moment we wake up, our life is engrossed with creativity, color, and music. From the house we wake up in designed by an architect, to the art on our walls, or the car we drive, the television and movies we watch, to the music we play on our commute to work or throughout the day, to each and every thing we make with our hands, the creative process surrounds. My favorite thing to share is food there is no greater cultural unifier than the culinary arts. From the recipes we pass on from generation to generation, to the daily ritual of creating and sharing a meal together, food is how we connect.

Do you like to photograph the art you see?

I always snap a photo of something that moves me. I am particularly drawn to outdoor art and color.

What do you see as the centers for creative community in Arizona?

Southern Arizona is rich in the arts. It is a more challenging community to make it as a professional artist, because of the economic conditions of our region, but that is no way a sign of the creativity that exists within. We are a community made of up thousands of photographers, musicians, jewelers, muralists, writers, singers, chefs, tinkerers, designers, fabricators, and makers. About 90% of them work full time. Arizona ranks at the bottom of local and state funding for the arts, and our long term goal is to create more opportunities for all of these creatives to connect, in an effort to bring a more modern approach to how we define arts and culture in our community, and to create more opportunities to bring awareness and advocacy to the power of the arts in communities, and how they fund and support it long term.

Original post:

Meet the Art Community of the US Southwest: Kate Marquez Wants Tucson to Be a Place For Collaboration - Hyperallergic

I became discouraged, as I was on track to earn a Ph.D and go far in my career, Drane recalled about not completing her masters.

But she had not hit bottom. Not until she applied to be an Uber driver but was denied due to being a felon that same year.

Yet, despite the setback, Drane decided to create a new career path for herself. In 2014, the Englewood native, decided to create her own opportunity and founded the Englewood Walk & Run 5K: Ditch the Weight & Guns. At the time of the first 5K race, 4,000 people participated, including former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel. Drane says, Working out and working within the community was my therapy. I was still using my criminal justice background to empower Englewood to ditch the weight and guns.

Seven years later, another opportunity for a new career path came serendipitously.

After attending National Expungement Week Chicago this past September, hosted by Element 7 and the National Diversity and Inclusion Cannabis Alliance (NDICA), Drane welcomed investors to her community for a tour, which included a potential cultivation center. After the tour, the investors made an offer for Drane to become a social equity partner.

Drane explains, Now, we are partners, and I own 51 percent of the company. I wouldnt have been able to do this without investor partners because the cost to open a dispensary is too expensive.

Barriers to entry into the cannabis industry are multi-faceted, according to Drane. For starters, the cannabis dispensary application is difficult for some people to understand who need support.

The State of Illinois should have done a better job of community outreach, letting the public know where to apply, get help, and financing, Drane comments.

The cannabis dispensary application fee alone is $5,000.

During the December Town Hall Meeting on Adult Use Cannabis Law, in Chicagos Austin neighborhood, State Sen. Heather Steans (D-7th) was asked, How are cannabis dispensary applicants from low-income Black neighborhoods supposed to afford the $5,000 application fee? Steans suggested options including application sliding scale rate, applying as social equity applicant, and Cannabis Business Development Fund.

Dranes story seems like a one in a million, and for many Black Americans who will never experience a full circle moment, that reality appears to be intentional based on the policies created during the War on Drugs.

Its a slap in the face when white communities are profiting from cannabis and people of color have felonies, Drane declared. Black dispensaries, Black cultivation centers, and Black Cannabis Transportation create generational wealth. And we are more likely to give back to our community than White counterparts. My plan is to create jobs for the community.

Although the War on Drugs first impacted Black America many decades ago, its echoes can still be felt today.

In 1971, former President Richard Nixon announced a War on Drugs political campaign. Recently, though, Nixons Domestic Chief Policy, John Ehrilchman, confessed that it was never about the drugs.

During a 2016 interview, Ehrilchman confessed, "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies [and Blacks] with marijuana and Blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."

Read this article:

New cannabis legislation is a start to restoring Black America after the War on Drugs - The Real Chi

By Heather Faulkner and Lee Stickells

Updated December 16, 2019 17:53:20

It's just after sunset and someone has blown the conch shell to summon residents to the weekly Sunday community dinner.

Painted by moonlight, silhouetted figures begin to appear in the door frames of houses and strolling up the gravel road.

Soon we're sharing a meal vegetarian with around 20 others in a large, hand-built, hexagonal building that serves as the community centre.

Later, as dishes are dutifully washed and dried, a guitar and mandolin are picked up and folk songs begin to reverberate around the room.

Voices break into familiar harmonies as the words of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell resonate around the hall.

You'd be forgiven for thinking this was a scene from the 1970s, save for the lyrics being read from a smart phone screen held by Michael Pawson, whose son and grandchildren are joining in the sing-along.

How the world has changed.

This is Bodhi Farm, an intentional community in northern NSW. And if it seems straight out of the '70s, that's because it is.

The community started in 1977 with aspirations to share land in what long-term resident and community archivist Gai Longmuir terms "voluntary simplicity" a "thoughtful and reflective way to live collectively" in harmony with the natural environment.

It was also founded on an adoption of the five Buddhist precepts: do no harm, do not steal, do not lie, do not misuse sex and do not consume alcohol or drugs.

The residents sometimes joke that they were "farmers of enlightenment".

Communities like this were once dismissively labelled as "hippy communes", yet we are currently facing twin challenges of environmental destruction and unaffordable housing.

Could these surviving countercultural communities hold important lessons?

Bodhi Farm is not typical of Australia's '70s countercultural communities in its longevity (or its spiritual foundations).

But neither is it the only one to flourish and endure.

While utopian '70s communities were widely regarded as failures, they've gone on to inform and influence the design of modern eco-villages, the tiny house movement, urban intentional communities and myriad minor movements in between.

Now, in 2019, Bodhi Farm residents have a handsome communal building where meals and meetings are regularly hosted.

Decisions are made through a communal consensus process. The community produces its own power via a solar and micro-hydro system and is proudly off the grid. It has its own spring-fed water supply.

The houses have been mostly hand-built with recycled materials, usually over a long period of time, and are set in a beautiful regenerated forest.

And they tend to have cost hundreds, rather than hundreds of thousands, to build.

Multiple generations live together, and the kids have free run of a beautiful rainforest "backyard".

At first glance, Bodhi Farm's lifestyle seems idyllic.

Its effort to escape from the housing market seems especially attractive with the OECD's dwelling-price-to-income ratio index for Australia recording a 78 per cent increase between 1980 and 2015.

Many Australians who feel squeezed out of the current housing market are looking to cooperative models as a way of obtaining affordable housing.

There is great interest in simpler, low-impact lifestyles as seen in the tiny house phenomenon, though it is fraught with red tape.

The environmental costs of conventional urban housing construction are also becoming clearer.

And contemporary eco-villages can sometimes be no less expensive than their urban counterparts.

So, Bodhi Farm's eco-village-type qualities have a lot of appeal.

But it was hard work for the community to get to this position. For one, what the young dreamers at Bodhi were doing in 1977 was not quite legal.

Neighbouring Tuntable Falls intentional community residents recall that their application for multiple occupancy (or MO, as it is colloquially termed) hinged on a working toilet.

Their innovative installation of a composting toilet swayed a weary government inspector in their favour.

The land itself was, as Gai describes it, "ravaged". It was logged and had at some point been used to grow bananas.

Where rainforest now stands, was once a barren hill, full of "bladey grass".

"It was very marginal land," says Gai. "It was cheap."

While experiments in communal living blossomed in 1970s Australia, they were by no means mainstream.

Often dismissed as drop-out hippies, communities like Bodhi Farm found their desires to live a different kind of life were not always understood or tolerated by locals.

"Have they told you about the baby stealing," quipped one Bodhi original resident, referring to one of the many rumours that were circulated about the community.

Many locals thought their new and sometimes-naked neighbours were dirty and uneducated. It was far from the truth.

University educated and widely travelled, they may not have been trained architects or gardeners, but they brought with them philosophies of community many had returned from experiences in India that were foreign to rural Australians, and they were determined for their buildings to enable the kind of society they wanted to create.

"When I first went travelling as a 21 year-old," says Gai, "I vividly remember flying over what was then Portuguese Timor and looking down at what would have been the approaches to Dili."

The simple thatched houses amidst the bougainvillaea, replete with children running among the structures, resonated with her. "I had a visceral sense of it being a pattern I really liked the pattern of village and community," she says.

"I had done a long Buddhist meditation retreat, and that made me look for a spiritual community not just an ordinary lefty [community]", adds Michael, who joined Bodhi Farm in 1978 and is the current resident caretaker of the community garden (and a doting grandfather).

With no electricity and no real houses, the community started out in tents, trailers, a converted bus, and then built more-robust dwellings when amenities and supplies were available hence the recycled materials.

Michael's own home resembles a castle.

"I wanted to have an interesting house because I wanted to have an interesting life," says Michael.

What started out as a lean-to in 1978 ("We just put up four poles on a floor and a roof and didn't really have walls," he says) was added on when children began arriving.

But when a large tree branch took out a corner of the house during roofing repairs, Michael spotted water damage.

"Timber's too tasty to termites," he says. And so, he decided to build out of cement.

Based on a design he sketched out, the building began to take shape.

"Brick by brick, barrow by barrow," was the way to go, says Michael, who built the house himself as he could afford materials.

"I didn't really have plans," he admits, "I just sort of launched into it and problem-solved as I went along."

Building stopped when Michael suffered a ruptured aneurysm. By that time, the place needed lifting and restumping a task Michael was no longer able to do himself.

But ingenuity seems to be Michael's forte; he simply excavated underneath the structure and restumped it that way.

"I didn't quite finish it," says Michael of the house. Though he hopes to get back to it in the future, he is realistic about it: "The arthritis is kicking in now".

The threat of building inspections weighed heavily on residents' minds. Not much was built to code in the early days and they relied on the goodwill of council inspectors to continue.

Most of the early residents didn't have jobs. They pooled their money to buy materials for the community.

Cars were shared and maintained by a self-taught mechanic.

"We were quite young," says Gai of the sparseness of Bodhi's early days.

"I think we were very undemanding of what life might serve us, and grateful for what we got."

It's a sentiment that, with 21st century hindsight, "almost makes me want to cry", she says.

Then came the children. The challenges of a growing community were exhausting.

Though the socio-economic conditions at the time made it possible to establish the settlements through allowing some residents to remain on the dole raising families was incredibly difficult.

A commitment to extended forms of kinship often helped.

The adage that "it takes a village to raise a child" was almost literally applied as kids roamed the community, looked after by whichever adult was present.

People also began to go outside to find work to support their growing families, and facilities such as electricity and water.

Relationships were strained, but the community endured.

Gai treasures that sense of community.

"In our increasingly fragmented society, the bonding and continuity that we have been able to create for ourselves, the sense of place and mutual protection, is, for me, like a deep anchor to life," she says.

The challenges facing Bodhi Farm today are a far cry from those faced in '77.

They have safe, comfortable homes ("Don't forget to unlock the door on your way out" is the motto here).

And they even have wi-fi (how else to share the lyrics for a song written nearly 50 years ago?).

Bush trails have been tamed into level roads. It is quaint, it is comfortable and yet, its future is uncertain.

The original founders those who have stayed on are ageing. This is no Shangri-La.

At the monthly community meeting we attended, attracting new people was a top item on their talking board.

The cost to join the community is well-below current market trends, though repairs and maintenance will be expected to be footed by new community members.

But it's not an easy entry into the community. There is a two-year trying-out period to settle into Bodhi Farm.

They are careful about who they welcome as a permanent resident. Someone will be needed to maintain the electricity grid, powered by the sun and creek flows.

The system still needs maintenance, and a brilliant mind to upgrade its performance as technologies change.

Climate change is on their minds as well. Shifting weather patterns are making the once-abundant creek-water supply more tenuous. No rain means no water.

There are other challenges, such as ongoing needs for carpentry, mechanics and child care that the community must solve together.

But they know from more than 40 years of living experience at Bodhi Farm, that change is inevitable, but not new. They will adapt.

Multimedia documentary storyteller Heather Faulkner (Griffith University) and architectural historian Lee Stickells (University of Sydney) are researching the origin stories of 1970s Australian intentional communities. The Way Out Down Under project can be followed on Instagram: @_wayoutdownunder_

Topics:community-and-society,lifestyle,house-and-home,housing,nsw,australia

First posted December 15, 2019 05:00:43

The rest is here:

Bodhi Farm and other countercultural communities live like the 1970s never ended - ABC News

Its nearly lunchtime in the west Michigan city of Kalamazoo. Auntie Saheeda Perveen Nadeem, 64, stands over the stove in the kitchen at First Congregational United Church of Christ (FCUCC) preparing a nutritious lunch for 20 children living in poverty.

During the more than a year and a half in which she has been sequestered inside the church as a migrant receiving sanctuary protection, Nadeem often cooks for large groups, provides child care, and connects with church leadership. As a Muslim, she practices her faith by serving others through food, even as she fasts during Ramadan. As a migrant, she is a surrogate mother to more than a dozen others who have arrived in the United States fleeing violence.

Nadeem fits the trope of the model immigrant: She has always paid her taxes and never committed a crime (not even a parking violation). She is deeply committed to her local community, and they in turn are committed to her.

It came as no surprise when church leaders began to accompany her to appointments with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. ICE in Michigan had been fairly balanced, notes the Rev. Nathan Dannison, senior pastor of FCUCC. When a new director took over, however, they rolled out a policy with zero stays of removal, the temporary postponement that allows migrants like Nadeem to remain in the United States despite lack of documentation.

As valued members of their communities are targeted by ICE for arrest, detention, and deportation, Christians confront a profound conflict between the inhumane policies of the Trump administration and the call to love the immigrant. Those targeted for arrest and removal are not, after all, hardened criminals with violent records. They are elders, those living with chronic illness, visionary dreamers, families facing domestic violence, parents who care for disabled children, and even clergy.

Forced from her birthplace in Pakistan by poverty, Nadeem worked briefly as a maid in Kuwait, sending earnings back to her family. Shortly after having her own children she made the difficult decision to relocate to the United States to provide them with a better life. Unbeknownst to her (as the matter was handled by her then husband), she overstayed her visa. With very few exceptions, the path to legal citizenship closes permanently if a migrant is ever found to be residing in the United States illegally. Such was the case for Nadeem, who worked under the table for less than minimum wage while still paying taxes.

Nadeem was taken into sanctuary after an ICE official said she would be denied a stay and deported. Not only does she face threats by her ex-husband and his tribal community back in Pakistan should she return, Dannison reports that health challenges place her at risk, possibly death, should she undergo a lengthy detention.

When Dannison first heard the news of Nadeems possible deportation from the mocking voice of an ICE official, he says, It was, to me, as if someone had burned a flag. I thought certain things were inalienable, such as the God-given rights outlined in the Constitution, which apply to all human beings living in the United States, regardless of citizenship. Thats no longer the case.

The facilities that currently house those awaiting deportation are privately owned, for-profit companies, so we are battling a wealthy beast here, he says.

As Christians await the holy celebration of the Christ childs birth, the tumult of ICE raids, palpable fear within immigrant communities, and lonely isolation of those living in sanctuary threaten to trouble the insular joy of the season.

The Holy Familys flight to Egypt provokes the question: Do American Christians truly see Jesus in the least of these? In communities across the country, people of faith are awakening to the urgency of this moment and standing alongside the immigrant fashioned in the image of Christ.

Like Nadeem, Mohamed Soumah, another migrant living in sanctuary at a Quaker church and home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, also finds his situation complicated by illness. Sick with kidney disease, Soumah requires dialysis three times weekly. As an undocumented immigrant, he is ineligible for organ donation.

Its possible he could die in sanctuary, concedes the Rev. Deborah Dean-Ware, whose UCC congregation helps support Soumah. According to her Guinea will not accept Soumah back, and his return would be a death sentence due to inadequate health care. (His mother died of kidney disease shortly after returning to Guinea and receiving dialysis there.)

Dean-Ware coordinates the interfaith group of clergy who transport Soumah to every dialysis appointment, waiting as the four-hour procedure ticks toward completion. Each clergy person who transports him wears a tab-collared shirt or stole as a symbol of sanctuary. Dozens of other volunteers offer services to Soumah, such as providing therapy, drawing up his tax forms, and coordinating the monitors who mind the door of the Quaker buildings that house him.

Its very boring, house arrest, says Dean-Ware. We got him an exercise bike. Hell walk laps around the sanctuary. The stress is real and difficult to manage. Hes lost a lot of weight.

Under the presidency of Donald Trump, immigrant neighbors live in fear as loved ones disappear in communities across the country. In the April 2018 ICE raid of Buncombe and Henderson counties in North Carolina, about 15 immigrants were arrested and detained as part of a statewide raid that netted more than 40 arrests.

Community organizer Bruno Hinojosa remembers the call to the immigrant hotline at 6:30 in the morning. A suspicious car was seen picking up two known community members. Could Hinojosas organization, Compaeros Inmigrantes de las Montaas en Accin (CIMA), verify whether ICE was in town carrying out raids?

Prior to 2018 most raids took place in restaurants or manufacturing plants employing undocumented immigrants. This time, Hinojosa says, ICE was everywhereat your home, out in the community. Because CIMA had spent years cultivating best practices and guidelines for interacting with ICE, it trained local activists in the verification process. Those individuals were deployed to Hendersonville shortly after the sun rose in search of ICE vehicles.

Fresh calls continued to roll in, and once CIMA was able to verify the presence of ICE in the area, the organization blasted a warning to the immigrant community through social media along with know-your-rights information.

As families began to hunker down in their homes, CIMA reached out to the sanctuary network of churches, requesting emergency food assistance and other supplies be dropped off at BeLoved Asheville, an intentional community, and Land of the Sky United Church of Christ.

BeLoved Asheville delivered those supplies to neighborhoods specified by CIMA and Nuestro Centro, the local Latino community center. Meanwhile, families whose loved one was arrested were welcomed at Nuestro Centro, where a healing corner, resources, and compassionate hospitality awaited them.

Two days later, as raids continued, CIMA organized a press conference and met personally with members of the city council and the county commissioners, who were taken aback to see ICE launch such comprehensive raids in their community.

We were criminalized and persecuted, dehumanized by seeing ICE officers running their cars in our community streets, up and down, with people not able to go out to pick up their children or groceries, says Dulce Mirian Porras Rosas, director of Nuestro Centro. For four nights in a row we were terrorized, day and night. We didnt know what would happen overnight, she adds, if you would see your family, neighbors, or children again.

As the raids were winding down, ICE officials held a picnic to celebrate their success. Immigrants and their allies showed up with a marching band to chant and sing, disrupting the festivities. It was important to feel that community strength and courage, Hinojosa says of the action that eventually shut down the ICE picnic.

Since the raids, CIMA has partnered with a local legal aid organization to help families who may be affected by raids in the future draw up legal documents that specify their contingency plans. Over 60 families have participated, answering questions such as: If you are deported, who will care for your child?

The stress infects even immigrants who are legal citizens. Individuals, even those who hold professional positions in the community, drive around with their passport for fear of being mistakenly detained. In hard times, Hinojosa notes, faith fuels people. Some members of his community exercise their faith through indigenous traditions such as smudging or herbal tinctures, others through church.

It helps for folks to know that they are not alone in a moment of crisis. They have a community and tools, he says.

Paradoxically, the scorched earth tactics of the Trump administration have only served to empower community organizing, know-your-rights education, and the resilience of immigrants in Hinojosas neck of the woods. Never before have they claimed with such conviction that they belong here.

We will end ICE, Porras Rosas says.

This system is making millions of dollars out of our bodies. We will not allow [ICE] to continue taking our children and snatching people from our communities.

In Miramar, Florida an ICE facility processes undocumented immigrants from the southern part of the state. Migrants travel for hours to find out whether they will be deported, lining up outside the facility as early as 4 a.m.

They wait for hours in the elements, sometimes from sunrise to sunset, often enduring extreme heat without access to shelter or restrooms. Many will return the following day if their case is not decided the first day. Sometimes they are processed, released, and given a date to return or an ankle bracelet; others are removed directly to a detention facility for deportation.

A steadfast group of local volunteers sets up tables across the street each week to offer free water, food, and coffee.

Destiny Aman, a first-time volunteer who happened to be vacationing nearby, says, They describe how things used to be when longtime residents checked in once a year and how things escalated under Trump. . . . Some old enough to push walkers, some whove lived in the United States for more than 30 years have disappeared inside the building, with families calling in panic, asking what to do. The Miramar Circle of Protection formed in response with a threefold mission: Comfort, Witness, Resist.

Through a local organization, Aman and her spouse, Julie VanEerden, visited a detention center the previous day to spend time with detainees, whom they described as warm and open, grateful for a visit and a chance to connect.

The presence of God in that place struck a deep chord within the couple. They saw God in the peaceful faces of babies hugging their papis, unconcerned about security protocol; in the volunteers working hard to ensure detainees are not deported, possibly to their deaths; in the detainees themselves who have entrusted their lives into divine hands. They saw Jesus in the family who shared a long prayer even as the guards flickered the lights to signal the end of the visit.

The Christmas story bears a shadow side, and the material joy of Christmas that culminates in opening the last gift under the tree is not in keeping with the historical practice of Christmas. The fullness of the Christmas story is in both its beauty and brokenness.

Long ago the Christian tradition set aside 12 days to celebrate Christmasinviting the faithful to linger over the Christ child, to hear the testimony of the ragtag shepherds confronted by an angelic chorus, to journey with the magi, and to face the brutality of King Herod and the harrowing flight of the Holy Family to Egypt.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents, marked during the first half of the 12 days of Christmas, recalls Herods massacre of young children in Bethlehem, a fate Jesus escaped when his family took flight as political refugees on the run for their lives.

The Holy Familys escape to Egypt parallels the present plight of immigrant families fleeing the violence of the Northern Triangle of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. As in the exodus, when the Israelites were led by Moses out of slavery in Egypt, Mary and Joseph fled Bethlehem to seek life for their child and to escape Herods reign of terror.

Like them, many immigrants flee as refugees from their own homelands. As farmable land grows scarce, multinational corporations exploit cheap labor, gang violence partners with government corruption, and the lives of ordinary families collapse into danger and despair, they turn their eyes north. They risk everything to carve out a livelihood that will support their families and allow their children to grow in peace.

The incarnation of Christ claims that Gods Spirit resides in human fleshin tender feet, blistered by flight; in the parched throat aching with thirst; in the stench of sweat-slickened fear. The Bible makes plain Gods call to welcome the stranger, to care for the foreigner, to offer hospitality to the other.

Our faith is not just about affirming immigrants, says Dean-Ware. It was founded by immigrants, starting with Abraham.

Indeed, laws sewn into the very fabric of Israels society reflect the value of the stranger. In the Hebrew scriptures, religious law required that landowners harvest their crops while leaving an outer ring along the border of their property to be harvested by the resident alien (Lev. 23:22).

Abraham, the father of three faiths, welcomes strangers as if they were long-awaited guests only to discover that they are angels bringing the good news that God will bless Sarah with a child. In the gospels, Jesus reappears as a stranger on the road to Emmaus, and the disciples recognize the risen Christ only after offering him hospitality and breaking bread together.

Christians are called to care for strangers as if they were Christ incarnate, to harbor refugees as if they were the Christ child on the run.

The Catholic Church in the United States, in particular, is an immigrant church, claims Tony Cube, manager of Justice for Immigrants, an advocacy campaign for immigration reform legislation. Going back to Irish Catholics, Italians and southern Europeans, andin the last half of the 20th centurySoutheast Asian and Filipino refugees and immigrants. Our faith says: Seek justice for the oppressed. Clothe the naked. Period. End of sentence. Nowhere does it tell us to ask for papers first.

Indeed, Pope Francis chose the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa for his first trip outside of Rome in 2013. He acknowledged the plight of migrants and refugees by casting a wreath into the sea that has swallowed so many migrants and their shared dream of a better home. Migrants are symbols of all those rejected by . . . society, the pope preached earlier this year as he commemorated that visit.

On July 12 Nadeem spoke to a crowd in Kalamazoo gathered for a local Lights for Liberty event. A window of the historical church was wrenched open, and her words streamed through the open air. I have lived here for 16 months. If I can be strong and hopeful, then you can be strong and hopeful, she said. A cheer rose up from the crowd.

Christmas proclaims the good news that God is with humankind and made known in the stranger. Through the incarnate Christ, God is made manifesta God who identifies with the poor, a God known in the vulnerability of an infant, a God who will suffer in solidarity with the crucified peoples of the world. When Christians accompany the poor, the immigrant, and the stranger, they discover God with fresh eyes.

This article also appears in the December 2019 issue of U.S. Catholic (Vol. 84, No. 12, pages 2428). Click here to subscribe to the magazine.

Read the rest here:

How the Christmas story calls Catholics to action - U.S. Catholic magazine

Each community has a responsibility to provide hope, life-saving medications, community support and meaning to those who addicted to substances, an addictions specialist urged Beckley Rotary Club members on Tuesday.

Dr. James H. Berry, DO, associate professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry at West Virginia University School of Medicine and the Director of Addictions, reported that the most up-to-date data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that moreAmericansdied from drug overdoses in 2017 than during the Vietnam conflict.

With 70,000 overdose deaths in 2017, the addiction epidemic claimed more lives than car crashes, firearms and HIV deaths, Berry said.

"If things do not change, a number of indicators project there will be 700,000 people who have died from overdoses (from 2016 to 2025)," said Berry. "This is a crisis of epic proportions.

"It's not hyperbole to say how serious this crisis is."

Opioid deaths increased by 345 percent from 2001 to 2016, with West Virginia leading the nation in 2017 in overdose deaths at 58 deaths per 100,000 residents. Ohio, ranked second in overdose deaths, had 46 per 100,000 residents.

Berry reported that, since 1917, the life expectancy of Americans has declined due to "deaths of despair." The three main drivers for the lower life expectancy overdose, suicide and liver failure caused by addiction are all closely related to addiction.

Montana leads the nation in suicide deaths, but West Virginia is the highest state for deaths "east of the Mississippi," said Berry, who treats patients who are addicted to opioids and other drugs.

As heroin and fentanyl and methamphetamine abuse increases in the wake of the prescription pill crisis, communities in the state must make recovery from addiction a priority, he said.

"What can we do, as a community, to give people hope?" Berry said. "One is, if someone has an addiction, this is a treatable disease.

"Iget to see people get better from addiction all the time, and it's making sure we have access to evidence-based treatment that helps people get better.

"Every community should support and create what they could to make sure people have access to life-saving medications and a number of life-saving therapies.

"Whenever it is possible, help people get into treatment."

When addicted, a person's brain and emotions arein an irregular state.

Treatment is vital, and the entire community must encourage an addicted person totake the step of getting into recovery.

Often, addiction causes depression and anxiety.

Berry explained that addiction just like the disease Diabetes Type II has social, biological and psychological factors.

Psychologically, people choose to engage in a behavior because they do not believe that the behavior is harmful. The mind also affects the disease in other ways. For example, during times of depression or anxiety, a disease will often get worse, due to stress hormones and chemicals.

"Those we bump shoulders with, on a regular basis, they will affect our health, for good or for ill," said Berry, explaining how addiction has a social aspect.

Biologically, children with addicted parents are much more likely to become addicted, due to genetics. Also, a disease harms an organ or system in the body.

In addiction, the brain is changed.

Dopamine, a "feel good" chemical, is releasedby a healthy brain when a person hugs a family member, shares fellowship, walks indoors on a cold day or works out, said Berry. Dopamine binds to receptors in the brain, and the person feels happiness.

Opioids and other drugsamplify the good feeling of dopamine, but the addicted person develops fewer dopamine receptors. As a result, they feel depressed and anxious without the drug. After prolonged use, the drug no longer makes the person feel good, but the person must take it just to avoid feeling depressed and anxious or getting physically sick.

The high suicide rate is linked to depression and anxiety. When asked by a Rotarian whether overdose deaths are intentional or not, Berry saidthe information is not recorded.

He said that, with his patients who have survived an overdose, the most common response is, "'I wasn't necessarily trying to kill myself, but it would've been OK if I died.'

"Where do you classify that?" Berry asked. "It's not a suicide attempt. At the same time, it's not an accident.

"It's this despair thing again."

Churches are able to give meaning to those who are addicted by embracing them and helping them to find spiritual meaning and community. Business owners can help by offering a job to someone who is in recovery for addiction.

"It's having a sense of purpose," said Berry. "Creating jobs for people gives them meaning. Welcoming people into your churches and places of worship...that can also be so valuable in giving people meaning, so they're not looking, constantly, at themselves."

Finally, it is important to connect with people who are addicted.

"We don't exist as islands unto ourselves," said Berry. "We exist in community.

"I am absolutely convinced that West Virginia may be at the heart of the problem (with addiction), but I'm also convinced we're at the heart of the solution, because we've got the talent, and we've got the heart.

"I'm convinced we're going to be able to do it, and we're going to learn some things that will be able to help the rest of the country and the rest of the world."

More here:

Community must help and give hope to addicted neighbors - Beckley Register-Herald

ImpactAlpha, Dec. 16 Bad actors are grabbing headlines. Opportunity Zone catalysts are driving impact.

The release of the Forbes OZ list of 20 investors and civic leaders seizing the Opportunity Zone tax incentive to unlock inclusive economic development in communities across the country provides an opportunity to highlight the undertold story of Opportunity Zones: Impact is happening.

Fund catalysts on the list include Blueprint Local, KNGDM Opportunity Fund, SolaImpact Opportunity Fund and Renaissance HBCU. Community catalysts include the City of Erie, Baltimore Development Corporation and Invest Atlanta.

Sorenson Impact and Forbes, which partnered to create the list, vetted applicants against OZ Impact Reporting Framework, a project to drive acountabilily co-authored by the Beeck Center, the US Impact Investing Alliance and Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

For the Beeck Center, the list is just the latest example of promise and potential in Opportunity Zones.

In October, we asked the members of the Beeck Center Opportunity Zones Investor Council a group of first-mover fund managers, investors and developers who have moved over $200 billion in capital during their careers to share the first words that came to mind when talking about the OZ landscape.

The responses: Undaunted. Optimistic. Courage. Excitement.

Their impressions were illuminating on both the promise and challenges OZs face. We met in late October at the Williamsburg Hotel in Brooklyn, NY to discuss their impactful work, share ideas, and catalyze more action towards delivering positive social outcomes for communities and investors in Opportunity Zones.

Most of the public narrative around OZs has focused on the tax benefits for investors, but the diverse Council (which includes 14 people of color and 7 women) is looking at the much bigger picture and taking into account the 35 million people living in the 8,766 designated zones.

Opportunity Zones have an average poverty rate of nearly 30 percent, and an average median family income that is 37% lower than the American average, according to the Economic Innovation Group, which work behind the scenes to pass the legislation. Black Americans are significantly over-represented in zones, representing twice as large of the zone population as they do the national population.

The work of the Beeck Center is to support the original intention of the legislation, to drive positive social outcomes in these neighborhoods, improving the lives of the people who live and work in those communities today. By bringing together a diverse group of stakeholders, we create a grasstops approach between fast-moving grassroots ideas and slower-changing institutions, increasing the probability of generating impact at scale.

David Gross, business partner of the late Nipsey Hussle, and Derrick Morgan, a former NFL player turned investor, kicked off the Council meeting by sharing how they are driving impact in communities. Both influencers are deepening their efforts in impact investing through OZs. Both have powerful, personal motivation to make a real difference in underserved neighborhoods.

The meeting was grounded in three pillars: inspiration, impact, and influence. The Beeck Center acts as a field builder in driving impact across the country and invited organizations that are developing impact tools to connect projects to investors across the nation. The Center is also informing the creation of a process tool to help operationalize the OZ Impact Reporting Framework.

Given the national narrative and flurry of legislative activity, these points stood out among the many topics of discussion:

1. Some OZs are problematic and need tweaks. The Opportunity Zone designation process was a quick, unfunded mandate to the state governors many who have changed over since zone designation. The Beeck Center was so concerned about the zone designation process, Fair Finance Lead Lisa Hall actually penned guiding principles to aid the governors in thinking through their zone designation strategy.

The Council recognizes that there are outliers and will be supportive of a thoughtful, forward-looking process to sunset high-income OZs. The national narrative is loud about the existence of wrongfully-designated zones, but we should not let that taint the reality that when OZ legislation is operationalized thoughtfully and with impact intentionality, it can lead us towards a more equitable society. This is the work OZIC members do every day, unlocking the promise and potential that lives in these neighborhoods.

2. This is not a gentrification program. Recent news and local narratives especially on the coasts suggest that investment in OZs accelerates gentrification. When people use the word gentrification, they most often mean forced migration and/or displacement. The research shows that less than 4% of OZs are at risk of gentrification. Regardless of the data, council members believe that any behavior that causes displacement is bad and should be avoided at all costs.

OZ legislation is a capital gains tax incentive. Currently there are no impact, data or transparency requirements. This reality has made the work of the Beeck Center in driving positive impact important. Its why we co-authored the OZ Impact Reporting Framework with the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York earlier this year. The Impact Framework calls for five guiding principles: community engagement, transparency, equity, outcomes and measurement.

3. Impact is happening. Patience is needed. Opportunity Zone legislation was designed to spur capital investment and economic development in underinvested neighborhoods. To that end, the legislation requires substantial improvement in order to qualify for the tax benefit. This requirement means that the investor needs to double its basis in the Opportunity Zone, a provision that made real estate development first movers in the market. At this time, we know of more than 400 initiatives committed to the OZ Impact Reporting Framework, and Council members have over 30 OZ projects underway nationwide.

The thing is, development takes time and a lot of it, especially in certain locations. David Bramble, Managing Partner of MCB Real Estate and Beeck Center Investor Council member, said its taken over four years just to get permits for some of his projects. The Washington State Department of Commerce Opportunity Zones Working Group recently observed, Success will require attention, patience, resources and public/private partnerships to support local efforts, sentiments the Council agrees with wholeheartedly.

Nearly two years have passed since the OZ legislation was enacted and the regulations are still not finished. The regulatory clarity needed for real OZ business investment was set only a few months ago. We are seeing inspiring activity in these neighborhoods, but we need time to see new capital flow in meaningful ways.

With new reporting and self-assessment tools in the works, and a host of new ideas in their pockets, the Council wrapped up two days of conversations with a renewed commitment to action.

There is a lot of work going on in the area. The work should have been happening anyway, but OZ legislation was the catalyst toward this.

We will take a more intentional role in gathering the cultural influence, adding the cultural component to the grasstops model.

We are learning how to do deals that bring in as many stakeholders as possible, and collaborative behavior is really important.

The Opportunity Zones legislation is a new tool for investors to spark development and growth in communities across the country. While OZs are new, people have been working and investing in these types of communities for decades. Whats different now is how the discussion of OZs has sparked interest from new players in the space. This group represents institutional powerhouses (Goldman Sachs), non-profits (LISC), established developers (MCB Real Estate), and non-traditional investors like Derrick Morgan, bringing added energy and asking new questions to deliver results.

To the Beeck Center, one of the most valuable things about OZ legislation is the conversation swell around it. It is bringing many new players to the world of impact. The Beeck Center sets tables so that those with deep impact knowledge can teach and collaborate with new players.

OZ legislation is not the answer to every problem that exists within community development, but it provides space for smart people to converse who wouldnt interact otherwise. Innovation comes from conversations like these, and the economic reality in OZs is illustrative of a need for major change. Its going to require collaborative behavior. And time.

Jennifer Collins is a fellow-in-residence at the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation focused on Opportunity Zones.

A version of this post was previously posted on the Beeck Centers blog.

Continue reading here:

Opportunity Zone 'catalysts' are driving impact in America's overlooked communities - ImpactAlpha

In 2008, at 33 years old, I became the executive director of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty. Although it had been nearly a decade after its doors opened for the first time, its future was uncertain.

The beautiful historic venue continued to struggle. I was excited by the opportunity, but in the first few weeks of my tenure as I learned more about the theaters financial realities, I learned that although a handful of funders believed in the vision, there was no clear path forward. I had lots of arts producing experience, but this was going to be a big job and I had no idea how I would make it work.

The good news: Artists and community residents loved the theater and were committed.

The theater, a building that first opened in 1914 as the Regent Theatre, is expensive to operate. Just turning on the lights and heating or cooling the space cost more than artists and community organizations could afford to pay. The theaters business model of renting to artists and community organizations was not sustainable.

I was not sure how we could create something dynamic. I am an arts person. What I love about artists is the ability to find solutions that magical ability to find beauty or make beauty from whatever materials are available and make things happen.

The Kelly Strayhorn Theaters name is a combination of two artists names, Gene Kelly and Billy Strayhorn. It is a fabrication (the two artists never met) and is purely the radical imagination of the theaters founders that these two very different artists (white/Black, straight/queer, dancer/musician, etc.) might share a name and space. Their creativity and resilience is in our DNA.

What I loved most about Kelly Strayhorn Theater [KST] then, as I do now, is the location at the heart of a racially, economically and culturally distinct set of East End neighborhoods.

The Kelly Strayhorn Theater on Penn Avenue in East Liberty. (Photo by Kat Procyk/PublicSource)

I love this area. I found East Liberty as a teenager in the 1990s. As a teenager and a 20-something, I remember the neighborhood of urban hip-hop inspired clothing and shoe stores, nightclubs and African and Caribbean businesses and restaurants. It was the place to be.

Later in the early 2000s, for me as a young teaching artist, places like East Liberty Presbyterian Church and the Kingsley Center were hubs of activity to connect to others doing similar work. Other spaces like Shadow/Ava Lounge, Abay Ethiopian Cuisine and the East Liberty Farmers Market became weekly and sometimes daily staples of life.

Back then, these spaces and the people on and around Penn Avenue reflected a diversity of economic, cultural and spiritual life that gave East Liberty flavor. KST sits at the heart of complex and rich history. And, to be of the neighborhood is to recognize and honor this history messiness and all.

In 2008, KST and East Liberty were kind of synonymous. If you knew the theater, you knew East Liberty. I embraced it. But some well-meaning supporters encouraged me to distance the theater from the neighborhood, suggesting I remove words like community from our tagline fearful perhaps that it may carry a negative connotation (bad neighborhood). Others were more blatant in urging a focus on the Kellys, not the Strayhorns. They felt KST would be more successful by targeting our programming to the wealthy East End. I didnt follow that advice.

Our first two seasons of curating and producing our own shows included Ursula Rucker, Bahamadia, Toshi Reagon, W. Ellington Felton, Rhyme Calisthenics (Mac Miller performed), Kyle Abraham, a contemporary dance festival, a Dan Jemmett Production of Faust and Sean Jones celebration of Billy Strayhorn (the first Suite Life). A whole host of artist-producers worked with us to create excellent theater, dance, music, spoken word and so much more. We made bold choices. And, it made sense to me because this is East Liberty.

We started to see some success: growing audiences, increasing donors and wider exposure. By 2014, as we became a more viable institution, some began measuring my success not only by the quality of programming or my commitment to artists, but also by operational measures of foundation reliance, ticket sales (butts in seats), managing people and expenses. With growth, the stakes changed. Failures had bigger consequences. And, as much as I wanted to deny it, my workday was not only about art and artists. It was slowly becoming more and more about managing stakeholders, all against the backdrop of neighborhood change.

Almost everyone said the changes were good for KST. But I had mixed feelings. There were fewer Black residents and the audience make-up started to change. We had to be much more directed in engaging and keeping the audience mix that reflected the neighborhoods historic past and our namesakes. As East Libertys economy changed, so did its culture and I felt an incredible pressure to change. These were difficult waters to navigate.

East Liberty has a faint resemblance to the one I found a little more than a decade ago. The revitalization narrative will have us believe there was nothing worth keeping from the old East Liberty, that somehow todays occupants are better than their predecessors. I dont want to romanticize the past as though all parts of the old neighborhood were perfect or even preferable. But the creative, inclusive energy of the old neighborhood was too good and too valuable to dismiss. Culture matters.

janera solomon said she believes that community art reminds us of our human potential and challenges us to be our best. She also added that its just fun. (Photo by Kat Procyk/PublicSource)

Against the odds, KST stands today and, undeniably, we are an anchor institution. As a patron said to me recently, we are holding it down for the culture. When we could have raised ticket prices and rental rates, or avoided community controversies, we doubled down on giving voice, access and inclusion. We launched Pay What Makes You Happy and Penn Avenue Creative a neighborhood-centered residency program to respond to Penn Avenues changes. We spread our resources and expanded our mission beyond producing shows in our theaters. All the while, we produced robust seasons of programming, season after season with everything from international touring artists to neighborhood family dance parties.

Eleven years doesnt happen without mistakes or regrets. As I leave my role as executive director, I am tempted to think of all that I failed to accomplish because I know theres always more to do. (Thats the Capricorn, eldest daughter of an immigrant West Indian family in me.) But, when I stop to consider my tenure, I am proud of the work.

We have a unique mission to bridge communities through art. It would have been easy to present simple programming stuff everyone gets. It could have been cute and digestible and perhaps even sold more tickets. The programming reflects the complicated needs of the diverse audiences we serve. You cannot easily put KSTs programming in a box and thats intentional.

I am proud of our community relationships. I dont always agree with our neighbors and vice versa, but among many of us (business owners, developers, elected officials, church leaders, cultural partners), theres mutual respect. Thats a neighborhood.

We built a new model for community arts institution building one that is rooted in the difficult business of equity. We diversified our revenue base, engaged a diverse mix of individual donors and increased support from institutional funders, locally and nationally. And, while we operate two venues without an endowment, we continue to make strides toward financial sustainability. Yes, the work of making the finances work is constant (there is never a time when Im not thinking about cash on hand), but today marks the longest continuously operating period of KSTs history.

And, on a personal note, I am proud of the way I navigated this work as a mother. (I was writing a grant proposal when I went into labor!) Since my daughter was born, she has been a part of this journey, patiently encouraging and supporting her mommy: coming to meetings, listening quietly to phone calls, tolerating my travel and many, many nights out. So often our professional journeys exclude these personal stories, but I am a mother making a life and doing this work. Any assessment of my experience must include my work as a mother.

Art-making, at least to me, is about community-making. I love beautiful music, beautiful dance, theater, all sorts of creative expression. Art-making is always about connecting, always about people connecting to each other and finding a sense of self, purpose, understanding. And, in a theater, we are forced to do it all together.

As I look ahead to KSTs next chapter, I am optimistic. Pittsburghs cultural scene and the ecosystem for support is in so many ways better than it was a decade ago.

Naturally, things will change at KST after I leave. But what I hope never changes is a dual commitment to art and the community. Lets keep giving artists and audiences space for new ideas, for exploration and for taking risks. And lets stay rooted in our neighborhood mission and hold on to art that questions and dares to tell the truth. Ultimately, thats what brings people together in a neighborhood, and that is community.

janera solomon is the executive director of the Kelly Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty. She will be leaving her position later in December. She can be reached at janera@kelly-strayhorn.org.

Read more here:

When art-making is about community-making. What I learned in my 11 years of leading Kelly Strayhorn Theater. - PublicSource

Metro has announced 14 grant awards for this years Investment and Innovation Grants program. Just over $6 million will go to local businesses and nonprofits looking to expand existing recycling services or create new ways to reduce waste. This includesthree grants awarded this summer,

Grant recipients will match the funds with nearly $7 million in cash and in-kind support.

The three-year pilot program, created by Metro Council, began funding projects in 2018 with the aim of supporting efforts to repair, reuse, recycle, compost, or make energy from the stuff people discard in the greater Portland area.

There are two categories of grant funding.

Metro Councilor Shirley Craddick, who is on this years capital grant review committee, says that changes in global recycling markets over the last few years have had an impact on the local system. The Investment and Innovation grants are a way to help the companies that are needing to modernize their sorting in order to make more materials available to recycle.

Metro received 27 preliminary proposals for capital grant projects this year. The review committee invited 17 to submit a full proposal and ultimately recommended nine awards totaling close to $5.6 million.

The program grant review team recommended awarding eight grants totaling about $520,000.

We tried to nudge every project that didnt have clear equity outcomes to do better.

Metros Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Scott, together with director of Metros Property and Environmental Services departmentRoy Brower, and Metro Council made the final grant determinations.

Recology Oregon Composts proposal ranked highly for its focus on food waste from businesses. Currently, greater Portland sends about 21,000 tons of food scraps and yard debris from homes and businesses to Recologys Aumsville facility annually for composting.

Food is a product that can be used in so many different ways, says Craddick, who wouldlike to see less of it sent to landfill.Being able to separate it out of our waste stream is gold.

Recologys project will replace six small composting beds at its facility with two massive ones. It also will expand an existing curing pad where materials can effectively decompose. The changes are expected to help them compost an additional 44,000 tons of food and yard waste each year.

Several awards went to proposals working to improve recycling infrastructure. Pioneer Recycling Services received one of those grants.

The company will install optical sorters to remove contaminants from mixed paper to makeit more valuable in markets for recycled paper. This follows on the heels of a grant last year to help fund two robots that use artificial intelligence to increase the speed and efficiency of sorting mixed recyclable materials.

In addition to sparking creative solutions for a changing recycling system, the grants seek to advance equity goals in the Regional Waste Plan that include benefiting local communities and companies owned by historically marginalized groups.

We tried to nudge every project that didnt have clear equity outcomes to do better, says Suzanne Piluso, the grant program manager for Metro. We challenge applicants to push a little bit further. Companies can make strides by building equity into their business practices, she adds.

City of Roses Disposal and Recycling, an African-American-owned garbage and recycling hauler and processor in Oregon, was awarded a total of $376,500 in capital and program grants.

The company will use some funds to create an elevated sort line to replace current floor sorting and increase the amount of recyclable or reusable materials by 50 to 60 percent.

They also will expand efforts to collect, process and resell wood. They plan to divert between 170 and 300 tons of wood for reuse each month by creating pallet kits and architectural panels for use in work surfaces, flooring, cabinetry, and custom finishes.

They keep coming up with fresh ideas on how to use the clean wood stream, says Brower.

Brower also believes that the company is moving the equity dial on multiple fronts. Alando Simpson, City of Roses CEO, is trying to be real intentional about getting folks whove had barriers into employment, he says.

The next grant cycle for both program and capital grants will launch next summer.

Read more here:

Metro awards $6 million to reduce waste and build a more resilient recycling system - Metro newsfeed

In the first lawsuit of its kind, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dell, and Tesla are being sued on behalf of 14 Congolese families whose children were killed or permanently injured while illegally mining cobalt for electronics made by these companies.

Filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia by human rights group International Rights Advocates, the federal class-action lawsuit alleges the companies "aided and abetted" a system of forced child labor and had "specific knowledge" of the conditions these children were working in but did not act to protect their profit margins.

"Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla all have specific policies claiming to prohibit child labour in their supply chains," said International Rights Advocates in the complaint. "Their failure to actually implement these policies to stop forced child labour in cobalt mining is an intentional act to avoid ending the windfall of getting cheap cobalt."

Cobalt is an important component of lithium-ion batteries that are used in many modern electronics. In the lawsuit, the families argue that their children were illegally working at cobalt mines owned by Glencore, the world's largest cobalt producer. Glencore then supplied cobalt to Umicore, a Belgian mining company and metals trader. Umicore then provided cobalt for lithium-ion batteries to Apple, Google, Tesla, and Dell. Also implicated is Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, a Chinese cobalt producer, which works with Apple, Dell, and Microsoft.

By now, the relationship between cobalt, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and child labor is well-trodden territory. Last year, the Democratic Republic of Congo produced between 60 and 70 percent of the worlds cobalta third of that was artisanal or subsistence mining, independently done outside formal employment with a mining company.

Cobalt is an essential mineral for advanced electronicsnecessary for the lithium batteries that power smartphones, personal computers, and electric vehicles. While these batteries may power renewable technologies necessary to avoid climate apocalypse, making them is not without its own problems: Cobalt mining is done at great cost to the miners, their communities, and their ecosystems.

In the complaint, the Congolese families go into vivid detail explaining how abject poverty made them desperate enough to work at the mines, paid as little as $2 a day for dangerous and demanding work in conditions.

In one instance, a child went to work in a Glencore-owned mine after his family could no longer afford his school fees. A tunnel collapsed on him and his body was never recovered, according to the lawsuit. Another child, who also worked in a Glencore-owned mine, fell into a mine but after being dragged out by other miners, was left alone until his parents found him. The accident left him paralyzed from the chest down. Others still say tunnel collapses killed their children, broke their spines, or maimed their limbs. None of them were compensated for deaths or injuries, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit is clear in its allegations that these companies knowingly entered into business with the mining firms despite knowledge of their child labor supply chains and is seeking damages for their forced labor, but also for "unjust enrichment, negligent supervision, and intentional infliction of emotional distress."

Apple and other companies have said in recent years that theyve taken steps to not work with mines that use child labor, but time and time again, reporters and international nonprofits have shown that the global supply chain is convoluted to the point that it is difficult to be sure exactly who is doing the mining.

Go here to see the original:

First Lawsuit of Its Kind Accuses Big Tech of Profiting From Child Labor in Cobalt Mines - VICE

Editor's note:Notes from the Field includes reports from young people volunteering in ministries of Catholic sisters. A partnership withCatholic Volunteer Network,the project began in the summer of 2015. This is our 10th round of bloggers: Honorine Uwimana is a St. Joseph Worker in Orange, California, and Samantha Kominiarek is an Assumption Mission Associate in Chaparral, New Mexico.

Orange, California How do young women between the ages of 21 and 35 decide to adjust their sails and change the direction of their lives to serve the most underserved in communities?

How do people at the peak of their careers or the debut of a promising adventure pause their clocks to respond to the needs of the times?

Meet the St. Joseph Workers, five young ladies serving with me in Orange, California, to redefine social justice in their sectors of interest and aptitude.

The St. Joseph Worker Program brought six women from the four corners of the world with different backgrounds under one roof to respond to the needs of the times in the tradition of the Sisters of St. Joseph through a yearlong service opportunity in preparation for a lifelong commitment to social change and personal transformation.

Lutonia Naicker from Durban, South Africa, took a break from her career as a chef in Malaysia and decided to use her culinary skills both at Isaiah House and Mary's Kitchen to raise the banner of being mindful of the dear neighbor.

Among the many career options offered to registered nurse Annie Voegele in Columbus, Ohio, what she chose was to serve alongside the poor and vulnerable at Mission Hospital as a community health nurse.

Ana Maria Feijoo hails from Cali, Colombia, and has devoted her life to service for the last three years. Today, she also serves at Mission Hospital in the family resource center and believes that solidarity is the axis around which all social life revolves.

Mary Furlong found joy in service during her college years, when she was involved in Best Buddies and My Brother's Keeper at Stonehill College. After she graduated, she traded her winters and summers in Maine for service at L'Arche Wavecrest.

Chelsea Yu-Hsein Lin, originally from Taiwan and a recent graduate of Loyola Marymount University, resolved to bring her freshly acquired skills in health and human science to the needs of society by serving at Hurtt Family Health Clinic.

It takes a walk with the Workers to understand how they made such big decisions, the impact they are having, and the transformation the program is bringing in their lives.

Honorine: How did you learn about the St. Joseph Worker Program?

Lutonia: I heard of this program through the Catholic Volunteer Network website. After finishing my volunteer profile, the St. Joseph Worker Program director for Orange, Sr. Joanna Rosciszewska, contacted me to tell me about the mission and values of the program, which I embraced. I completed my application, and in August 2019, I was in Orange, ready to serve.

Why did you choose a year of service among the many other options offered to you?

Annie: Having trained as a nurse, most people thought it was strange to enter into a year of service after so many clinical hours, tests and practicums. However, service had played a large part of my years in nursing school. Whether it was serving at the soup kitchen or planting trees for neighborhood communities, I knew there was something special about giving of my time and talents to reform the world around me. My soul seemed to come alive in these moments, and I could see a transformation within me and others and thought, "Why not give one year of the many years of my life to make a transformation within the vulnerable community of Orange County?"

Through your ministry as a St. Joseph Worker, are there hopes down the road for social justice?

Ana: Through my ministry, I have been filled with hope for the road ahead, from people who motivated me to walk toward social justice and be a light of change.

I have seen marginalized communities empowered and integrated in the mainstream by people who cared, and that was a call for me to dream and believe that small actions can turn into big changes. I don't see the future of social justice in the big systems or models; I see it in the common hardworking people and in all those who have the courage to go against the tide.

How is the year of service bridging the gap between the person you are and the person you want to be?

Mary: Before taking off to California for my year of service, I did not have clear prospects for what the year would look like. I was simply craving a change of pace in my life, and I wanted more clarification about who I am as a person and what I want to do with my life. Over the past four months, the people I have found around me have helped me to open my heart and be present and loving. I can say that I am already becoming someone I did not even know I had the potential to be.

How is the year of service changing your perspective of the world?

Chelsea: This year allowed me to interact with many cultures and learn how people's customs and upbringings influence their way of life. This year is teaching me to be humble as I learn everyone's story and borrow from them lessons I can adapt in my own life.

How is your experience of working with the sisters?

Lutonia: My experience thus far has been uplifting. I enjoy listening to the sisters in Regina Residence at our monthly dinners: their stories, background and wisdom.

Annie: The values and mission of the hospital and sisters have shaped my work as a nurse. The core values of compassion, dignity, justice, excellence and integrity help me to serve as an expression of God's healing love. The fact that the sisters I serve with are concerned beyond physical health and nurture mental, emotional and spiritual health has been transformational witness for me.

Ana: Learning how faith has taken the sisters on various missions has been enriching and surprising for me. I have been able to share their call to holiness and how through people, they have met Jesus as a human. I am fortunate to work with Sr. Martha Ann Fitzpatrick, a sister dedicated to the health care system for over 25 years. She is a version of Micah who has taught me to act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly.

Mary: "Intentional living" is my word for the lessons I learn from the sisters. I am amazed by their friendship, hospitality and their availability for one another. They display a positive attitude toward life that I am always ready to absorb.

Chelsea: I love interacting with sisters around our dinners. They are always open to share the lessons they have learned through life, and that always leaves me with an optimistic outlook.

Being able to go to Mass with them, play violin during service and see the joy and appreciation on their faces always warm up my heart.

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St. Joseph Workers serve to improve the well-being of the local community in Orange. Each in their ministry strives to remind the people they serve that they fit in the salvation picture and that demographics do not determine the dignity and love they deserve.

[Honorine Uwimana is a St. Joseph Worker from Rwanda serving at Regina Residence with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, California.]

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This is what you can learn through service to others - Global Sisters Report