Category Archives: Intentional Communities

GleanerNow

Miles City Hosts Evangelism Weekend GleanerNow Members from North Dakota, Idaho, eastern Montana and Billings, Mont., young and old, came away from the weekend committed to being more intentional about witnessing in their communities and becoming more involved in the mission of their local church ...

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Miles City Hosts Evangelism Weekend - GleanerNow

Facebook Global Director of Diversity Maxine Williams is on a mission to make the social network a more inclusive place.

Thats not an easy task in Silicon Valley, an industry under fire for its relative lack of employee diversity. Many tech companies remain dominated by heterosexual white men, who earn thousands of dollars more per year than individuals from underrepresented groups, such as women, African Americans and the LGBTQ community. And just this week, a Google (GOOG, GOOGL) engineer circulated an internal memo around the company that criticized Google for its diversity efforts. Google ultimately fired the engineer, but the ensuing controversy was a stark reminder that tech companies have a long way to go to make their workplaces more inclusive.

Williams is acutely aware of the challenge at Facebook (FB), where progress so far has been promising, if slow. According to a diversity data report recently released by the social network, women now represent 35% of Facebooks total workforce up from 33% the year before while representation for both Hispanic and African American employees increased just 1% year-over-year.

Facebook Global Director of Diversity Maxine Williams. Source: US Embassy London/Flickr

Williams has been trying to improve these numbers. Since joining the social network in September 2013, the Yale and Oxford-educated Trinidadian has introduced a slew of initiatives aimed at improving Facebooks hiring and retention practices, particularly among underrepresented groups. In 2013, the company launched Facebook University, a two-month program aimed at training college freshmen from underrepresented communities in areas such as engineering and analytics. Some of the programs 500-plus graduates have since gone on to intern or even work full-time at Facebook.

In 2015, the social network also rolled out the Diverse Slate Approach for hiring. The strategy, which is similar to the NFLs Rooney Rule, requires Facebook hiring managers to at least consider underrepresented people for positions.

What we wanted to do was to focus on giving more underrepresented people the opportunity to compete for these jobs, Williams told Yahoo Finance in an interview in June, prior to the release of Facebooks latest diversity data and the Google engineers now-infamous anti-diversity memo. That memo accused Google of lowering the bar for diversity candidates, something Williams suggests that Facebook does not do.

We are not in the business of giving away jobs to anybody, Williams added in the June interview. That doesnt serve us well. That doesnt serve them well, but we saw again when you look at society and the hundreds of years of inequity, there are headwinds which have put some people at the front of the line. Then there are in some cases, deliberate policies and legislation keeping others back. If youre working against that you have to be very intentional. What we wanted to be intentional around is giving everyone the opportunity to compete for the jobs.

Once Facebook employees start, Williams also takes measures to make sure they take a more inclusive attitude with their colleagues, which includes an employee orientation session focused on diversity and offering courses to employees around recognizing and reducing bias in the workplace.

I would say our managing bias courses give people the language to describe things that may see happening thats cumulatively creeping in, Williams explains. These are micro inequities, which impact peoples lives. But if they stood up and said that thing is causing me to not perform well, people might say well that thing seems quite small. You know that when it happens over and over again, it does have an impact.

As a concrete example, Facebooks managing bias courses teach employees how to interrupt people who interrupt others. According to a study published by the Journal of Language and Social Psychology, men interrupt women 23% more than they interrupt other men.

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We know from the data that women will be interrupted more often than men, Williams explained. Cumulatively, if youre interrupted a lot, youre not going to get heard, your views are not going to get shared, and youre not going to get credit for ideas. Teaching people how to interrupt that, people have said that simple thing, giving me the permission to interrupt and then telling me how to do it respectively has made a difference.

Those differences may seem small, but Williams is betting that these little things will add up in the end.

JP Mangalindan is a senior correspondent for Yahoo Finance covering the intersection of tech and business.Email story tips and musings to jpm@oath.com.Follow him onTwitterorFacebook.

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Facebook diversity chief: 'We are not in the business of giving away jobs' - Yahoo Finance

Henry Ford College is implementing a major academic reorganization for the 2017-18 academic year, which begins Aug. 24.

Dr. Michael Nealon, HFC Vice President of Academic Affairs, is leading the reorganization, in which the college has created four new schools to house its more than 120 academic programs the School of Liberal Arts; the School of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM); the School of Health & Human Services; and the School of Business, Entrepreneurship & Professional Development.

The deans and associate deans of these four schools are School of Liberal Arts: Dr. Jennifer Ernst, dean, and Cynthia Stiller, associate dean of the School of Liberal Arts; Janice Gilliland, dean, and Guy Pizzino, associate dean, of the School of STEM; Susan Shunkwiler, dean, of the School of Health & Human Services; and Dr. Patricia Chatman, dean, and Robert James, associate dean, of the School of Business, Entrepreneurship & Professional Development.

The HFC Board of Trustees approved the appointment of the deans to their respective positions at the June 19 meeting. They officially began their new roles and responsibilities July 1, the beginning of the 2017-18 fiscal year.

These people are not strangers to our learning community here at HFC, Nealon said. Each of them previously served the College in the role of Associate Dean. As a leadership team, they have many years of experience and considerable expertise in providing the academic and professional environments necessary to promote student success and to maintain the colleges commitments to excellence in teaching and learning.

In addition, faculty chairs will be announced by Oct. 2. The chairs role is to coordinate the academic business of the department and programs to ensure that its accomplished in a manner that is appropriate, accurate, timely, and consistent with the strategic goals, policies, and practices of the college.

According to Nealon, the four schools will allow for exciting synergies between and collaboration across academic disciplines. Further, new programs of studies are being proposed, several of which are in partnerships between the schools, including human resources; insurance; new media; manufacturing education, skilled trades, and apprenticeships; social work; and substance abuse and mental health.

The core reason for this academic reorganization is that higher education like the communities HFC serves is moving at the speed of change itself, creating complex challenges as well as opportunities for both innovation and improvement, Nealon said. HFC must be equal to those challenges and opportunities. Community colleges across the nation are now expected to provide the academic and career-based knowledge and skills to prepare students to thrive in our rapidly-changing global society. HFC must prepare them to become highly-skilled workers, meaningful contributors, and effective leaders in an ever-changing world full of emerging complexities and possibilities.

He continued: More than 60 percent of the jobs we can expect in the new economy do not exist yet. We must prepare our students for that time, which will be here sooner than any of us can imagine. The only way we can do that is being nimble, resilient, resourceful, intentional, and intelligent.

The academic reorganization reflects HFCs mission to transform lives and build better futures by providing outstanding education.

To transform lives, HFC needs to transform itself by reevaluating its academic programming to ensure were aligned with the needs of the community, our business/industry partners, and our many stakeholders to do whats in the best interests of our students, Nealon said. The college must maximize opportunities for our students for when they enter the workforce directly from here or for when they transfer to a four-year college or university. Relevance and opportunity for our students are the absolute keys to their success and the colleges evolution as it enters its 80th year in 2018.

Source: Henry Ford College

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Henry Ford College reorganizes into four new schools for the 2017-18 academic year - Dearborn Press and Guide

Surveillance technologies have historically restricted the freedoms of communities of color and immigrants in this country. This history continues today through a resurgent national security apparatus with emboldened nationalist tendencies. Members of Congress have the power to rein these surveillance mechanisms. At this moment, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is pending reauthorization from Congress. This piece of legislation must be reformed in order to prevent dragnet surveillance, backdoor searches of phone and email records, and unlawful targeting of communities of color and immigrant communities. Unless these revisions are made, Congress should let the provision expire.

Ken Montenegro ( @kmontenegro ) is national vice president of the National Lawyers Guild in New York. Steven Renderos ( @stevenrenderos ) is organizing director at the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, California.

Section 702 allows for warrantless surveillance of conversations between people in the US and in foreign countries. The law passed in 2008 during the George W. Bush's presidency, was extended by the Obama administration, and is now set to expire at the end of 2017, unless Congress reauthorizes the provisiona move the Trump administration supports.

Rebuttals to questions of surveillance often go something like this: 'If youve got nothing to hide, then you shouldnt be worried.' But a review of American history points to the same groups being routinely spied on by the government: black and native bodies, immigrants, poor communities, and anybody deemed as an other or a threat to national security. High-profile cases of surveilled prominent figures include civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Cesar Chavez , who were both monitored by the FBI.

More recently, cities like Baltimore experienced dragnet surveillance after protesting against the police murder of Freddie Gray. Black Lives Matter activists in Ferguson, Missouri became targets of surveillance . Muslim communities have long withstood surveillance of their neighborhoods, mosques, and community leaders . If history is any indicator, the net cast on those suspected of being threats to our nations safety is vastand in a time where much of the nation is intent on resisting and dissenting, this puts much of the country at risk of being surveilled. Furthermore, surveillance, particularly enabled under 702, is nefariously opaque .

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Proponents of Section 702, such as the Heritage Foundation , and Trumps homeland security and counterterrorism advisor Thomas Bossert, argue that oversight protocols and existing language in the provision will prevent significant overreach. In an op-ed in the New York Times published earlier this year, Bossert claimed that Section 702 doesnt allow for targeting of US citizens, emphasizing that the provision expressly forbids intentional targeting and that an individual court order supported by probable cause is needed to surveil citizens and foreigners inside the US.

But newly declassified memos reviewed by The Hill revealed a slew of violations by the NSA and FBI during the Obama administration, proving that although intentional targeting of US citizens may not be allowed, citizens' data is nonetheless being interceptedand searched. Among the various violations cited in the memo are numerous overcollection incidents, and the misuse of overly broad queries or specific US person terms to search through NSA data.

Immigrants are also largely at risk of being surveilled through Section 702s so-called upstream monitoring , which allows communication to a friend or family member outside of the country (or browser history, chat logs), to be searched for potential selectors or keywords of interest. This means that more than a quarter of the US populationmore than 84 million peopleare at risk of having their data intercepted.

We recently visited our nations capitol with a delegation of community leaders and policy advocates from across the country to meet with Senators Al Franken (D-MN), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with Representatives Justin Amash (R-MI) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), to discuss the impacts of new surveillance technologies on immigrant communities and religious minorities. Among the solutions proposed was to reform Section 702 to close the backdoor search loophole, and prevent overly broad law enforcement from being used to target immigrants and citizens of color, religious minorities, and activists.

Last month, the Center for Media Justice joined over two dozen civil rights and civil liberties groups including the ACLU and Color of Change to send a letter to the House Judiciary Committee recommending reforms to the provision. History shows that intelligence programs without adequate oversight, demonstrated by COINTELPRO and the contents of the Edward Snowden revelations, inevitably overstep their mandates.

Congress should recall the origins of the fourth amendment in this moment: Lets stop putting mass surveillance technologies in the hands of intelligence agencies, especially with nothing but the misplaced hope they will do the right thing.

Ken Montenegro ( @kmontenegro ) is national vice president of the National Lawyers Guild in New York. Steven Renderos ( @stevenrenderos ) is organizing director at the Center for Media Justice in Oakland, California. WIRED Opinion publishes pieces written by outside contributors and represents a wide range of viewpoints. Read more opinions here .

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Warrantless US Spying Is Set to Expire Soon. Let It Die - WIRED

Enhancing economic growth, strengthening secondary education and making health care more accessible are top priorities in the state, and the University of Missouri Extension wants to help reach these goals by focusing more on the mission of the University of Missouri.

Enhancing economic growth, strengthening secondary education and making health care more accessible are top priorities in the state, and the University of Missouri Extension wants to help reach these goals by focusing more on the mission of the University of Missouri. Dr. Marshall Stewart, vice chancellor for extension and engagement for the University of Missouri Extension was in Chillicothe Saturday, concluding a string of visits through western Missouri. He toured Chillicothe and met with several community members and University of Missouri Extension supporters. We have to return to our mission, which is to take the core of the university the research and innovation of the university and drive it out to our network, Stewart said. We need to identify the needs and figure out how to align our resources better and make an impact. In his position, Stewart oversees extension outreach programs and travels throughout the state looking for ways to better engage with Missourians through extension, whether it be in its work in k-12 education, the school of medicine, its work in agriculture, 4-H or any other area of interest. He stated that the University of Missouri was established in 1839 to serve the people as a public land grant university bringing into play research and extension as well as teaching aspects and emphasizing that universities are not just for the elite but for the common man and woman. In todays world, how do we take all the disciplines and ensure that the institution is accessible to all?, he questioned. What are the needs economically in the state, for education, health, and the environment? Missourians want to see more economic growth. We are looking at all the assets of the institution, Stewart said. How can we bring more support to the communities with the research and innovation that we have? Enhancing secondary education is another focus for improvement. People see a need in Missouri for better workforce preparation, Stewart said. Programs such as the Litton Agri-Science Learning Center and Grand River Technical Schools Building Trades program which involves students building homes are significant in helping prepare students for the workforce. The Litton ag center... its phenomenal, Stewart said. Just imagine if we could replicate that maybe not always with an ag theme, but something else in other parts of the state. These are examples we can share with other communities. Stewart also noted that improvements should be made for health care accessibility. There are health deserts, he said. We need to learn how to work better with tele-medicine, how to graduate more doctors who want to go to rural, under-served areas, and learn how to create better opportunities for nurses. We have a chance here to set a new standard of what it means to be a publicly-engaged university and do it in a way that is very intentional and meaningful in the lives of Missourians, Stewart stated. Another significant challenge in Missouri is to make broadband internet available throughout the state. There are broadband deserts not only in rural Missouri, but even in St. Louis County, he said. He likened the campaign for bringing broadband internet to Missouri to the drive many years ago to bring electricity to rural communities. This is like our modern day rural electrification, he said. Missouri Extension, he noted, was integral in helping that movement get started through education. We helped communities get engaged in that, he said. We worked with other agencies. Stewart stated that the Extension is working with other agencies, entities to implement broadband. If we can figure out how to do that in rural Missouri, we can bring great economic development, improved education and improved health care, Stewart said. This is a longterm project and it will take a longterm strategy to work it out.

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Vice chancellor seeks stronger ties between University Extension, public - Chillicothe Constitution Tribune

Photo by S_e_P_p/iStock

It looks like the Trump administration is getting ready to attack race-based affirmative action in higher education.

Last week, media outlets reported that a memo had been circulated to the Justice Departments civil rights division soliciting people interested in investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions. It takes no great effort to deduce that the colleges and universities that may be the targets of investigations and possible litigation are the ones that alter their admissions criteria so as to admit a meaningful number of black, Latinx, and indigenous studentsstudents from historically disadvantaged racial groups.

Race-based affirmative action has always been controversial in light of the fact that in order to distribute some seats in an incoming class to black, Latinx, and indigenous students, some seats have to be distributed away from students who would otherwise be admitted: white and Asian students. It is for this reason that opponents of such efforts sometimes deride them by calling them instances of reverse racism. Supporters of affirmative action deny this description, defending the programs on the basis of diversity. They say that affirmative action facilitates racial diversity in colleges and universities. And diversity, they say, is good for everyone.

Diversity is a dreadfully weak defense of affirmative action. This is true although the Supreme Courts 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the constitutionality of affirmative action programs that use race in admissions in order to pursue the educational benefits that flow from a racially diverse student body, makes it necessary for affirmative actions defenders to speak in terms of diversity. Nevertheless, diversity makes it easy to forget why the nation first thought to experiment with race-conscious policies in college admissions and hiring. Thus, it may be helpful to recount the history of affirmative action: it may be helpful to remember and remind ourselves that affirmative action was, and still is, a mechanism that is designed to remedy the historical wrongs that have been inflicted upon black, Latinx, and indigenous people.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s is rightfully understood as the birthplace of affirmative action. While those who participated in this social movement conceptualized intentional racial discrimination as a key mechanism that worked to exclude black people from the life of the nation and to relegate them to the bottom of social, cultural, political, and economic hierarchies, they appreciated that other processes functioned to produce the same results. Indeed, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (GRS55, Hon.59) argued that even if intentional racial discrimination was never again practiced in the country, black poverty, the historic and institutionalized consequences of color, would persist. Hence, thinkers of the day understood that formal legal equality for black people would not result in substantive equality for this historically disadvantaged group.

Accordingly, activists certainly celebrated the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed race-based discrimination (as well as discrimination on the basis of color, religion, sex, and national origin) in significant areas of American life. However, they conceptualized this piece of legislation as a necessary, but not sufficient, step in the fight for racial justice. Also required were efforts to dismantle the race-neutral processes that destroyed black peoples ability to participate themselves as equals into the body politic. They understood that exclusion from job opportunities and educational institutions was as much a function of intentional discrimination as it was of the way that merit and qualifications had been defined.

The Equal Opportunity Act, which was the legislative piece of President Lyndon B. Johnsons War on Poverty, complemented the Civil Rights Act inasmuch as it implemented job training and social welfare programs that were designed to help the poor acquire skills that could help them participate in the labor market, and ideally, emerge from poverty. But still, many felt that the programs that the Equal Opportunity Act implemented were insufficient to realize what the civil rights activists demanded: full-throated racial justice. They offered race-based affirmative action programs as the vehicle for making tangible that demand. It was these programs to which President Johnson referred in a speech on Howard Universitys campus in June 1965, noting that the country must enter the next and the more profound stage in the battle for civil rights.

Thus, affirmative action is not about diversity. It is about remedy. It is about addressing this nations sad, sorry, and sustained history of racism against historically disadvantaged racial groups. As prominent legal scholar Charles Lawrence has written: The original vision of affirmative action proceeded from the perspective of the subordinated. [When the] students and community activists who fought for affirmative action in the 1960s and 70s demanded affirmative actionwhen they sat-in and sued and took over buildings and went on hunger strikes and closed down universitiesthey sought redress for their communities.

Suffice it to say that we have not redressed the racial wounds that have been inflicted on black, Latinx, and indigenous people (as well as on many Asian communities). The quality of the lives of many people of color is too poorand their lives too shortto suggest otherwise.

This is not to argue that affirmative action is adequateis the only thing that we need to do to right our racial wrongs. It is not. We need to make many other interventions to remove the race-based burdens that devastatingly high numbers of black, Latinx, and indigenous people bear. However, the Trump administration is not interested in intervening so as to improve the lives of this countrys truly disadvantaged groups. Instead, it is gearing up to attack one powerful, if ultimately insufficient, effort to produce a nation that reflects the commitments to equality and justice contained in its founding documents.

Khiara M. Bridges, a School of Law professor of law and a College of Arts & Sciences professor of anthropology, can be reached atkmb73@bu.edu. The author ofReproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization (University of California Press, 2011), she has written widely on the issues of race, class, reproductive rights, and reproductive justice. Her latest book, The Poverty of Privacy Rights (Stanford University Press, 2017), explores the moral construction of poverty and its effects on poor mothers privacy rights.

POV is anopinion pagethat provides timely commentaries from students, faculty, and staff on a variety of issues: on-campus, local, state, national, or international. Anyone interested in submitting a piece, which should be about 700 words long, should contact Rich Barlow atbarlowr@bu.edu.BU Todayreserves the right to reject or edit submissions. The views expressed are solely those of the author and are not intended to represent the views of Boston University.

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POV: Defending Affirmative Action - BU Today

While millennials have largely been the focus of city leaders efforts to attract new talent and residential growth, a new Brookings study finds that innovation districts areas which are highly walkable and transit-oriented, rich with amenities and employment opportunities would also benefit from attracting and serving adults 50 years of age and up, who can fill gaps in the innovation ecosystem, including age diversity, professional expertise and investment capital.

The portion of the population over 50 is one of the most rapidly growing demographics in the United States, totaling nearly 110 million in 2015 just under 34 percent of the total population. By 2050, that number is expected to expand to 150 million, or 29 percent of Americans. Additionally, this segment of the population contributes approximately $5.6 trillion of the countrys $10.4 trillion in consumer spending a number that will continue to increase as the demographic expands. Individuals 55 and older also accounted for nearly 45 percent of all individual federal income tax paid in 2014, contributing $1.8 trillion in federal, state and local taxes. Yet despite this staggering figures, the 50 and older group is often overlooked by planners, developers, employers and other stakeholders.

Using Chattanooga, Philadelphia and Seattle as case studies, Beyond Millennials: Valuing Older Adults Participation in Innovation Districts explores the mutual benefits that can accrue from older adults living, working and supporting entrepreneurship in cities innovation districts in particular.

As walkable, amenity-rich communities, these neighborhoods offer attractive and accessible environments boasting close access to essential services for aging in ones community. At the same time, as a key demographic for wealth and consumer spending, those 50 and older stand to contribute considerably to local economies by patronizing local businesses, strengthening area tax bases and supporting local housing markets.

Businesses also stand to gain significant benefits from a more age diverse community. As people continue to delay retirement, the creation of more flexible jobs in innovation districts could provide opportunities for older adults to share their skills and expertise and collaborate with younger colleagues.

The presence of older adults also provides an opportunity for emerging enterprises, who can derive benefits from this demographics expertise, guidance and resources. Innovation districts could offer fulfilment and financial rewards to older adults interested in sharing their skills and experience, mutually benefitting both parties.

Despite these mutual benefits, city and district leaders will need to be intentional about cultivating intergenerational communities, with special attention being giving to issues of housing affordability, accessibility and age discrimination in the workplace. To overcome these challenges and maximize the benefits older adults bring to the table, the paper recommends innovation districts public, private and civic stakeholders:

City and innovation district leaders who look beyond strategies focused on millennials have an

opportunity to leverage the assets of those 50 and older to strengthen communities and bolster the character of these neighborhoods. Through intentional effort and thoughtful engagement, innovation districts can become places that benefit and benefit from the participation of older adults.

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Older Adults' Participation Stands to Strengthen Cities' Innovation Districts - Sustainable Brands

Communities Digital News

Civil rights community, DOJ clash over race-based college admissions Louisiana Weekly The New York Times cited an internal document from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division that is reportedly seeking attorneys who are interested in investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and ... It is time to review race-based affirmative action programsCommunities Digital News Leave affirmative action policies alonemySanAntonio.com Harvard's incoming class is majority minority for first time in historyExpressNewsline all 141 news articles »

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Civil rights community, DOJ clash over race-based college admissions - Louisiana Weekly

People gather outside the Appeals Court in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on August 8, 2017, holding signs of support for land rights activist, Tep Vanny.

On August 8, 2017, an Appeals Court in Phnom Penhrejected Tep Vanny's appeal of her conviction on February 23 for"intentional violence with aggravated circumstances." She was sentenced to 30 months in prison following a summary trialin which the prosecution failed to present any witnesses preventing any possible cross examination by the defense. The Cambodian government routinely misuses the courts, which lack independence, to target members of the political opposition and civil society activists, Human Rights Watch said.

Deputy Asia Director

"The case against Tep Vanny is a blatant misuse of prosecutorial power to punish her for her peaceful activism,"saidPhil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Thisprosecution is intended to silence Tep Vanny and intimidate other Cambodian activists."

The charges against Tep Vanny relate to her participation in a peaceful protest in front of Prime Minister Hun Sens house in 2013, during which she and other activists called for the release of a detained fellow community member. She was found guilty under article 218 of the Cambodian Criminal Code for assaulting Hun Sens security guards. No credible evidencewas presented during the trial to substantiate these charges. The court refused to heartestimonyfrom witnesses supporting Tep Vannys account that she and other protesters did not commit any violence during the protest.

During the trial, para-police kicked, shoved, and dragged activists who had gathered outside the court, resulting in injuries to twoactivistsand a pregnant woman.Video footageof the incident shows para-police chasing demonstrators into a neighboring mall, and guards cornering one protester and repeatedly punching and kicking him.

Tep Vanny is also being held on spurious charges of public insult and death threats brought against her and five other members of the Boeung Kak Lake community dating back to the Black Monday protests on behalf of detained activists in 2012.

Since August 15, 2016,she has been held at CC2 PreySarfacility prison on the outskirts of Phnom Penhandhasnowserved a total of 358 days in detention.

TepVanny is oneof Cambodias leading land rights activists. She has worked to combat unlawful evictions and corruption by mobilizing affected communities in theBoeungKakLake area of Phnom Penh, where more than4,000 families have had to vacatetheir homesfor a private development project. In 2013, she received aVital Voices Global Leadership Awardfor her work on land rights.

Tep Vanny has been an important voice on behalf of fellow activists, and has been active in urging an independent investigation into the July 10, 2016 shooting death ofKemLey, a popular social commentator and frequent government critic.

Cambodian authorities should dropallpolitically motivated charges againstTepVanny, quashher Februaryconviction, and immediately release her, Human Rights Watch said. The government should also cease persecution of human rights defenders and others exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly.

Cambodias international donorsshould be outraged by the governments harassment of peaceful activists through the courts, Robertson said. Together,they should publicly call for an end to thepolitically motivated and unsubstantiated charges against Tep Vannyand otherdetained activists in Cambodia.

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Cambodia: Quash Conviction of Rights Land Activist - Human Rights Watch

Lessons for Belfast Urban Regeneration at File an Phobail 2017

By Peadar Kirby & Peter Doran

President Michael D Higgins at Cloughjordan Ecovillage on Earth Day 2017

While Ireland was living through the most severe economic collapse of its history since independence, a group of pioneering people were sowing the seeds of a new society through founding the ecovillage of Cloughjordan in County Tipperary. Seeking to model sustainable living for the 21st century, the ecovillagers conceived their project during the boom years of Irelands Celtic Tiger in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but by the time the infrastructure was being laid in 2008 and the first houses built in 2009, the Irish banking and construction sectors were in freefall and the ecovillage became the countrys biggest building site.

Now with 55 houses built and a population of around 100 adults and 35 children, Cloughjordan has been recognised as one of Europes most successful anticipatory experiences showing the way to a low-carbon society. As an educational charity, it draws thousands of people a year to learn the lessons of this pioneering community. Central to those lessons are the combination of some modern technologies that help lower emissions, embedded in a resilient community that seeks to foster a rich sense of interdependency, not without its tensions. Nevertheless, the deep co-operative principles that underly the experiment also suggest new forms of life that question the logic of our dominant economic system and, perhaps, offer lessons for sustainable urban regeneration in our own Urban Village experiments across the North. At least one co-housing experiment is already planned for the Belfast area.

On Earth Day, in April, President Michael D Higgins, lauded the founders of the Cloughjordan Ecovillage who came together some 20 years ago in the Central Hotel in Dublin to share their dreams of what might be a more ethical and sustainable life, lived in a community which isnt easy and can have difficulties. He was dedicating a new amphitheatre named after one of Cloughjordans most famous sons,Thomas MacDonagh, the teacher, revolutionary and poet who was one of the signatories of the 1916 Proclamation. Higgins quoted MacDonagh observing that the educator hadunderstood that you must be able to have a kind of integrity of imagination such as will allow . . . all of the passions of the heart

Its the first anniversary of the Paris Agreement, and one of the things that strikes one, and particularly at my stage of life, is that very often you can look back at whole reams of words that really are quite distracting unless they are turned into realityBut here in the ecovillage so much is being turned into practical achievements, added the President.

The lessons of Cloughjordan will be shared with an audience at the File an Phobails Discussion and Debate programme in St Marys University College on the Falls Road on Thursday evening 10 August (17.00) when a panel made up of founding member of Cloughjordan, Davie Philip, the founder of the Global Ecovillage Network, Albert Bates, and former Cloughjordan resident Lynn Finnegan will share their experience with Peter Doran.

Another World is Possible and its up and running in Tipperary

Among ecovillages, Cloughjordan is unusual in that its founders decided to integrate it into an existing urban settlement. They chose the small village of Cloughjordan (around 500 people) in county Tipperary. A site of 67 acres (27 hectares) was available on the south side of its main street, on a train line, and some leading people in the local community recognised it as an opportunity for regenerating a village that was in decline. Before buying the land, members of the ecovillage project worked with children in the local schools and with the residents of Cloughjordan to win support for developing the project.

Cloughjordan ecovillage therefore models not just ecological sustainability but also rural regeneration, drawing visitors to the existing village and fostering a new social, economic, and cultural dynamism. Readers of The Irish Times voted Cloughjordan one of the 10 best places to live in Ireland. The ecovillage embodies the important message that low-carbon living does not mean reverting to the privations of the past, but can be the catalyst for drawing together a diverse group of people who, through their wide range of talents, make it a lively and interesting place to live.

Integrating with the Natural Environment

The greenfield site that was bought behind Cloughjordan village was developed in a way unique for an Irish urban settlement. The villages planners confined the residential area to about one-third of the site closest to the main street, while devoting a further area beyond that to support services and amenities including a district heating system, an eco-enterprise centre, allotments for growing food, and a community farm. Ecovillagers have planted native varieties of apple trees in this area; throughout the village, various varieties of herbs and fruit bushes create an edible landscape. An area of 12 acres (5 hectares) devoted to farming in a biodynamic way constitutes one of Irelands few Community Support Agriculture (CSA) projects.

On the final third of the site, devoted to woodland, villagers planted 17,000 trees in 2011mainly native species such as oak, ash, Scots pine, birch, rowan, cherry, hazel, and alder. This is regarded as an amenity area for visitors and a contribution to promoting biodiversity. A labrynth, built according to an ancient Celtic layout, provides a quiet space for reflection amid the woodland. According to the ecovillage website (www.thevillage.ie), the communitys land use plan is based on the principles of environmental and ecological diversity, productive landscape and permaculture. The design of common and private areas includes corridors for the movement of wildlife, and the composting of organic matter to regenerate the soil and avoiding toxic or other harmful substances is strongly recommended to all members. Since all are responsible for the upkeep of the common areas, the community organizes regular periods of communal work on the land (the Gaelic word meitheal is used for these, recalling the traditional practice of communal work among Irish farmers).

Central to the success of the project is the combination of low-energy technologies and robust community living. The Village Ecological Charter, drawn up by members, contains the guidelines for the development of the built and natural environments so as to reduce the impact of the project on the natural environment and so promoting sustainable development. This includes detailed and specific targets for energy supply and use, plans for land management, water and solid waste, construction (including materials, light and air, and ventilation), and community issues such as transport, social and communal facilities, and noise and light pollution.

Towards Low-Carbon Living

Combining both cutting-edge technologies and some traditional technologies gives a rich and unique mix to the ecovillage. One of its most innovative features is its district heating system, the only one in Ireland powered by renewable sources of energy. This supplies all the heating and hot water for every house in the ecovillage, using no fossil fuels as primary energy sources and emitting no greenhouse gas emissions. (Electricity supply to drive the pumps and for other purposes is taken from the public mains at present, but there are plans for on-site generation in due course.) It saves an estimated 113.5 tonnes annually of carbon that would be emitted by conventional heating systems for the number of houses served. Though the ecovillage has the largest bank of solar panels in Ireland, these havent yet been commissioned due to faults in their installation; the district heating system relies on waste wood from a sawmill about an hour away.

Members buy sites from the cooperative which owns the estate (of which all site owners must be members), building their own houses to their own designs, in keeping with the principles and specifications of the Ecological Charter.

Community Resilience

Beyond the technologies, both ancient and new, what is essential to the character of the ecovillage is that it is an intentional community. The dense web of interconnectedness that characterises relationships is strengthened and at times tested through a myriad of different kinds of activities, from the often tense discussions attempting to reach a community consensus on key issues to the enjoyment of community meals and parties where rich encounters take place. A special Process group exists to facilitate community interactions, and the monthly community meeting establishes a period in which any member can voice any issue that is troubling them, including issues of grievance and pain caused within the community. Successful community, then, depends not on avoiding or minimising pain and tensions but rather on facilitating their expression in an atmosphere of mutual respect. A diverse membership, which includes professional facilitators, counsellors, and psychotherapists, helps this process.

Finding a governance structure that reflects its values is a particular challenge for any intentional community, particularly one as complex and multifaceted as an ecovillage. By 2007, the existing organisational structure of Cloughjordan ecovillage based on multiple committees was under strain, unable to deal effectively with the many tasks and challenges facing the project. This led members to turn for support to consultants Angela Espinosa and Jon Walker, who promote the use of the Viable Systems Model (VSM) in cooperatives and large communities looking for alternatives to traditional hierarchies. This resulted in the restructuring of the ecovillage governance structures according to the principles of VSM, identifying the primary activities (PA) of the project and establishing groups to promote them. Two PAs exist in early 2016, one on education and the other on land use. A Development PA, looking after the development of the built environment, has recently been disbanded as it wasnt working well, and a replacement is being put in place. Each PA has a number of task groups within them responsible for different aspects of the primary activity.

The PAs are known as System One groups in VSM. Supporting these are what are called the meta-systemic management functions, Systems Two to Five, each of which fulfills essential functions in the organisation. These include a Process group to oversee the smooth functioning of the whole structure and to resolve problems as they arise, and a coordination team drawing together the activities of all the various groups and providing a monthly reporting mechanism to members. System Four involves keeping a close eye on what is happening in the wider society so as to strategically relate to developments. This led to the establishment of a Navigation group. Finally, System Five involves oversight and direction of the whole project, and includes the Board of Directors and the monthly members meeting supplemented by an Identity group which deals with issues of membership and purpose. VSM allows a horizontal rather than a hierarchical management of the project, which ensures that bottom-up initiatives flourish while at the same time the coherence of the project as a whole holds together.

International Recognition

Cloughjordan ecovillage faces many challenges. It is still only in its early phase of growth with more than 70 sites yet to sell, which will draw in new members and more than double its population. Yet already it is winning national and international recognition. Cloughjordan won the National Green Award for Irelands greenest community three years in a row from 2012 to 2014 and won a gold medal award at the 2013 International Awards for Liveable Communities (LivCom), also known as the Green Oscars, hosted by Xiamen in the Peoples Republic of China and supported by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP). The Milesecure consortium of 15 research centres throughout Europe was funded by the European Commission to learn the lessons for European policy of how to transition to a low-carbon future. As part of its research, it examined 1,500 projects all around Europe to identify the most successful anticipatory experiences to help guide EU policy. Among the 23 finally selected was Cloughjordan ecovillage and it was the only project to be highlighted in the manifesto for human-based governance of secure and low-carbon energy transitions that the consortium wrote as one outcome of its three-year project (see http://www.milesecure2050.eu). In these ways, the project is helping establish itself as a beacon for the challenging future that confronts humanity.

The File panel

Davie Philip was a founding member of both FEASTA: the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability andSustainable Projects Ireland Ltd the company behind the ecovillage project in Cloughjordan where he now lives. Albert Bates graduated from Syracuse University and New York Law School.As anenvironmental litigator he represented victims of atomic tests, nuclear power andweapons workers, military veterans exposed to human experiments, and NativeAmericans.In 1995 he retired from law to teach permaculture and found the GlobalEcovillage Network. Lynn Finnegan is the founder of Freckle, an independently published magazine that features what is often hidden but most essential about people and landscapes in Northern Ireland, written and photographed with passion and eloquence. She also works regularly at international negotiations on environment and development. The Panel will be chaired by Peter Doran of the QUB School of Law.

Peadar Kirby is Professor Emeritus of International Politics and Public Policy at the University of Limerick. He is the author of many books on models of development in Ireland and Latin America. His recent books include Adapting to Climate Change: Governance Challenges, co-edited with Deiric Broin (Glasnevin, 2015) and Transitioning to a Low-Carbon Society: Degrowth, austerity and wellbeing, co-edited with Ernest Garcia and Mercedes Martinez-Iglesias (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming in 2016). He is writing a book on pathways to a low-carbon society to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017. He was one of the first residents of Cloughjordan ecovillage in 2009 and is currently chair of the Board of Directors of the ecovillage.

Peter Doran is lecturer in sustainable development and environmental law at the Queens University Belfast School of Law and a long-time advocate of equitable and sustainable development. He has just published A Political Economy of Attention, Mindfulness and Consumerism: Reclaiming the Mindful Commons (Routledge 2017) and has been actively involved with Zero Waste North West in taking forward a circular economy strategy for Derry and Strabane District Council.

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Cloughjordan Ecovillage Another World is Possible for Belfast - Slugger O'Toole