Notes from Arts Block Preparation

Update by Samantha Wilson

The On-Going Preparation...

Next week, we will be taking a field trip with the Arts Block high schoolers to Little India in Artesia. We will have a short introduction, then visit a clothing shop and have an Indian lunch. We are seeking to tie in different themes for this project: ArtsBlock is moving on towards a "Race" theme (looking at notions of difference, privilege) that we will tie into introducing the students to India and international dialogue. After our field trip on Wednesday, we will do a debrief at the Gandhi statue in downtown Riverside-- a statue made in India, with a whole scene of Martin Luther King carved into it. In fact, there is a fantastic Martin Luther King statue down the road. Perhaps we will incorporate that, too.

Below are some of my preparational materials for our upcoming events next week:

A. Little India Field Trip:

Wednesday: 9:30AM-1PM

- Contact clothing store (Did this!)

- Contact restaurant (Did this!)

- Short presentation or sheet for students to read as we drive there

- Photography Scavenger hunt:

Some initial ideas include…

1. Ganesh

2. Bindhi

3. “Difference”

B. Our Joint Message: The Child Leader Project & UCR ARTSBlock MGV

Our goal: Youth leadership and social change through cross-cultural dialogue, creativity, and education

Gather at the Gandhi statue:

· Caste and race

· Who was Gandhi? How does this fit leadership? What is a Gandhi statue doing in Riverside? How does this fit race?

Video Clips:

- Gandhi: Civil Disobedience: Salt March/Arrest/Nonviolent Attack on Salt Works: http://youtube.com/watch?v=u_Gasq6qfzU&feature=related

- MLK, disobedience/marching/tactics/journey set to music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w61QB8_KOuc&feature=related

Notes from viewing the videos (common themes):

1. Civil disobedience (used non violent tactics)

2. Community change/organizing (Who has power? In the clip about Gandhi, he says “They are not in control—we are. That is the strength of civil resistance.”)

3. Define “terrorist” (both, US and British forces attempted to deny these organizing activities on the basis of “terrorism”)

4. Human Interdependence/Interconnection: whether economic (i.e. salt, clothing in Gandhi’s case) or human interconnectedness (i.e. the quote about our mutual liberation—in the MLK film he states that his work was not only important for “The American Negro but for the whole country.”)

UCR ArtsBlock "My Global Village" Collaboration & Leadership Camp Details

UCR Arts Block Collaboration

Update by Samantha Wilson

Yesterday, I attended the “My Global Village” workshop being held at the California Museum of Photography in collaboration with UCR ARTSBlock (click here for "My Global Village" website). This program provides high school students with opportunities to view films and other media materials to create artistic responses. I viewed their film about Graffiti (they went into the community and cleaned up graffiti under a bridge in downtown Riverside). It was very exciting to watch it knowing that this film would be shown to Indian students next month before they go into their communities to do similar-intentioned activities!

The high school students seemed very excited about the prospect of participating in this project. They have viewed the film, “Born into Brothels,” and as I showed my own personal pictures from my first trip to India, they would comment knowingly about different scenes, or maybe make comparisons between the kids in my photos with the kids they saw in the film. Following a discussion about India and Mali (I recently met a young man who runs an NGO in Mali—the kids were able to see his project and hear him describe some of his activities), we stayed with the students and did a “Leadership Worksheet” where we were asked to describe two people we considered leaders and list their qualities. We had to select one person we knew personally and one we didn’t know personally. I selected my Religious Studies professor and an attorney that works for people’s rights at Guantanamo—it was a very helpful exercise and provided everyone an opportunity to share something of themselves. Many people selected family members!

Next week we will be taking this same group of high school students on a field trip to Little India in Artesia. I plan on contacting local businesses this weekend to see how we may be able to plan ahead a bit with local community members to talk to the students about India. This will be filmed and shown to the students in India as well— those responses will be interesting! We will have Indian students in Tamil Nadu viewing a film made my Riverside students about their personal interactions with an Indian community in Southern California!

This is getting really exciting, very creative, and very inclusive—I would like to see more community members get involved in some capacity.

In other news, I feel more and more like I’m running a real NGO. I worked on budgets and expenses today, as well as sent out MORE (these are endless) emails updating various sponsors on my latest activities.

I’ve also made the 5-day leadership camp more complete. If I find a way to upload those notes onto this blog, I will do so immediately. But, in the mean time, here’s a list of some of the Indian student’s activities:

- Small group meetings to provide more one-on-one time with students

- Workshop: “What is leadership?” (Looking at global leaders, local leaders, qualities, etc.)

- All-Student Workshop: “My Global Village: International Creativity and Dialog” (This is our collaboration with Riverside. The Indian students will view these materials and then respond in similar artistic mediums.)

- Workshop/Training: “Conflict Resolution and International Peace-Making: Peace-making in our communities and our world”

- Workshop: “Intro to Higher Education in Tamil Nadu”

- Workshop (Introductory courses into different fields, ideas):

o Medical Anthropology

o International Affairs and Global Social Change

o Media Communications

- Service Projects

- All-Student Workshop: “Community Organizing: Activism in the United States and India”

- Life Skills Education

- Closing Ceremonies: Performance / Presentations / Photography Show / Awards Ceremony with family

In the meantime, Eamon and Aniee have both been working diligently on different aspects of the program. Eamon is developing the curriculum for “My Global Village.” Aniee has been the fundraising queen while developing her own curriculum as well. I’m blessed to have these two.

My bedroom is my office

Update by Samantha Wilson

My office/my closet:



I have been working on the Child Leader Project from my bedroom in Moreno Valley. The picture above is my closet. To the left, we have a remarkably glorious map of the subcontinent and surrounding countries (graciously donated by a young woman from UCR's Rivera Library). The right acts as a calendar, showing the next 12 months of my life on this project: time spent in India, breaks, Finals weeks, other events, etc. Next to that are five sheets of paper marking each of the phases of the project.

Calendar and Phases:


The five phases are as follows:
- Phase 1: India: Leadership Camp and ArtsBlock Collaboration
- Phase 2: Awareness and Fundraising in Southern California
- Phase 3: India: December Leadership Summit and College Field Trip
- Phase 4: Final Fundraising and Thesis Write-Up
- Phase 5: Next Steps for Sustainability and Follow-Through

These pages are split into three sections: "Project," "Thesis," and "Other."

I began this process in order to create clarity in my mind: I simply can not think about steps for sustainability in April, contacts for my thesis write-up in December, or January's fundraising activities right now-- but I can't forget them, either! This space allows me to jot down things I'll need to think about at different times.

Currently, Phase 1 has a list of tasks for preparing curriculum, fundraising for travel expenses of Aniee and Eamon, and books I'd like to read before I leave for India. This bibliography gets longer by the minute. The books are selected for a variety of reasons: 1) they may enrich my understanding of the area (helpful for both, thesis and project), 2) they may be useful in curriculum for the high school students or for my team, 3) they may provide me a much-desired sense of inner-peace in the process of all this hard work.

Need to Read for India Bibliography as of July 11, 2008:

1. Violence & Compassion: Dialogues on Life Today. His Holiness the Dalai Lama w/ Jean-Claude Carriere
2. Soul Work: Anti-Racist Theologies in Dialogue. Ed. by Marjoirie Bowens-Wheatley and Nancy Palmer Jones
3. The Economics of Microfinance. Beatriz Armendariz and Honathan Morduch.
4. Gandhi: The Man, His People, and the Empire. Rajmohan Gandhi. (Signed by R. Gandhi himself!)
5. In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India. Edward Luce.
6. Religion Against the Self: An ethnography of Tamil Rituals. Isabelle Nabokov.
7. The Encounter Never Ends: A Return to the Field of Tamil Rituals. Isabelle Clark-Deces
8. Selections from Sadhana: The Realisation of Life. Rabindranath Tagore
9. Participant Observation. James Spradley
10. Interviewing. James Spradley.

Certain books I've read that I'll be using (as a framework to think from, thesis material, curriculum, or inspiration!):

1. Creating a World Without Poverty. Muhammad Yunus.
2. Banker to the Poor. Muhammad Yunus. (This one is "required" reading for all people working on this project with me.)
3. Just Peacemaking. Glen Stassen.
4. Everybody Loves a Good Drought. P. Sainath
5. Rules for Radicals. Saul Alinsky.
6. What is Activist Research? Article by Charles R. Hale
7. The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected essays by Clifford Geertz

Films:

1. Born Into Brothels. Directed by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski

I'm leaving the "office" now to meet with Aniee Sarkissian, an assistant to Phase 1 who has been doing extensive fundraising today for her trip. We will be discussing her activities and checking in on her curriculum development. She will be running a workshop at the leadership camp that speaks specifically to the intersection between income/inequality and access to health care-- essentially a medical anthropology workshop! This is exciting: we will be able to talk about the truly revolutionary work of Dr. Paul Farmer, a medical activist who's work I was introduced to during my stay in India last year.

More to come!