[CLP Interns] Goals and Visions for Winter 2011

Hey all!

For our last meeting of 2010, we are going to be little planning fools.

Follow this link and print out a visioning/goal-setting/planning tool format you can use to assist in this process: http://bit.ly/clpinternplanningtooldec-mar

Please come prepared on Tuesday (5PM-7PM) with your calendars and plans for programs in the next three months (or more, if you are visioning that far!)

Together we will make one main calendar to set us up for Winter quarter.

See you Tuesday!
Samantha

CLP Event Planning Best Practices

Developed by the CLP D.I.R.T. Interns, Dec. 2010

1. Create a rich environment. ( Raw | Flava' | Relational )
2. Outreach and reach-out. ( Power of invitation | Informational materials )
3. Commit to the event. ( Before | During | After )
4. Give everyone a role. ( Responsive | Proactive | Helpful )
5. Engage all the senses. ( Make the event sensual.)
6. Be deep / personal. ( Real | [Almost] Spontaneous )
7. Give it energy. ( Heart | Body | Soul = Present)
8. Hospitality. ( Welcome People | Nourish People | Respect People)
9. Accessibility. ( All people are able to attend, understand, participate.)
10. Murphy's Love. ( Murphy wants your event to succeed, he just has different plans-- go with them!)
11. Look good.

[CLP-Interns] Reflection Entry (Dec 6)

Dear Interns,

1) Having completed the Making Space event, what did you think about the whole event as "CLP Event"? For example, what was your favorite part and why? What did you take away from this that will help you plan your own events in the future (likes, dislikes)?

When considering the event, you may want to consider...
- Vibe
- Hospitality
- Atmosphere
- Speeches
- Videos, Photos
- Presentation, preparation
- Inclusivity
- Audience participation

2) What did you learn about CLP that you didn't know before? After seeing ALL of CLP, what direction do you want your internship to take? Your research?

For your reference:
The PE Article about Making Space: http://www.pe.com/localnews/riverside/stories/PE_News_Local_W_wclp04.4257f88.html

Videos:

CLP@NoVi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUmleTJBXUU


CLP India, Summer 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR_AiCo0SHM

How can you tell if your community will flourish?

Openness Beauty Social Offerings > Perceptions of Economy Political Leaders

http://bit.ly/knightsoulofcommunity

[CLP-Interns] Reflection Entry (Nov 28)

Dear Interns!

This Tuesday we will be sharing "our stories" to assist us in being powerful, impactful speakers at the Making Space event on December 4th.

First of all: fundraising is tricky. Lots of us resist fundraising-- it is uncomfortable to ask for funds and we associate it with "begging" and people demand for a "sustainability plan" by the organization (i.e. people want us to "make money" in a "more respectable way" rather than asking folks to donate). Lots of negative connotations. Lots of questions, too. Do I have enough? What if I give it all away? Only rich people give money. Money is greed.

In The Soul of Money, Lynne Twist tells her story of fundraising and the direction of our funds to "our highest commitments." Her stories and her vision of money and sufficiency were important for me in my understandings of work and giving.

For this week, please take ten minutes and view this presentation by Lynne Twist about the "soul of money": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5xlJg9WxJg

On your blog take some time and prepare your response to Lynne's vision. Then, consider: what is your highest commitment? What do you commit your time and money to? One of the things you will be committing significant time (and possibly money!) to is CLP. Why? This is the story we will tell at "Making Space" on Saturday.

See you Tuesday night!
Samantha

Great Quote, Great Resources

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Outline for the "Better Together" Campaign, awesome tools for using Social Media to make a movement: http://content.delivra.com/etapcontent/InterfaithYouthCore/attachments/Interfaith%20Leader%20Action%20Calendar.pdf

[CLP-Interns] Reflection Entry (Nov 20)

Hello Karla, Cheng, Malcolm, Gilbert, Sara and Francis--

As promised, this week's reading/reflection is on “Why India?”/ “Why Riverside? / Why Mexico?”

To start us off-- why this?

As you know, our annual celebration/fundraiser, “Making Space: Two Years with CLP” is on Saturday, December 4th from 6:30PM-8:30PM at Back to the Grind Coffee Shop in Downtown Riverside. As I'm sure Kat would attest, the most important thing to communicating an idea is the personal story behind that idea. For example-- why you are in CLP and why I am in CLP is different, and should be different. The personal always moves us in a deeper way. We need to be personal at “Making Space.”

And, as you know: CLP does not just collaborate with our brothers and sisters in one country-- we collaborate in all three. Sometimes this is forgotten when people hear we “work in India.” The immediate assumption is that we only work “somewhere else.” And there is a feeling of frustration and defensiveness-- “Why not HERE?” Why don't you work here?”

What does that question mean to us? First of all, where is that question coming from? Why is that person asking the question? What emotions are behind it? Then, what is our personal response? And where does that response come from? This analysis could bring out some ugly-beautiful stuff: from our own (underlying) feelings of superiority, power or entitlement (as challenged by Ivan Illich) or our guilt for the past and the present or our vision for transcendence and transformation or our hunger for connection.

So, the question for your first formal blog “post” / travel journal entry: [Why India? Why Riverside? Why Mexico?]

To help you us started or inspire some thought, some light reading/viewing/listening. Skim them all or pick a couple to read/watch more closely to get your own mind/heart going:

(1) My sermon/reflection on on the soul and global wholeness: http://bit.ly/soulandwholeness_swilson

(2) An LA Times article on poverty in Riverside (Oct 2010): http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/08/local/la-me-inland-empire-poverty-20101008

(3) Audio recording of MLK on Gandhi, NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99480326

(4) Video interview of Arundhati Roy, Indian activist on Obama, war and the Indian government: http://www.zcommunications.org/acclaimed-indian-author-arundhati-roy-on-obama-s-wars-poverty-and-india-s-maoist-rebels-by-arundhati-roy

(5) Music video, Indigo Girls “Shame on You”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKqUglOC3_8

These five links are for triggering our own ideas/thoughts-- they do not represent a formal “CLP” opinion on anything (I don't think we have formal opinions, just principles). Use these to get your ideas and curiosities going. Your blog response does not have to be exact or perfect or complete (whatever that means)-- it can be bullet points, some varied ideas. We will be working on this question for a long time. This is just the beginning. Kat has many resources on this one.

See you all, and your blog entries, on Tuesday night. And for some of you, see you in the next couple days as we get started on your projects.

Yeah!
Samantha

CLP Internships!

Hello, community!

Glad to be here updating you all on our CLP Interns!

They'll be joining us soon and posting a link to their blogs as a comment to this page. This is the first, and certainly not the last, challenge.

:)

"This is Major Tom to Ground Control!"

I write from a hotel room in Miami, FL.

I've spent my day of travel and subsequent afternoon in a sleepy state of vegetarian-pizza-eating reading and relaxation, browsing the internet, catching up on email and repeatedly falling asleep. I've also been listening to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" with an uncanny sense of identification-- maybe its that floating in a "tin can" part (American Airlines kind of looks that way?) or perhaps its the "feeling very scared" but your spaceship knowing which way to go, so you go with it?

This is my third Clinton Global Initiative University gathering. In 2008, I made my first commitment to work on CLP.

But really, that commitment had been made in India, on long bus rides and international dormitories where I felt like a Grade-A-Bump-On-A-Pickle. But, an observational pickle-- one aware of the potential of transnational action that could take place, if said pickle were willing to risk.

Like, for example, Major Tom!

After one day here, I will be "floating in tin can" to Connecticut. I've never been to that part of the USA before-- a more "radical" journey (if you'll allow this) than going to India. In fact, planning this trip was far more intimidating than planning any of my CLP trips to India! Why is my own country, sometimes, so unfamiliar and big and intimidating? Is it us or is it me? When I step into India, I feel like I enter a world of "Annas" and "Akkas" (brothers and sisters)-- why not here? Or maybe it is less explicit?

Probably the latter. Today, as I checked in to my hotel, a friendly front desk clerk, Alfonso, hooked me up with my vegetarian pizza. And the driver, an older gentleman from francophone Africa, got lost WITH me as we discovered my California accent and his West African accent confused both of us, and we were both (simultaneously) "too polite" to check with one another again. After ending up in a neighborhood of pink and baby blue houses and palm trees, we pulled over, read the directions and realized his "1800 SW" was my "8200 SW". Laughing, I said "Well! C'est la vie!" to which he replied, "You speak French!?"

En peu?

And even though, by the end of it, his meter read "$50"-- he charged me $35, and we said "goodbye" to one another in a flurry of apologies and smiles for the linguistic confusion.

As of Saturday morning, right at the stroke of midnight, I'll be at the Global Health and Innovation Conference at Yale for the rest of this weekend, sponsored by Unite for Sight. I've been scrolling through the presentations and participants, highlighting names and reading webpages to get an idea of the folks I need to hunt down, "court and woo," and learn with. I attend this conference by myself, as Sydney and Rachel stay at Clinton Global Initiative and continue forward in recruiting and connecting with other college students eager to get connected to something real.

Its 12:26 AM on Friday in Miami and I'm restless. Restless with energy to move, to read, to meet. Restless in my desire to fall into a deep, mountainous sleep. I mean mountainous in that timeless, slow-moving, granite way. I want to sleep, literally, like a rock...

... but that will wait. Or it will come in pieces. And I'll make a mosaic of rest and restlessness.

More on that later. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LVC9eW9Q4E

New books!

My reading list...

Parker J. Palmer, "A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life-- Welcoming the Soul and Weaving the Community in a Wounded World"

James R. Brockman, "The Word Remains: A Life of Oscar Romero"

Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein, "Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism"

David Batstone et. al, "Liberation Theologies, Postmodernity, and the Americas"

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, "Color of Violence: the INCITE! Anthology"

Arundhati Roy, "The Cost of Living"

Arundhati Roy, "The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile"

Arundhati Roy, "Power Politics"

Melvin Delgado and Lee Staples, "Youth-Led Community Organizing: Theory and Action"

Peter Block, "Community: The Structure of Belonging"

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, "Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity"

Myron Weiner, "The Child and the State in India"

Mohandas K. Gandhi, "Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth"

Frantz Fanon, "The Wretched of the Earth"

Edna Bonacich and Richard Appelbaum, "Behind the Label: Inequality in the Los Angeles Apparel Industry"

Simeon Terry, et al. "Through the Eyes of the Judged: Autobiographical Sketches by Incarcerated Young Men"

Greg Mortenson, "Stones Into Schools"

Notes from a recent CLP India Volunteer Training...

CLP India Curriculum: “What can we create together?”

• Space for the revolutionaries

• Meaningful, relevant education that can be applied to real-life

• Conversations with parents, teachers and the community

• Emphasis on “mutual transformation”

• Students are not numbers, know them as human beings

• Youth-led activities and organizing whenever possible

• Students as experts

• Reclaim IZZAT in a “CLP” way

• “How” of learning for students, more than memorization (include all ways of learning)

• Addressing issues that can't be addressed at home or in a “typical” classroom

• Remember-- you are NOT alone! (Many others are dealing with these issues-- build community)

• Remember to emphasize “values” and the “universalisms of learning”

• Develop a “culture” and set of life-tools that can be used, comfortably or fluidly, in their lives beyond CLP programs-- we are the “mayonnaise” on a sandwich of their lives (make it tasty, work in the system and daily life)

• Be real as facilitators and co-learners-- use y(our) stories

• Role play for practice, to make it something our bodies actually do

• Inclusivity of all people involved

Conversations in a Beauty Parlour

The collection of stories I am working on:
http://thinkfeminisms.blogspot.com/

Glimpses from India, a Mini-Report on CLP Winter Programming

Wow.

The Child Leader Project 2009-2010 Winter Program was an incredible success. I type this with confidence and a giddy grin. By “success” I mean that CLP youth leaders were excited, talkative, thoughtful, challenging and engaging as teachers and students. Programs embodied CLP values by the ways in which they were dialogical (or open in the ways in which people spoke more freely from their experience, without a need to prove, convince, or defend one’s ideas, feelings or experiences) as well as experiential, requiring students to act out or experience the topics and ideas discussed in the CLP classroom. CLP Winter Program was also a success in the ways it deepened our roots in India and making a home, while also “branching out” in a serendipitous network with similar-minded organizations in and around our home, Pondicherry. Upon my return from India and my first day back at the “day job” in California, colleagues said I looked even more excited and refreshed—it’s all because of this month-long experience.

CLP Programs

CLP hosted programs with two of our different partners this winter, Vidiyal Matriculation Higher Secondary School (VMHSS) near Trichy in central Tamil Nadu as well as Anbhagam International Education and Development Center (Anbhagam) in the capital city of Chennai, Tamil Nadu. These two organizations serve very different populations of youth, requiring the organizations and CLP to be creative in developing programming that would meet their specific needs.

Vidiyal is CLP’s first partner, making this Winter Program their fourth CLP experience and completing their second year of programming! Over 46 CLP students are present at Vidiyal ranging from 8th to 12th standard students. Students who are currently in 10th and 12th standard (similar to the USA “grade” system) are currently focused on preparing for their government-mandated testing and were only able to participate in a closing ceremony. The remaining students (8th, 9th and 11th) were participants for the three-day program.



This winter program at Vidiyal was titled “VISION 2020 in 2010” and utilized the writings of former Indian president, APJ Abdul Kalam as a springboard for discussions and expressions of “community development.” CLP students had selected APJ’s Vision 2020 as a possible topic of interest during our 2009 Summer Program, mindful that APJ’s vision was specifically directed at empowering younger generations and empowering the Indian community towards development. Ultimately, however, APJ argues that India is a “highly developed country in an advanced state of decay.” This statement would turn out to be particularly powerful for students at Vidiyal—in a before survey provided at the beginning of the program, all students stated that India was a “developing country.” In a post-survey, all students stated that India was a “developed country” with social issues that could be remedied by its own people.

Following a group reading of an abridged version of APJ’s “Vision 2020” speech, students returned to their homes and dormitories with a list we called “Points of Development.” This list included concerns related to a wide range of topics, including agriculture, education, corruption, peace and security, trade, environmental degradation and the status of women. The goal of the assignment was to engage the idea of “development” in our own lives— for example, what does “development” look like in our village or in our schools? Students returned the next day with short stories and comments about different points and we found topics and stories that overlapped.

The places of overlap became our “problems” in the CLP version of Augusto Boal’s “theatre of the oppressed.” In this drama, we used stories and situations from our own lives (i.e. concerns about dowry or women’s rights post-marriage, police corruption and child abuse in schools) to act out new solutions. Students performed as actors in the play and would repeat the play, creating new solutions to the problem with each new performance. Ultimately, students created their own “situations” and performed these for 8th standard students at the end of the leadership program.

The experience of performing and improvising new roles and responses was an incredibly new experience for students. One girl, Suhasini performed in the role of the young groom’s father and expressed her total joy at the power she felt in her role. The young man that played the future bride said he felt “negative” describing that he had “never had to be a girl before.” In the performance on police corruption, one student with the ambition of becoming a police officer stood and described how he thinks police could behave differently in the future as students questioned him about the actors in the play. Student performances included issues from caste discrimination in families and friendships to child abuse and public health awareness.

Our feedback from this program reveals the power of this sort of community experience. One 8th standard student describes her experience: “First of all I want to thank Samantha Akka (sister) and Amala Akka. Because I am not so happy in my home or in my class. But I am so happy to attend the CLP and clean the community garden. For this class I hope of having some talent. I attend CLP I have some confidence. I like the games then homework. I like drama that we are acting. I am so fun, happy and I have no words to thank you.” When it was announced we would like to create a “CLP Council” of individuals at the school to help make some guiding decisions about the work we would do together in the future, all the students submitted a statement of interest. We are so happy for the community that we are all building together at Vidiyal.

Our second, main program was with Anbhagam ICEDC. Anbhagam serves the street and slum communities in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Students from these communities are provided daily tuition and program support from Anbhagam’s three staff members. Anbhagam and CLP come together to provide extra programs, trainings and experiences that inspire and support students in their lives (for the present and the future). This program was focused on the topic of making changes in our lives as it relates to education. We discussed the changes that made a difference in our past and how those changes will also happen in our future. Higher education was described as one of many tools for making a difference in our future.

To take the idea of higher education and make it a “reality,” John Bosco (Director of Anbhagam) and staff collaborated with CLP to take students to a local college, Loyola College, in Chennai. Bosco is an alumni of Loyola College and connected with his previous colleagues and professors to create a memorable experience for the students.


Twenty-six Anbhagam students from the Little Mount community came to Loyola College for an exploration of Visual Communications and college student life. They had tutorials of filming and lighting, photo shop and graphics as well as a full tour of the campus with a lunch in the student canteen. To top it off, Anbhagam and CLP created bright yellow t-shirts for each student that said “Child is not a bucket—child is a fire.” Students were stopped by professors and staff and questioned about the meaning of the t-shirt. Students replied that it meant “we have our own dreams!” No participating student had ever been to a college campus before, nor had any of them had family that went to college. This was an incredible first experience for this particular youth community.

The following day, Anbhagam students participated in a short debrief about the program from the previous day, as well as led in a guided meditation by a special guest visitor (Vijay Mohan) on visioning their futures and the changes they want to make in their own lives.

(I'm also in the process of building Anbhagam a website: www.anbhagam.blogspot.com!)

Exciting Opportunities for the Future
First of all, congratulations to our five matriculating students from Vidiyal. We look forward to giving them college scholarships this summer (four featured below)!




CLP has incredible opportunities for the summer. We are now connected with Baby Sarah’s Home, an orphanage for orphaned and mentally and physically differently-abled children and youth. Baby Sarah’s has over 108 children in its home and is led by a young and enthusiastic 27-year-old man named Karthik. Karthik and I met during an International Conference on Autism that we both attended at Pondicherry University in December 2009.

We are also in collaboration with an organization, CHILD (Child Helpage in Long Duration) located in Pondicherry. This organization provides tuition classes, vocational training and women’s Self-Help Groups for a village community in-between Pondicherry and Auroville. The leaders of CHILD are eager to create programs with social change/social justice focus for the children in their area in the summer.

While both of these new possibilities root us even more firmly in Pondicherry, we would like to see collaboration and sharing across Tamil Nadu and Chennai. One of our goals for summer is a “CLP Convergence” of sorts in which all of our partners will have an opportunity to meet, dialogue and collaborate. We would also like to bring our students from across Tamil Nadu to do a similar activity, making this convergence and conference an annual community-event that CLP sponsors. Many of our partners have described that collaborative or dialogue-based meetings are less common as there are many issues related to sharing practices or staff across organizations (i.e. people are very afraid to lose funding or staff of they share too much information about their work). Perhaps CLP and CLP partners can create a new paradigm of community-based organizations in the areas we all work.

Overall, this winter was an incredible opportunity for collaboration and deepening of our relationships with our partners, new and old. A more extensive report of our activities will be available from our website in the next couple of weeks. This will more clearly outline our work, as well as include the feedback from our students.

More importantly, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our staff and partners in India, our Board of Directors and our donors and supporters in the USA. CLP is not possible without an incredible community of people, seen and unseen, that have given their financial, spiritual and emotional resources to see this organization take off. From the deepest place in my heart, I can not express the gratitude I have for the support those around us have given to see this vision continue.

And with that, happy new year! We look forward to “visioning” our future with you!