"I know the biggest crime / is just to throw up your hands / saying 'this has nothing to do with me / I just want to live as comfortably as I can.
You got to look outside your eyes / you got to think outside your brain / you got to walk outside your life / to where the neighborhood changes." (From Willing to Fight, by Ani Difranco)

Thursday, April 15, 2010

"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

Sunday, April 4, 2010

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

Samantha Wilson's Coordinating Notes

This page is a continuous blog by Samantha Wilson that will serve as a space for updating the process of the Child Leader Project and the experience with international community organizing-- it'll be a space for notes, ideas, ramblings, videos and photos of the life-long process of organizing.

To comment, email samantha@childleaderproject.org