I am about to prepare the proposal that I will put before the ED of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation (ACF). I recognize that I have a highly emotional response to her request of me. Clearly I am reactivated (or stuck) at more than one level! So, I thought that I would use this blog – this expression vehicle – as a way of writing her a personal letter. Then I could write her the straightforward proposal. I can also suggest that, if she is interested, she read the blog, although that seems pretty risky at the moment. Of course it couldn’t seem so risky if I didn’t feel that much depends on how my working relationship with her turns out, and what each of us is able to accomplish by working together.
I am sure that this is just the sort of thing that Gloria wants me to face and transform in the context of. She is always saying I can’t give anything away, as in permitting others to run with the ball after I have set a direction. I don’t think this is true but I do recognize that I am not the best judge! So these are the words I would say to the new ED who is curious about me, maybe even hopeful about me, and who holds the key to what my next project will look like, perhaps.
Dearest O,
(It always seems that such letters start with “Dear” or “Dearest”)
I have been struggling with how to frame a project to put before you by Monday morning. Saturday evening is about to arrive and I only have the barest outline in my head. I am frustrated, angry and hopeful. I am trained enough to know that I’m not really responding to you, but to a series of former relationships and opportunities both lost and fulfilled which have shaped my life, my understanding of Inclusion and my current “mission” in life. It seems to me that you are interested and that you hold a key to potential progress. However, both my sense of what is a key and what progress is leave me with a feeling that you have undue power over me at this moment. I am reacting to my own “helpless identity” in the face of your “power”.
In the eyes of the world, you are black and I am crippled. We spoke euphemistically about these realities last Wednesday. I explained to you that my relationship to this point with Atkinson has been as a “window washer” – in other words, my circumstances have lead me to a certain kind of work in the world and consequently people imagine both that this is the kind of work I want to do and also that it is the only thing I’m good for. Accordingly, when people want to include me, support me and/or honour me, they offer me another window to wash. This is exactly what I FEEL like you are doing now.
I have been so tempted to ask you if you would like to make some pancakes.
Specifically, I stopped wanting to be an advocate in approximately 1991. I took it up again in order to support the Individualized Funding Coalition of Ontario. In 2004 we were offered an opportunity to “consult” with the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Community and Social Services in Ontario. I participated fully! I did so because, even though I figured there was very little chance that the work would lead to real policy change, I felt that there needed to be as good as possible a document that recorded for history the benefits of individually supported community participation for people who are labelled with developmental disability.
It is nearly impossible, as you know I am sure, for people to build full participation with minimal resources, including some that are illegally established. Secondly, this power is further diminished by the intense bureaucratic overlay that comes with these resources. Add to this the intensely inadequate capacity to do good research when all that is available to do the work are volunteers, no control group, no standard definition of anything, and tight deadlines to come up with data and analysis. In spite of this, the IFCO managed to produce two reports that each had “eyeball” significance. In other words, you could see by just looking at the data that there are huge differences in how people who have individualized supports participate in their communities versus people who have agency support.
Shortly after we produced this data, the Finance Ministry of the Province of Ontario shut that Deputy Minister down, had him reassigned, and put in place an ineffective puppet. All evidence that the government might move towards individualized support for people who are labelled with developmental disability disappeared overnight.
The hidden consequence of all this, at least hidden to the Ministry, the bureaucrats and well meaning people such as yourself is that the people themselves who are labelled lose at every step of this process. First of all, they lose relationship with their parents and caregivers as these people exhaust themselves with extra work, and the process of being drawn into defining their loved one as a needy disabled person. Secondly, they lose the opportunities that disappear while their caregivers are busy doing other things rather than going out to the library, the park, a volunteer job somewhere, church, etc. etc. Finally, as the bureaucrats dash the hopes of the advocates and burn them out, they lose the energy and commitment of their parents and caregivers – the main source of support in their lives. How many people end up in a worse situation and in group homes just because their parents became advocates and then burnt out? I have no idea what the number is but I am sure that it is not small.
I was not, I believe, turned into a cynic by this defeat, not just because I was expecting defeat but because I knew that people could not be satisfied unless they had tried, and try we did. My intention was to support the effort as best as I could, not imagine that we were somehow going to buck the bureaucracy and actually make a change. At the same time I very much intended to never pick up the banner of advocacy again!
Lo and behold one should never say never! Here comes a very energetic, intelligent and passionate ED who is more than willing to make pancakes. Who am I to say that she is not correct? History has funny turns and I am not the one to say that this is not the time in history when a new voice and new energy might actually shift the social perception of people who have been labelled developmentally disabled.
You remind me so much of an energetic and passionate woman that I met in 1978 who turned my life, and many people’s lives, around. I hated her for a good six months before I fell in love with her and proceeded to do anything she asked of me because somehow around her things really worked out. For example, although we are far from having genuine Inclusive education in Ontario, the bureaucrats have never been able to kill it either, and that has a lot to do with Marsha Forest, who so inspired and so kicked butt that her influence continues 11 years after her death from breast cancer. I can only hope to have such power as Marsha had.
So, you say, it is time to gather the advocates and to have them start talking to each other and to have them begin to create a common identity and a common approach. Do you know that that is exactly what Marsha inspired in our city in 1980 to support our powerful engagement with the system during 1981, the International Year of the Disabled Person? The impact of that conference reverberates to this day in small but fundamental ways.
I can hear Marsha’s voice saying quit your bitching and get writing. This is an opportunity not to be missed.
Alright then – Let’s get on with it! Where’s that pancake recipe?
Showing posts with label services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label services. Show all posts
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
January 6, 2011
I need to draft some stuff for the Executive Director of the Atkinson Charitable Foundation so I thought I’d start here.
The task is to equip her with enough compelling analysis and evidence in two hours so that she can activate her Board to take action on their Inclusion agenda.
What can the Board actually do to empower Inclusion? Their focus is on policy change. Where would policy change actually make Inclusion more likely to occur?
What would Inclusion look like? According to the BMX model:
- B – easier, more expected, even facilitated access for “targeted” individuals and groups to claim a space with little or no interaction required
- M – person centred and individualized services, citizen and economic development focus replaces welfare, charitable and health approaches
- X – broad recognition that everyone has differences that can foster interaction, relationship and so social and economic opportunity AND that the very characteristics that get turned into symptoms and excuses for labelling are potential for interaction, relationship and so social and economic opportunity
What happened to developing a common literacy about Inclusion.
To make the leap one must understand “Giftedness” – that is that gifts are anything you have, are or do that creates an opportunity for interaction and that interaction is fundamental to relationship and so social and economic opportunity. All differences are gifts.
Anyone who believes that either they themselves or anyone else is not what they should be already is in a trap.
Tell some stories.
Explain my organization bases and my history. Explain that recreating the same sort of organizations as already exist will automatically exclude most people who are labelled.
Excluded people LOOK like they are not contributing. This is a structural limitation.
Hospitality is a powerful stimulation for Basic Inclusion. What happened to revolutionary lunches?
Economics and Inclusion? We already said uneven labour market practices were founded in social exclusion. There is an inseparable link. This is a POLICY issue.
How ACF spends its money, and currently, if ACF spends its money, is a mark of its true values. In terms of X Inclusion, withholding its resources totally indicates no willingness to enter into genuine dialogue with those whose citizenship remains unexpressed.
The task is to equip her with enough compelling analysis and evidence in two hours so that she can activate her Board to take action on their Inclusion agenda.
What can the Board actually do to empower Inclusion? Their focus is on policy change. Where would policy change actually make Inclusion more likely to occur?
What would Inclusion look like? According to the BMX model:
- B – easier, more expected, even facilitated access for “targeted” individuals and groups to claim a space with little or no interaction required
- M – person centred and individualized services, citizen and economic development focus replaces welfare, charitable and health approaches
- X – broad recognition that everyone has differences that can foster interaction, relationship and so social and economic opportunity AND that the very characteristics that get turned into symptoms and excuses for labelling are potential for interaction, relationship and so social and economic opportunity
What happened to developing a common literacy about Inclusion.
To make the leap one must understand “Giftedness” – that is that gifts are anything you have, are or do that creates an opportunity for interaction and that interaction is fundamental to relationship and so social and economic opportunity. All differences are gifts.
Anyone who believes that either they themselves or anyone else is not what they should be already is in a trap.
Tell some stories.
Explain my organization bases and my history. Explain that recreating the same sort of organizations as already exist will automatically exclude most people who are labelled.
Excluded people LOOK like they are not contributing. This is a structural limitation.
Hospitality is a powerful stimulation for Basic Inclusion. What happened to revolutionary lunches?
Economics and Inclusion? We already said uneven labour market practices were founded in social exclusion. There is an inseparable link. This is a POLICY issue.
How ACF spends its money, and currently, if ACF spends its money, is a mark of its true values. In terms of X Inclusion, withholding its resources totally indicates no willingness to enter into genuine dialogue with those whose citizenship remains unexpressed.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
December 1, 2010
Today I am thinking about money. ODSP cut me off last month – again – and although I was able to get reinstated with no great difficulty the deposit did not arrive in my bank until this morning. I would have been in the position of having to draw further on my line of credit to pay my rent if it had not come when it did.
As a child I considered myself rich, but I was very distrustful of money. In grade three I was “befriended” by a girl who was by far the dirtiest and most unsavoury character I had met up until that point. I was in a way her captive audience as I was wheeled about in those days in a manual wheelchair over which I had no control. I imagine that adults, including my parents, threw us together because neither of us had friends and they felt we deserved each other. One day Mother gave me a quarter and sent Darlene and I off to the library to register and get a book. Along the way Darlene took the quarter and with that sort of persuasion that goes: “You really want to do this, don’t you!” bought ice cream. I don’t recall eating any ice cream or what lie we concocted to explain why we came back without a book. I do recall the fear, intimidation and disgust.
As a young teenager my aunts and uncles, particularly Uncle Ted, would give my two brothers and myself dimes and quarters whenever they visited. I couldn’t get out to spend any of it and I enjoyed hoarding it in any case, so the stash in my underwear drawer grew to be $20.00 more than once. However, both my parents would “borrow” from my wallet with promises to repay. Often they didn’t keep those promises.
At sixteen the government of Ontario decided to give me a “Disabled Child Benefit” which meant that a small amount of money went to my parents on my behalf – something like $100 a month. When this started my Mother told me that I was essentially paying rent now and that I could ask for some things to be done differently. After that moment nothing changed and I never saw any part of the money either.
I know now that my parents paid out lots of money on my behalf and that they often struggled financially especially in the early years of their marriage. There is no person more generous than my Father is and my Mother was. These stories come to mind, not to put anyone down, least of all my parents, but by way of seeing why money means so little to me. I think I basically learned that money could get me into real trouble and that it never really belonged to me in any case so why bother thinking too much about it.
When I went to university the situation changed radically. First, I had a scholarship and secondly I had a benefit under the vocational rehabilitation section of the welfare department with “disabled adults” in its mandate. Thirdly, I had a different allowance from the same Ministry which gave me the capacity to hire students for a few hours every day to give me personal assistance. I had the great good fortune to be supervised by a social worker who interpreted her regulations in the most generous way possible. This meant that even when I worked during summers between terms, or sometimes mid-school year my benefits were never cut. I paid my own tuition, living costs, other people’s and my own beer and had friends!
Skip the dark years of the nursing home and chronic care hospital. $60 a month from the government as a “comfort allowance”. Even then I earned some $$’s on “the side”.
When I fundraised for, founded and became the first Coordinator of Special Services for Handicapped Students in 1977 I paid myself $19,000 a year. The University doubled the next Coordinator’s salary.
I did alright – never brilliantly – in the financial world until 2006 when I decided to retire from a job within which I could do nothing that made me happy. I had savings, a small grant from the Marsha Forest Centre, a small pension and I continued to have self employed income. I co-owned a house and three times renegotiated the mortgage over ten years to give myself another pot of money to draw on.
I left the job in 2006 to give myself a fighting chance to do what I really wanted to do with my life. That turned into being an artist and founding the World Peace through Inclusive Transformation.
I have NO regrets and I am on the edge of bankruptcy. For fourteen months I have marvelled month by month that I have found ways to pay my rent.
I wonder, and my friends do too, what happened to my capacity to have money. Now that I am writing this I see that I may have returned to thinking that money is something I have no control over and that it would pervert me through the Darlene’s of the world if I had it. But I am not eight and I have a very different perspective on what can make someone choose to be a dirty thief. I owe Darlene, her mother and mine an apology.
Now, let’s make some cash!
As a child I considered myself rich, but I was very distrustful of money. In grade three I was “befriended” by a girl who was by far the dirtiest and most unsavoury character I had met up until that point. I was in a way her captive audience as I was wheeled about in those days in a manual wheelchair over which I had no control. I imagine that adults, including my parents, threw us together because neither of us had friends and they felt we deserved each other. One day Mother gave me a quarter and sent Darlene and I off to the library to register and get a book. Along the way Darlene took the quarter and with that sort of persuasion that goes: “You really want to do this, don’t you!” bought ice cream. I don’t recall eating any ice cream or what lie we concocted to explain why we came back without a book. I do recall the fear, intimidation and disgust.
As a young teenager my aunts and uncles, particularly Uncle Ted, would give my two brothers and myself dimes and quarters whenever they visited. I couldn’t get out to spend any of it and I enjoyed hoarding it in any case, so the stash in my underwear drawer grew to be $20.00 more than once. However, both my parents would “borrow” from my wallet with promises to repay. Often they didn’t keep those promises.
At sixteen the government of Ontario decided to give me a “Disabled Child Benefit” which meant that a small amount of money went to my parents on my behalf – something like $100 a month. When this started my Mother told me that I was essentially paying rent now and that I could ask for some things to be done differently. After that moment nothing changed and I never saw any part of the money either.
I know now that my parents paid out lots of money on my behalf and that they often struggled financially especially in the early years of their marriage. There is no person more generous than my Father is and my Mother was. These stories come to mind, not to put anyone down, least of all my parents, but by way of seeing why money means so little to me. I think I basically learned that money could get me into real trouble and that it never really belonged to me in any case so why bother thinking too much about it.
When I went to university the situation changed radically. First, I had a scholarship and secondly I had a benefit under the vocational rehabilitation section of the welfare department with “disabled adults” in its mandate. Thirdly, I had a different allowance from the same Ministry which gave me the capacity to hire students for a few hours every day to give me personal assistance. I had the great good fortune to be supervised by a social worker who interpreted her regulations in the most generous way possible. This meant that even when I worked during summers between terms, or sometimes mid-school year my benefits were never cut. I paid my own tuition, living costs, other people’s and my own beer and had friends!
Skip the dark years of the nursing home and chronic care hospital. $60 a month from the government as a “comfort allowance”. Even then I earned some $$’s on “the side”.
When I fundraised for, founded and became the first Coordinator of Special Services for Handicapped Students in 1977 I paid myself $19,000 a year. The University doubled the next Coordinator’s salary.
I did alright – never brilliantly – in the financial world until 2006 when I decided to retire from a job within which I could do nothing that made me happy. I had savings, a small grant from the Marsha Forest Centre, a small pension and I continued to have self employed income. I co-owned a house and three times renegotiated the mortgage over ten years to give myself another pot of money to draw on.
I left the job in 2006 to give myself a fighting chance to do what I really wanted to do with my life. That turned into being an artist and founding the World Peace through Inclusive Transformation.
I have NO regrets and I am on the edge of bankruptcy. For fourteen months I have marvelled month by month that I have found ways to pay my rent.
I wonder, and my friends do too, what happened to my capacity to have money. Now that I am writing this I see that I may have returned to thinking that money is something I have no control over and that it would pervert me through the Darlene’s of the world if I had it. But I am not eight and I have a very different perspective on what can make someone choose to be a dirty thief. I owe Darlene, her mother and mine an apology.
Now, let’s make some cash!
Saturday, November 20, 2010
November 20, 2010
It is just past 10:00pm and this is the second day that I have not gotten out of bed – or washed either. Yikes! What has become of me? (Ha, ha) A drugged, slovenly old lady!
I’m kidding – well mostly. It has actually been another busy day. I worked on my Wisdom phone list this morning, responded to e-mail and made some calls. Between lunch, dinner, pain breaks and mutual naps Mike and I worked on the presentation we will give to video game developers next Tuesday. Throughout it all there have been talks and explorations – ranging from funny to emotionally intense - of Inclusion, WPIT, Laser Eagles, the design of a good interactive presentation, how we will organize ourselves, what inspires us and frightens us – a strong flow of interchange.
Mike has been at work for some 10 days on www.wpit.org. It has to be a working website by Tuesday evening for the students who design video games. It will be.
There are some strong similarities between my time with Mike and the more than a year with Gabor. Mike wants to know, wants to drive Inclusion and WPIT, wants to read the years of writing I have done, wants to push me! Gabor was and is very different, but he continuously caused me to examine and expand the metaphors through which I think about Inclusion and all that I am trying to articulate and create.
Mirror, mirror on the wall! Often people meet me (or anyone) as if what you see is all there is or was or will be. It is an inexpressible joy to be met as an unfolding mystery, with depth and untapped directions to grow into.
The question of my legacy is often on my mind. When I am with Mike and Kimberly I feel a direct connection to a distant future that I will not personally be present in. This is a profoundly satisfying work to engage in.
Throughout the day I searched out old documents and PowerPoint slides. I saw that just nine years ago World Peace was not something I thought or wrote about. Not so very long ago I had not imagined the BMX Model of Inclusion. I was still working on articulating Giftedness and personal support. I have fundamentally altered my direction between then and 2008. This realization takes some power away from the metaphor of 30 year cycles that forms the basis of these writings.
Even seven years ago there was no painting and peace activism. At that time I began to engage in an intensely explorative and creative time – a six year span from 2004 to 2009 – ages 54 to 59 in chronologic time.
This was the time I also engaged in the Landmark Education Wisdom Unlimited course, Partnership Explorations, Power and Contribution in which I invented World Peace through Inclusion, and several Year End cruises, seminars and teleconferences about discourses. I also was and am still on the Toronto City Team – the group of volunteers who work with the Landmark Education headquarters, consultants and staff to produce the Wisdom Unlimited course in our area.
I transformed myself and my creative nest has been the transformational work supported by Landmark Education.
It’s funny to look back this way because I have felt that I was “me” all along. Without reflection I would have said that I had changed, but not THAT much. Now I see that Judith took some fundamental shifts – in particular I have moved from being a rights and services advocate to being an artist and peace worker.
This seems to be akin to moving from caterpillar to butterfly. And now this beautiful creature is laying her own eggs.
I’m kidding – well mostly. It has actually been another busy day. I worked on my Wisdom phone list this morning, responded to e-mail and made some calls. Between lunch, dinner, pain breaks and mutual naps Mike and I worked on the presentation we will give to video game developers next Tuesday. Throughout it all there have been talks and explorations – ranging from funny to emotionally intense - of Inclusion, WPIT, Laser Eagles, the design of a good interactive presentation, how we will organize ourselves, what inspires us and frightens us – a strong flow of interchange.
Mike has been at work for some 10 days on www.wpit.org. It has to be a working website by Tuesday evening for the students who design video games. It will be.
There are some strong similarities between my time with Mike and the more than a year with Gabor. Mike wants to know, wants to drive Inclusion and WPIT, wants to read the years of writing I have done, wants to push me! Gabor was and is very different, but he continuously caused me to examine and expand the metaphors through which I think about Inclusion and all that I am trying to articulate and create.
Mirror, mirror on the wall! Often people meet me (or anyone) as if what you see is all there is or was or will be. It is an inexpressible joy to be met as an unfolding mystery, with depth and untapped directions to grow into.
The question of my legacy is often on my mind. When I am with Mike and Kimberly I feel a direct connection to a distant future that I will not personally be present in. This is a profoundly satisfying work to engage in.
Throughout the day I searched out old documents and PowerPoint slides. I saw that just nine years ago World Peace was not something I thought or wrote about. Not so very long ago I had not imagined the BMX Model of Inclusion. I was still working on articulating Giftedness and personal support. I have fundamentally altered my direction between then and 2008. This realization takes some power away from the metaphor of 30 year cycles that forms the basis of these writings.
Even seven years ago there was no painting and peace activism. At that time I began to engage in an intensely explorative and creative time – a six year span from 2004 to 2009 – ages 54 to 59 in chronologic time.
This was the time I also engaged in the Landmark Education Wisdom Unlimited course, Partnership Explorations, Power and Contribution in which I invented World Peace through Inclusion, and several Year End cruises, seminars and teleconferences about discourses. I also was and am still on the Toronto City Team – the group of volunteers who work with the Landmark Education headquarters, consultants and staff to produce the Wisdom Unlimited course in our area.
I transformed myself and my creative nest has been the transformational work supported by Landmark Education.
It’s funny to look back this way because I have felt that I was “me” all along. Without reflection I would have said that I had changed, but not THAT much. Now I see that Judith took some fundamental shifts – in particular I have moved from being a rights and services advocate to being an artist and peace worker.
This seems to be akin to moving from caterpillar to butterfly. And now this beautiful creature is laying her own eggs.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
November 16, 2010
It was a good Laser Eagles day today. Of course, just about every Laser Eagles day is a good day. I enjoy being with the other artists. I enjoy working with a tracker – today my tracker was Mike Skubic. I enjoy the process of painting even when I don’t like the result that much. I don’t really like my last two paintings, but I’m not sure that I’m finished with either one of them anyways.
I thought I would start painting anger today. It ended up being a whole lot more yellow than I thought it would be, and a very bright yellow indeed. Paintings have a way of doing that – I mean turning out very differently than I thought they would be in the beginning. I have never really painted with yellow before, so maybe that is an angry colour for me. Just the same, it’s not what I thought anger would look like.
The other reason that it has been a good Laser Eagles day is that we had an organizational meeting and I was pleasantly surprised, perhaps even a little overwhelmed, at how it went. For one thing, I am learning to keep my mouth shut around Kimberly Fu who has an amazing capacity to say things quite differently than I would say them and yet end up with a similar or better result than I could have. In the last few weeks, the CAVE Board, particularly Paul and Bill, have gone from being kind of distracted and even a little resigned about the future of Laser Eagles to being very solid around the possibility of building and expanding. Paul in particular expressed a solid vision for having Laser Eagles be an organization that can sustain itself and be true to its mission. It was very easy to have him see that Kimberly should be the person who will stickhandle the next few months of shifting the organizational foundation.
I see where I have let some important aspects slip. In particular, it is much clearer now why it is important for the artists to sometimes use a way of showing to others that they are directing their trackers. Our familiarity with our trackers and, I believe, a certain laziness has caused us all to use methods of painting where it is easy to imagine that the tracker is choosing how the painting will go. Paul made it clear that others cannot actually see how the artists are making their paintings, and this is detrimental to the potential for fundraising.
Beyond that, the artists have never risen to the challenge of raising money or selling their art and giving the money to the program. I have sold a good number of paintings over the years, but have considered my volunteer efforts to be compensation for the supplies I use. Other artists have stacks of paintings sitting around in their bedrooms or have given some away as gifts. A few have sold paintings but kept all of the money. I don’t begrudge them the money but it is clear that they have not developed a sense of what it takes to sustain a consistent support system for themselves.
We have a real opportunity to show that we are capable of contributing to the organizational aspects of the world. I hope that we are able to actually grasp this opportunity at this time. It would be a big shift in the culture that we call inclusion.
Today I also had an insight into how I keep chaos happening in my financial life. At some point in the meeting I offered to do radio shows to promote Laser Eagles during the Christmas season. One of the CAVE Board members owns a radio station. Paul turned my offer down.
He pointed out that, without the organizational foundation in place, promoting Laser Eagles was detrimental to its long term stability. This is simply because anyone who might want to donate or get involved would not see accountability at this point but would see only our appearance of instability and – I guess what you would call “flying by the seat of our pants”.
How many times in my life have I gotten publicly enthusiastic about a possibility or a project and had nothing concrete to back up my enthusiasm! It is one thing for me to be a blue hat visionary. But visionaries cannot get very far on their own. And so, I have pushed away the very resources that my own life and my creations depend on.
Well, a new part of my history has begun. Cycle 3 has a genuine potential of being a time when I and others realize our wonderful ideas!
I thought I would start painting anger today. It ended up being a whole lot more yellow than I thought it would be, and a very bright yellow indeed. Paintings have a way of doing that – I mean turning out very differently than I thought they would be in the beginning. I have never really painted with yellow before, so maybe that is an angry colour for me. Just the same, it’s not what I thought anger would look like.
The other reason that it has been a good Laser Eagles day is that we had an organizational meeting and I was pleasantly surprised, perhaps even a little overwhelmed, at how it went. For one thing, I am learning to keep my mouth shut around Kimberly Fu who has an amazing capacity to say things quite differently than I would say them and yet end up with a similar or better result than I could have. In the last few weeks, the CAVE Board, particularly Paul and Bill, have gone from being kind of distracted and even a little resigned about the future of Laser Eagles to being very solid around the possibility of building and expanding. Paul in particular expressed a solid vision for having Laser Eagles be an organization that can sustain itself and be true to its mission. It was very easy to have him see that Kimberly should be the person who will stickhandle the next few months of shifting the organizational foundation.
I see where I have let some important aspects slip. In particular, it is much clearer now why it is important for the artists to sometimes use a way of showing to others that they are directing their trackers. Our familiarity with our trackers and, I believe, a certain laziness has caused us all to use methods of painting where it is easy to imagine that the tracker is choosing how the painting will go. Paul made it clear that others cannot actually see how the artists are making their paintings, and this is detrimental to the potential for fundraising.
Beyond that, the artists have never risen to the challenge of raising money or selling their art and giving the money to the program. I have sold a good number of paintings over the years, but have considered my volunteer efforts to be compensation for the supplies I use. Other artists have stacks of paintings sitting around in their bedrooms or have given some away as gifts. A few have sold paintings but kept all of the money. I don’t begrudge them the money but it is clear that they have not developed a sense of what it takes to sustain a consistent support system for themselves.
We have a real opportunity to show that we are capable of contributing to the organizational aspects of the world. I hope that we are able to actually grasp this opportunity at this time. It would be a big shift in the culture that we call inclusion.
Today I also had an insight into how I keep chaos happening in my financial life. At some point in the meeting I offered to do radio shows to promote Laser Eagles during the Christmas season. One of the CAVE Board members owns a radio station. Paul turned my offer down.
He pointed out that, without the organizational foundation in place, promoting Laser Eagles was detrimental to its long term stability. This is simply because anyone who might want to donate or get involved would not see accountability at this point but would see only our appearance of instability and – I guess what you would call “flying by the seat of our pants”.
How many times in my life have I gotten publicly enthusiastic about a possibility or a project and had nothing concrete to back up my enthusiasm! It is one thing for me to be a blue hat visionary. But visionaries cannot get very far on their own. And so, I have pushed away the very resources that my own life and my creations depend on.
Well, a new part of my history has begun. Cycle 3 has a genuine potential of being a time when I and others realize our wonderful ideas!
Sunday, November 7, 2010
November 7, 2010
Today's post is a departure. I have had a GREAT deal of assistance from Mike Skubic in pulling together basic work for World Peace through Inclusive Transformation. I have spent much of my out-of-bed time working on an organizational summary today, SO,
I thought I will just share it with you today (rather than write ANOTHER 2 pages.
WPIT – World Peace through Inclusive Transformation
WPIT is a commitment to have people around the globe understand differences and develop skills so that peace is available to all. The sustainability of world peace will emerge when enough communities appreciate diversity as an asset and have the skills to build personal and social value from interacting effectively with differences.
In society, we often look at diversity as a source of problems – things to be fixed like gang conflicts or situations to be managed like sustaining mixed income neighbourhoods. We rarely look at diversity as a source of opportunity for everybody, except in relatively minimal ways like encouraging “ethnic” restaurants, funding mixed heritage cultural experiences or subsidizing an “alterative” movie industry.
If you ask a typical person how they would describe the community they are part of they would likely say it is a group of people who do the same thing – like my bridge club, or believe the same thing – like my church, or are attached geographically to the same place – my town. People haven’t been taught to look at how diversity is essential to community and every kind of interaction.
If we weren’t different from each other we wouldn’t have the need or capacity to interact. It is not just that interaction would be boring or useless. It would not be possible! It is differences that allow for the capacity to communicate. This is just one of the powerful gifts of diversity.
THE WPIT MISSION
Our mission is to have the concept of Giftedness appreciated everywhere. In addition we aim to have all peoples have the capacity to benefit from diversity so as to have social and economic abundance. This in turn will bring peace to communities everywhere – in other words – world peace.
Giftedness Defined
A gift is anything that you are, have or do which creates an opportunity for you to interact with someone else. Under favourable circumstances such interactions can then be built into sustainable relationships and social and economical opportunities.
Any difference is potentially a gift. If someone has black hair and they discover that some people have red hair, it may become for them an opportunity to dye their tresses. Out of many people acting to fulfill this desire an entire hairstyling industry can be built.
The diversities that get labelled as dangerous, awkward, socially incorrect and disabling, are also fundamentally simply differences and therefore potentially gifts.
In the Giftedness approach, the work of Inclusion is simply to create the circumstances under which people will see their differences as opportunities for each other and know how to fulfill these opportunities.
Interestingly and importantly, when people adopt a Gifted perspective they also become more peaceful. This is simply because they have developed the skills to be creative with diversity and they are also conscious of the social and economic benefits that are being made available. There is less impulse to fight and do harm when there is nothing to fear and everything to gain.
When the world has people experience the concept of Giftedness in everyday life the result will be Inclusion and this will foster peacefulness. This connection between Inclusion and peace is at the heart of what we stand for.
Integral to inclusion is the development of creative and unique social and economic opportunities in local communities. It is a fundamental part of our mission to have Inclusion experienced as a multidimensional set of interactions where creativity can be expressed and to foster sustainable social and economic experiments.
OBJECTIVES
One of WPIT’s key objectives is to research the BMX Model of Inclusion and to have it taught as a practical model for social and economical development.
The BMX Model of Inclusion
We propose that three distinct states of Inclusion co-exist. Neither is better than the other, but often there is an emergent pull to move from one state to another. We are calling these states B, M, and X:
State B (Basic): Groups allow the presence of people with diverse characteristics. State B’s principal quality is that the includers share presence with diversity, but no other changes are anticipated or offered. The includers like their community as is, expect no major shifts, and the included are expected to adapt to the ways and means of the includers and to get along as best they can. Typically the included express gratitude for the opportunity and work hard to not cause difficulties.
State M (Mechanical): Includers recognize that the included are struggling to get along, and are willing to make “accommodations”. The included move beyond simply being grateful for the opportunity to coexist and begin to advocate for support. For example, service providers currently tend to segregate individuals with cognitive challenges and the professionalization of supporters tends to turn citizens into helpers and volunteers instead of friends and colleagues.
State X (Crossover): Both includers and the included recognize that another world is possible, one that benefits from the gifts and contributions available in the cultures, characteristics, and experiences of members of both the including and included groups. The perception fades that there are two sides and a distinct boundary.
Operationalizing the BMX Model:
State B (Basic) A teenager with autism and no speech is kept at the back of a regular classroom, with no attention paid to whether he is building friendships.
State M (Mechanical) All teenagers with “disability” labels are given opportunities to be in a homeroom for 1st period. The school has a resource room for tutoring, an “inclusive” lunchroom, and Special Olympics classes to replace regular gym.
State X (Crossover) Ninth grade students are invited to form a support circle with a teen who loves music, and who also has autism and no speech. Twenty-three students respond. They meet regularly and enthusiastically at different points in their day and week for the next four years. The teen who focuses the circle enjoys participating in the school band, gym and many more classes than anyone originally expected. The other teens express their appreciation at having an alternative to being “Nerds”, “Preps” or simply left out. The school administration notes a dramatic decrease in fights and vandalism.
Another WPIT key objective is to see POISA projects grow communities locally and around the globe.
The Peaceful Open Inclusive Spaces Alliance (POISA)
POISA arises from the experience that communities, work places, schools, etc. can become more peaceful when people of diverse backgrounds come together in ways that draw on diversity as a social asset rather than a liability, and where people are free and supported to create and shape their own activities. The future of POISA is to teach people that Inclusion makes peace possible, to foster the sustainable development of real examples of POISA and to have strategic buy-in around the world. People will come to expect their world to be made up of such spaces.
PEACEFUL Having the capacity to resolve conflict to the benefit of all concerned
OPEN Participants shape their own agendas and activities
INCLUSIVE Diversities among participants are welcome and drawn on as valuable resources
SPACES Locations, contexts, and rules and principles that give participants a safe and facilitative bounded area within which to generate their activities
ALLIANCE Agreements between organizations and individuals to work together to create and preserve a valued experience
On the ground POISA is a complex process of community development consisting of:
the development of a community’s principles of Open Space
supporting the community’s invitation process to become more diverse
capturing the learnings as the community becomes more peaceful
facilitating story telling that deepens the community’s ability to be diverse and peaceful
WPIT HISTORY
Judith Snow has done groundbreaking work throughout her life to have people notice and appreciate the contributions of people who are labelled disabled. She has travelled and taught that, rather than being problems to fix or hide, the differences we call disabilities create a context for relationship and community building and for greater social and economic sustainability. Over time she developed a storehouse of examples of peace making through Inclusion drawn from fields such as education, health care, community development and economics.
In the mid ‘90’s, Judith Snow realized that Inclusion of diversities, if they are appreciated as gifts and contributions, creates the context for people to become peaceful.
WPIT was born when Judith Snow, Gabor Podor, Erin Socall and Jason Wiles toured several states for seven months, speaking with and learning from others who were transforming fear of differences into passion to build social and economic sustainability.
At this time WPIT is conceived as an umbrella organization, seeding and guiding other initiatives and projects that look very different from each other, but which have the common characteristics of being able to teach people and have them build from their differences in ways that foster sustainable relationships, abundance and peacefulness.
PROJECTS
WPIT WORLD PEACE TOURS
In 2008, Judith Snow, Gabor Podor, Erin Socall and Jason Wiles began on an exploration throughout the United States and Canada. This 7 month journey took them deep into the heart of a learning and engagement experience. They worked together with many people who were creatively dealing with deep exclusion in their own lives. From the stories and experiences of the people met along the way, the BMX model of inclusion was developed.
This journey gave the evidence that peace really is available through Inclusion. To experience some of the stories for yourself, you can read the blog from the tour at http://peaceforinclusion.blogspot.com/
The World Peace Tour is scheduled to go back on the road in early 2011 officially launching WPIT’s 2011 projects and spreading Inclusion everywhere it goes. Locations on the current timeline range from Ontario, Minnesota, Georgia, New York and Arizona.
THE “DO SOMETHING GOOD” CAMPAIGN
The Do Something Good campaign is a movement founded by Kimberly Fu in 2005 to get people involved in the community during the holiday season. It started as a simple trip to the Salvation Army with some friends and has now expanded into co-ordinating visits to many different locations and service centres to do many different kinds of tasks. This is an opportunity for people to give from their own gifts to people who are in need. The opportunity appeals especially to people who have always wanted to help but had no idea where to start.
Originally the campaign operated just during the holiday season but now we are functional from early October to the end of the winter season. People aren't required to volunteer for the whole 4 months - whatever can be mustered is perfectly okay. Doing something good can be small or can be large, just as long as the opportunity is there to do something!
There is no reason why we have to restrict ourselves to just the holidays. We hope that every year we will grow in numbers, so we can make this a year-round campaign.
WPIT GAMES
The fastest growing sector in the entertainment industry is video games, surpassing both movies and music combined in 2008, and just like movies and music, the themes in games do not always provide the players with the very best social messages. Imagine the power of fostering peace and reinforcing it through game play!
WPIT Games is a project to do just that. By creating a series of fun, Inclusion themed video games we are generating a community of online gamers who come to a website on a daily basis and are reinforced with themes of diversity and Giftedness. We are expecting that this learning will play out in the rest of their lives, giving gamers a background to act in more Inclusive ways.
We are in the process of creating an alliance with several game development companies for this project, both upstart companies and big businesses. In this way we can tap into the large audience that bigger developers can offer while working with new, unshaped game creators.
Our first project is on track to be released online in early 2011, in time to be entered as part of the 2011 Games 4 Change Festival in New York City.
Examples of On-the-Ground WPIT Projects
Do Something Good 2010 Events
The Brown Bag Drive
Do Something Good is launching the Brown Bag Drive this year, where we will be putting together several large brown bags full of clothes and toiletries for people who are homeless and delivering it downtown during the day, along with a brown bag meal.
Other Current Opportunities
- Toy sorting
- Serving meals to people who are homeless via a shelter/church
- Gift wrapping
- Visiting the elderly/sick kids
- Participating in at-risk youth events
- Food drive sorting
COMMUNITY POT-LUCKS – A POISA PROJECT
The Robert Cooke Community Movement
As a step in building community at the Robert Cooke Housing Co-operative, we are providing space for the members to meet for the purposes of making visible the gifts of everyone in the co-op community—families and singles, young and old, vulnerable people; in other words—everyone. This will support the elements of a satisfying life for all co-op members.
The concept is that each floor comes together for pot-lucks (a meal where everyone brings something to share) so that the residents on every floor in the high-rise and the townhouses can share a space together for socializing. Along with the space—drinks, food and help in facilitating the evening for both adults and children are provided by the people on the floor.
The first pot-luck gathering took place on October 30th 2010 for everyone on the 8th Floor and it was a great success.
Robert Cooke Housing Co-operative operates under the assumption that in community people turn to one another. Everyone has something to give. Together, we operate out of 5 core principles:
1: Assets: Everyone has something to give;
2: Work: Building home and community is real, important work,
3: Reciprocity: Giving is stronger when it’s more than a one-way street,
4: Community: We’re stronger together, and
5: Respect: We deserve it from others – and we owe it to others.
We are making no claims to change anything. What we are doing is setting up a means for people who live in a neighbourhood to come together to tell their personal story. Anybody can throw a party or arrange a pot-luck.. It is the design of this gathering that sets this project apart and makes it a POISA project. The goal of POISA and this project is to develop a model of gathering that educates the participants to the power of Inclusion.
LOOKING FORWARD
From the mid 90’s to 2010, one person’s (Judith Snow) realization that peace can be available through Inclusion has developed into an international collective of projects and activities. We have grown from discussion groups and celebrations into the beginnings of sustainable organization.
For this dream to stay alive, we must continue to put down deep roots into cultures everywhere, especially so that young people will see the opportunity and lend their energy and creativity to the work.
Now is the time for WPIT to emerge as “real”. This will happen as many people join the commitment and the efforts. The question that must be answered now is: “Are you – as an individual or a corporation – are you willing to build World Peace through Inclusion?” If so, please join us in whatever way makes sense to you.
I thought I will just share it with you today (rather than write ANOTHER 2 pages.
WPIT – World Peace through Inclusive Transformation
WPIT is a commitment to have people around the globe understand differences and develop skills so that peace is available to all. The sustainability of world peace will emerge when enough communities appreciate diversity as an asset and have the skills to build personal and social value from interacting effectively with differences.
In society, we often look at diversity as a source of problems – things to be fixed like gang conflicts or situations to be managed like sustaining mixed income neighbourhoods. We rarely look at diversity as a source of opportunity for everybody, except in relatively minimal ways like encouraging “ethnic” restaurants, funding mixed heritage cultural experiences or subsidizing an “alterative” movie industry.
If you ask a typical person how they would describe the community they are part of they would likely say it is a group of people who do the same thing – like my bridge club, or believe the same thing – like my church, or are attached geographically to the same place – my town. People haven’t been taught to look at how diversity is essential to community and every kind of interaction.
If we weren’t different from each other we wouldn’t have the need or capacity to interact. It is not just that interaction would be boring or useless. It would not be possible! It is differences that allow for the capacity to communicate. This is just one of the powerful gifts of diversity.
THE WPIT MISSION
Our mission is to have the concept of Giftedness appreciated everywhere. In addition we aim to have all peoples have the capacity to benefit from diversity so as to have social and economic abundance. This in turn will bring peace to communities everywhere – in other words – world peace.
Giftedness Defined
A gift is anything that you are, have or do which creates an opportunity for you to interact with someone else. Under favourable circumstances such interactions can then be built into sustainable relationships and social and economical opportunities.
Any difference is potentially a gift. If someone has black hair and they discover that some people have red hair, it may become for them an opportunity to dye their tresses. Out of many people acting to fulfill this desire an entire hairstyling industry can be built.
The diversities that get labelled as dangerous, awkward, socially incorrect and disabling, are also fundamentally simply differences and therefore potentially gifts.
In the Giftedness approach, the work of Inclusion is simply to create the circumstances under which people will see their differences as opportunities for each other and know how to fulfill these opportunities.
Interestingly and importantly, when people adopt a Gifted perspective they also become more peaceful. This is simply because they have developed the skills to be creative with diversity and they are also conscious of the social and economic benefits that are being made available. There is less impulse to fight and do harm when there is nothing to fear and everything to gain.
When the world has people experience the concept of Giftedness in everyday life the result will be Inclusion and this will foster peacefulness. This connection between Inclusion and peace is at the heart of what we stand for.
Integral to inclusion is the development of creative and unique social and economic opportunities in local communities. It is a fundamental part of our mission to have Inclusion experienced as a multidimensional set of interactions where creativity can be expressed and to foster sustainable social and economic experiments.
OBJECTIVES
One of WPIT’s key objectives is to research the BMX Model of Inclusion and to have it taught as a practical model for social and economical development.
The BMX Model of Inclusion
We propose that three distinct states of Inclusion co-exist. Neither is better than the other, but often there is an emergent pull to move from one state to another. We are calling these states B, M, and X:
State B (Basic): Groups allow the presence of people with diverse characteristics. State B’s principal quality is that the includers share presence with diversity, but no other changes are anticipated or offered. The includers like their community as is, expect no major shifts, and the included are expected to adapt to the ways and means of the includers and to get along as best they can. Typically the included express gratitude for the opportunity and work hard to not cause difficulties.
State M (Mechanical): Includers recognize that the included are struggling to get along, and are willing to make “accommodations”. The included move beyond simply being grateful for the opportunity to coexist and begin to advocate for support. For example, service providers currently tend to segregate individuals with cognitive challenges and the professionalization of supporters tends to turn citizens into helpers and volunteers instead of friends and colleagues.
State X (Crossover): Both includers and the included recognize that another world is possible, one that benefits from the gifts and contributions available in the cultures, characteristics, and experiences of members of both the including and included groups. The perception fades that there are two sides and a distinct boundary.
Operationalizing the BMX Model:
State B (Basic) A teenager with autism and no speech is kept at the back of a regular classroom, with no attention paid to whether he is building friendships.
State M (Mechanical) All teenagers with “disability” labels are given opportunities to be in a homeroom for 1st period. The school has a resource room for tutoring, an “inclusive” lunchroom, and Special Olympics classes to replace regular gym.
State X (Crossover) Ninth grade students are invited to form a support circle with a teen who loves music, and who also has autism and no speech. Twenty-three students respond. They meet regularly and enthusiastically at different points in their day and week for the next four years. The teen who focuses the circle enjoys participating in the school band, gym and many more classes than anyone originally expected. The other teens express their appreciation at having an alternative to being “Nerds”, “Preps” or simply left out. The school administration notes a dramatic decrease in fights and vandalism.
Another WPIT key objective is to see POISA projects grow communities locally and around the globe.
The Peaceful Open Inclusive Spaces Alliance (POISA)
POISA arises from the experience that communities, work places, schools, etc. can become more peaceful when people of diverse backgrounds come together in ways that draw on diversity as a social asset rather than a liability, and where people are free and supported to create and shape their own activities. The future of POISA is to teach people that Inclusion makes peace possible, to foster the sustainable development of real examples of POISA and to have strategic buy-in around the world. People will come to expect their world to be made up of such spaces.
PEACEFUL Having the capacity to resolve conflict to the benefit of all concerned
OPEN Participants shape their own agendas and activities
INCLUSIVE Diversities among participants are welcome and drawn on as valuable resources
SPACES Locations, contexts, and rules and principles that give participants a safe and facilitative bounded area within which to generate their activities
ALLIANCE Agreements between organizations and individuals to work together to create and preserve a valued experience
On the ground POISA is a complex process of community development consisting of:
the development of a community’s principles of Open Space
supporting the community’s invitation process to become more diverse
capturing the learnings as the community becomes more peaceful
facilitating story telling that deepens the community’s ability to be diverse and peaceful
WPIT HISTORY
Judith Snow has done groundbreaking work throughout her life to have people notice and appreciate the contributions of people who are labelled disabled. She has travelled and taught that, rather than being problems to fix or hide, the differences we call disabilities create a context for relationship and community building and for greater social and economic sustainability. Over time she developed a storehouse of examples of peace making through Inclusion drawn from fields such as education, health care, community development and economics.
In the mid ‘90’s, Judith Snow realized that Inclusion of diversities, if they are appreciated as gifts and contributions, creates the context for people to become peaceful.
WPIT was born when Judith Snow, Gabor Podor, Erin Socall and Jason Wiles toured several states for seven months, speaking with and learning from others who were transforming fear of differences into passion to build social and economic sustainability.
At this time WPIT is conceived as an umbrella organization, seeding and guiding other initiatives and projects that look very different from each other, but which have the common characteristics of being able to teach people and have them build from their differences in ways that foster sustainable relationships, abundance and peacefulness.
PROJECTS
WPIT WORLD PEACE TOURS
In 2008, Judith Snow, Gabor Podor, Erin Socall and Jason Wiles began on an exploration throughout the United States and Canada. This 7 month journey took them deep into the heart of a learning and engagement experience. They worked together with many people who were creatively dealing with deep exclusion in their own lives. From the stories and experiences of the people met along the way, the BMX model of inclusion was developed.
This journey gave the evidence that peace really is available through Inclusion. To experience some of the stories for yourself, you can read the blog from the tour at http://peaceforinclusion.blogspot.com/
The World Peace Tour is scheduled to go back on the road in early 2011 officially launching WPIT’s 2011 projects and spreading Inclusion everywhere it goes. Locations on the current timeline range from Ontario, Minnesota, Georgia, New York and Arizona.
THE “DO SOMETHING GOOD” CAMPAIGN
The Do Something Good campaign is a movement founded by Kimberly Fu in 2005 to get people involved in the community during the holiday season. It started as a simple trip to the Salvation Army with some friends and has now expanded into co-ordinating visits to many different locations and service centres to do many different kinds of tasks. This is an opportunity for people to give from their own gifts to people who are in need. The opportunity appeals especially to people who have always wanted to help but had no idea where to start.
Originally the campaign operated just during the holiday season but now we are functional from early October to the end of the winter season. People aren't required to volunteer for the whole 4 months - whatever can be mustered is perfectly okay. Doing something good can be small or can be large, just as long as the opportunity is there to do something!
There is no reason why we have to restrict ourselves to just the holidays. We hope that every year we will grow in numbers, so we can make this a year-round campaign.
WPIT GAMES
The fastest growing sector in the entertainment industry is video games, surpassing both movies and music combined in 2008, and just like movies and music, the themes in games do not always provide the players with the very best social messages. Imagine the power of fostering peace and reinforcing it through game play!
WPIT Games is a project to do just that. By creating a series of fun, Inclusion themed video games we are generating a community of online gamers who come to a website on a daily basis and are reinforced with themes of diversity and Giftedness. We are expecting that this learning will play out in the rest of their lives, giving gamers a background to act in more Inclusive ways.
We are in the process of creating an alliance with several game development companies for this project, both upstart companies and big businesses. In this way we can tap into the large audience that bigger developers can offer while working with new, unshaped game creators.
Our first project is on track to be released online in early 2011, in time to be entered as part of the 2011 Games 4 Change Festival in New York City.
Examples of On-the-Ground WPIT Projects
Do Something Good 2010 Events
The Brown Bag Drive
Do Something Good is launching the Brown Bag Drive this year, where we will be putting together several large brown bags full of clothes and toiletries for people who are homeless and delivering it downtown during the day, along with a brown bag meal.
Other Current Opportunities
- Toy sorting
- Serving meals to people who are homeless via a shelter/church
- Gift wrapping
- Visiting the elderly/sick kids
- Participating in at-risk youth events
- Food drive sorting
COMMUNITY POT-LUCKS – A POISA PROJECT
The Robert Cooke Community Movement
As a step in building community at the Robert Cooke Housing Co-operative, we are providing space for the members to meet for the purposes of making visible the gifts of everyone in the co-op community—families and singles, young and old, vulnerable people; in other words—everyone. This will support the elements of a satisfying life for all co-op members.
The concept is that each floor comes together for pot-lucks (a meal where everyone brings something to share) so that the residents on every floor in the high-rise and the townhouses can share a space together for socializing. Along with the space—drinks, food and help in facilitating the evening for both adults and children are provided by the people on the floor.
The first pot-luck gathering took place on October 30th 2010 for everyone on the 8th Floor and it was a great success.
Robert Cooke Housing Co-operative operates under the assumption that in community people turn to one another. Everyone has something to give. Together, we operate out of 5 core principles:
1: Assets: Everyone has something to give;
2: Work: Building home and community is real, important work,
3: Reciprocity: Giving is stronger when it’s more than a one-way street,
4: Community: We’re stronger together, and
5: Respect: We deserve it from others – and we owe it to others.
We are making no claims to change anything. What we are doing is setting up a means for people who live in a neighbourhood to come together to tell their personal story. Anybody can throw a party or arrange a pot-luck.. It is the design of this gathering that sets this project apart and makes it a POISA project. The goal of POISA and this project is to develop a model of gathering that educates the participants to the power of Inclusion.
LOOKING FORWARD
From the mid 90’s to 2010, one person’s (Judith Snow) realization that peace can be available through Inclusion has developed into an international collective of projects and activities. We have grown from discussion groups and celebrations into the beginnings of sustainable organization.
For this dream to stay alive, we must continue to put down deep roots into cultures everywhere, especially so that young people will see the opportunity and lend their energy and creativity to the work.
Now is the time for WPIT to emerge as “real”. This will happen as many people join the commitment and the efforts. The question that must be answered now is: “Are you – as an individual or a corporation – are you willing to build World Peace through Inclusion?” If so, please join us in whatever way makes sense to you.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
November 3, 2010
I’ve just published an article in one of my other blogs: “Ah, but that’s another story”. It seems unnecessary to completely write another piece, so I have included it below.
Today brought lots of pain. I am certainly not catching my rhythm this week. I guess that’s to be expected, but I don’t expect it! I find it frustrating and worry creating. Am I really as well as it seemed yesterday?
Well, time will tell won’t it! In the meantime I am just simply in the journey.
Here is the story I wrote for my other blog.
Mind Boggled Again
Well, this is another story related to the Daily Bread Food Bank. I don’t mean to pick on them. This particular food bank is the source of an important resource to me at this time. We are related. But, it’s a very one sided relationship, it seems. I have not yet figured out a way that I can enter into a genuine dialogue with this complex and mysterious organization.
The context for me is that I have been bed ridden for a full month – October to November 3. Because some will be curious let me just say that I have succumbed to a complex set of reactions to medication, etc due to the fact I have been in quite a lot of pain for over a year.
One of the factors which is quite relevant to this story is that stress leads to pain leads to stress. For just over a year I have been learning, as readers of this blog know, to live on the ODSP benefit in a neighbourhood which initially was not of my choosing. This situation has been stressful and so is a factor in my current physical condition.
So, today, feeling a little bit stronger I went off to the food bank. I haven’t been there for over a month and my assistant and I were clearly missed by some of the regulars. That is kind of comforting in itself! I have often found over the years that I usually enjoy hanging out with poor and marginalized people partly cause their quirkiness eases any discomfort I might have about my own and partly because these people are very reliable sources of good information about where the real barriers are and what some of the tricks are.
This particular food bank has undergone a major reorganization in my absence. According to the signs it is intended to be a temporary change of operations. Pardon me, but I have my doubts!
The immediate obvious effect of this reorganization is that all the waiting patrons were crammed into a very tiny area and it would seem that there was only one person available to process the waiting people so that they would get their ticket and be able to move onto the food selection area. The food selection area has become nothing more than a line-up to hand out bags of food as there was no room available to lay out the selections as in the previous manner.
I never actually got to the point where somebody could hand me a couple of bags of food. I actually went to the food bank twice today and left empty handed both times. The first time I went I waited approximately 40 minutes and not even 1 person made it through from the waiting area to the food distribution area. The second time, the waiting line was even longer and I didn’t bother to try to get through.
Now I’m sure you realize that I have the luxury of deciding to not use the food bank this week. I have many friends and a full freezer because last week was my birthday and I was sick and lots and lots of people brought food. Today’s trip was more in an effort to broaden the selection of food available to me as much of what’s in the freezer is sweet stuff – not really suitable to my diabetic diet. Be that as it may I have the privilege of waiting till Friday to find out if the food bank has figured out how to process people more effectively.
My real message here is: “What is the point of processing people, at least under these difficult circumstances”. Everybody’s going to get exactly the same food selection in exactly the same two bags. The food that’s going to be there this week is there already. Out of the hundreds of people who will use this support this week surly not more than one or two would be nuts enough to line up more than once to get double their allotment for this week. What possible purpose can it serve to force dozens of people to wait for hours?
I hope you realize just what sort of people are waiting, and that you can get a sense of just how much stress can build up in this kind of situation. The gentleman who welcomed me to the line-up in the first place has all the physical signs of living with psychosis which is controlled by medication which gives him speech and body tics. Another person down the line is a mother with a 3 year old waiting without even a single toy to play with, surrounded by mainly single men. This is not an ideal situation by anybody’s stretch of the imagination for a young child. Others are among the classically unemployable, who wile away their time either sullenly sitting in silence or talking to each other about how such and such a training program never really led them to employable status, etc, etc.
A naïve observer would perhaps conclude that the main activity of poor people in our society is to wait. My heart aches for the 3 year old who is already becoming well acquainted with this job description.
I’m not actually the huge rabble rouser that I would like to be in this kind of situation. Today it was easy to see that all that was required was for someone to break through the line and start handing out bags to each person. Bag by bag, person by person, the waiting line would have been dispersed in less than 20 minutes with no harm done to anyone, especially the Ontario government. But I didn’t do it and neither did anyone else. We are after all good citizens of Ontario.
Today brought lots of pain. I am certainly not catching my rhythm this week. I guess that’s to be expected, but I don’t expect it! I find it frustrating and worry creating. Am I really as well as it seemed yesterday?
Well, time will tell won’t it! In the meantime I am just simply in the journey.
Here is the story I wrote for my other blog.
Mind Boggled Again
Well, this is another story related to the Daily Bread Food Bank. I don’t mean to pick on them. This particular food bank is the source of an important resource to me at this time. We are related. But, it’s a very one sided relationship, it seems. I have not yet figured out a way that I can enter into a genuine dialogue with this complex and mysterious organization.
The context for me is that I have been bed ridden for a full month – October to November 3. Because some will be curious let me just say that I have succumbed to a complex set of reactions to medication, etc due to the fact I have been in quite a lot of pain for over a year.
One of the factors which is quite relevant to this story is that stress leads to pain leads to stress. For just over a year I have been learning, as readers of this blog know, to live on the ODSP benefit in a neighbourhood which initially was not of my choosing. This situation has been stressful and so is a factor in my current physical condition.
So, today, feeling a little bit stronger I went off to the food bank. I haven’t been there for over a month and my assistant and I were clearly missed by some of the regulars. That is kind of comforting in itself! I have often found over the years that I usually enjoy hanging out with poor and marginalized people partly cause their quirkiness eases any discomfort I might have about my own and partly because these people are very reliable sources of good information about where the real barriers are and what some of the tricks are.
This particular food bank has undergone a major reorganization in my absence. According to the signs it is intended to be a temporary change of operations. Pardon me, but I have my doubts!
The immediate obvious effect of this reorganization is that all the waiting patrons were crammed into a very tiny area and it would seem that there was only one person available to process the waiting people so that they would get their ticket and be able to move onto the food selection area. The food selection area has become nothing more than a line-up to hand out bags of food as there was no room available to lay out the selections as in the previous manner.
I never actually got to the point where somebody could hand me a couple of bags of food. I actually went to the food bank twice today and left empty handed both times. The first time I went I waited approximately 40 minutes and not even 1 person made it through from the waiting area to the food distribution area. The second time, the waiting line was even longer and I didn’t bother to try to get through.
Now I’m sure you realize that I have the luxury of deciding to not use the food bank this week. I have many friends and a full freezer because last week was my birthday and I was sick and lots and lots of people brought food. Today’s trip was more in an effort to broaden the selection of food available to me as much of what’s in the freezer is sweet stuff – not really suitable to my diabetic diet. Be that as it may I have the privilege of waiting till Friday to find out if the food bank has figured out how to process people more effectively.
My real message here is: “What is the point of processing people, at least under these difficult circumstances”. Everybody’s going to get exactly the same food selection in exactly the same two bags. The food that’s going to be there this week is there already. Out of the hundreds of people who will use this support this week surly not more than one or two would be nuts enough to line up more than once to get double their allotment for this week. What possible purpose can it serve to force dozens of people to wait for hours?
I hope you realize just what sort of people are waiting, and that you can get a sense of just how much stress can build up in this kind of situation. The gentleman who welcomed me to the line-up in the first place has all the physical signs of living with psychosis which is controlled by medication which gives him speech and body tics. Another person down the line is a mother with a 3 year old waiting without even a single toy to play with, surrounded by mainly single men. This is not an ideal situation by anybody’s stretch of the imagination for a young child. Others are among the classically unemployable, who wile away their time either sullenly sitting in silence or talking to each other about how such and such a training program never really led them to employable status, etc, etc.
A naïve observer would perhaps conclude that the main activity of poor people in our society is to wait. My heart aches for the 3 year old who is already becoming well acquainted with this job description.
I’m not actually the huge rabble rouser that I would like to be in this kind of situation. Today it was easy to see that all that was required was for someone to break through the line and start handing out bags to each person. Bag by bag, person by person, the waiting line would have been dispersed in less than 20 minutes with no harm done to anyone, especially the Ontario government. But I didn’t do it and neither did anyone else. We are after all good citizens of Ontario.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)