Improving communities and the lives of those who live there begins when we embrace the singular importance of neighbors being in authentic relationship with one another. In this fireside chat organized by the Tamarack Institute, Deanna Butz from the...
Author, minister, and liberation coach Courtney Napier illuminates below how the work of undoing racism and inequity is connected to the way in which we choose to conduct our conversations each day. She also invites us to explore three...
An urban neighborhood strengthens its community by asking unexpected questions
The Learning Tree initiative takes a different route to enhancing community by focusing on talents and gifts — not poverty.
When faced with an inability to pay their rent, mortgage or...
Strengthening neighborhoods often comes down to the simple habit of performing neighborly acts of care, love, and attention, again and again over time.
This approachable list from The Hopeful Neighborhood Project gives us some practical ways to tap into the...
Where lies the passage out of an economic and social system rooted in the illusion scarcity and competition, and into a system of living grounded in the reality of abundance and cooperation? Economist Dr. Olivia Saunders invites us to...
Places and the names we give them carry a poignant weight and power. As more and more community spaces, neighborhoods and buildings undergo change at the hands of developers with little connection to the people who live there, or...
"The social renaissance is happening from the ground up."
I start with the pain. A couple times a week I give a speech somewhere in the country about social isolation and social fragmentation. Very often a parent comes up to...
Angela Fell has her feet in the soil of Wigan, UK. In this straight-talking conversation we name the disconnect from real life and community we see in the patterns and behaviour of our 'democratic' systems and the institutions, large...
“Let’s have the courage to create”
— GAIA Journey participant
We live in a world of disruption, drama, and despair. All of these are real. But at the same time, we also live in a world of unparalleled opportunity — the opportunity...
As a continuation of our spotlight on the People's WPA by the US Department of Arts & Culture, the following are two stories of artists working within their communities to foster transformation toward a more caring, nourished, just and...
The discovery of imaginal cells, or discs, goes back to the 1600s, but the metaphor of imaginal cells was popularized by Norie Huddle in her 1990 book Butterfly. The story of a butterfly’s metamorphosis provides a lovely and useful metaphor...
As a continuation of our spotlight on the People's WPA by the US Department of Arts & Culture, the following are two stories of artists working within their communities to foster transformation toward a more caring, nourished, just and...
Traditionally, these Learnings share knowledge we have gained from innovative neighborhood and local institutional leaders. This Learning is different because in it a great institutional innovator speaks for himself.
The innovator speaking here is Mike Butler, Retired Public Safety Chief...
Sometime in 2007 or 2008, Tim Vogt, who directed an award-winning agency serving people with disabilities, had his journey interrupted years ago by a visit from three people who were unknown to him who got up and spoke at...
“Every human being is born with some sort of gift, an inclination or an instinct that can become a full-blown mastery. We may not see our gift for what it is. Having seen it we may choose not to...
Neighborhoods across the country bear signs of the pressing waves of development-driven displacement: boarded windows, doors hanging open, furniture and household items in front yard. Despite its impact on thousands of families and lives, the displacement that accompanies gentrification...
"200,000 Indianapolis residents live in food deserts. Low income communities of color are the most impacted by lack of access to fresh food. But communities are responding to these challenges by creating and controlling their own food destinies."
So begins...
What does it mean to be a neighbor? In what ways might it heal us to live in authentic, interconnected relationship with others who live and work just beyond our doorstep? How is the path to racial justice interwoven...
We have two options, most of the time: to interpret the "worsening" of conditions around us as a call to despair while disparaging and demanding more of "those in charge," or to look closer at the power that we...
In 2011, parents in the Richmond, VA community of Hillside Court locked their children inside to protect them from rampant gun violence.
Today the neighborhood is bustling with activities for citizens of all ages because a group of concerned citizens...