Project Partner Spotlight May 2012: The Vitamin L Project

Vitamin L performance

Every month in our email newsletter we publish an article about one of our Project Partners at the Center for Transformative Action. Our projects embody the principles of transformative action as they work toward nonviolent social change. In May we covered the Vitamin L Project. 

“I want to walk a mile in your shoes / I want to walk a mile in your shoes / I want to know what you think and what you feel / so I really want to walk a mile in your shoes.”

These words, and this song, are perhaps Vitamin L’s most popular song to date. At any of the fifty or so concerts Vitamin L performs in a year, this seems to be the one that most children know and love. In fact, Stonehedge Elementary in Camillus, NY decided to have the song “Walk a Mile” be their school wide theme for an entire year.

Learning to walk a mile in another person’s shoes epitomizes the purpose of Vitamin L Project, which is “to spread love and goodwill through music…to uplift and inspire young people and encourage positive character development through music.” Still going strong in its twenty-third year, the Vitamin L Project has given more than 930 performances. Most of these are at elementary schools, but the Vitamin L Project also performs at festivals, such as the annual Ithaca Festival in June and the Village at Ithaca’s Lift Every Voice concert in October.

The Vitamin L Project also gives leadership and performing opportunities to 65-80 youth chorus members each year. These young performers generally start in middle school and often continue on through high school and sometimes even college. Jan Nigro, the songwriter, is the only adult performer with the group, and he takes nine performers with him to each elementary school performance. The group performs mostly in the Northeast region, but has performed as far away as Atlanta and southern California.

Janice Nigro, the Executive Director (and Jan’s wife), says about the music,

“One thing that’s very important is that the songs Vitamin L sings are relevant topics for each new generation: kindness, gratitude, empathy, respect, and tolerance. When we get to schools we witness the kids really responding to these ideas. The topics tap into these kids’ inner integrity.”

An added benefit to the topics covered in the songs is that the performers are young adults who are on stage embodying the messages in the songs as they perform. “The young kids watching the show see that it can be cool to be kind; to aspire to be a person of integrity,” says Janice. “A lot of times society deals with problems after they happen. Vitamin L provides pro-active positive youth development through music.”

Please read the whole article here.

Please also visit the website of the Center for Transformative Action. Thank you!

Project Partner Spotlight April 2012: Veterans’ Sanctuary

Sign at the Veterans’ Sanctuary Farm in Trumansburg, NY.

Every month in our email newsletter we publish an article about one of our Project Partners at the Center for Transformative Action. Our projects embody the principles of transformative action as they work toward nonviolent social change. In April we wrote about the Veterans Sanctuary. Please read on for the full story.

It’s early spring and due to the unseasonably warm weather this year, the greens and garlic are already flourishing at the Veterans’ Sanctuary Farm in Trumansburg, New York. Two large greenhouses host piles of compost, trays of seedlings, and tools and materials for small-scale farming. Geese swim in the pond that sits next to “woodhenge,” a Stonehenge replica—still in the works—made from tree stumps. Two plots of land covered in straw await the next phase of planting. All around, beds filled with garlic line every conceivable space. It’s a place ripe with potential; a place where veterans can go to work the land, grow their own food, do something nurturing.

“In the military we are taught the exact opposite of nurturing,” says Nathan Lewis, one of the Veterans’ Sanctuary founders. “What we’re trying to do [with the sanctuary] is transform our lives into something positive that can heal us, and hopefully sustain us into the future.”

Initially, the Veterans’ Sanctuary—a CTA project since 2010—planned on having a residential program for returning war vets. The issues facing vets returning today are different from veterans who fought in World War II or Korea or even Vietnam. Suicide rates among both veterans and those still in active duty are the highest they’ve ever been. “We wanted to unite around issues facing vets today,” Lewis says. “We all come from a very diverse cross-section of American society, but we wanted to unite around issues of homecoming, PTSD, art and healing. Originally, there was a large group of us, and we thought, wouldn’t it be great to have a place where we could live, and work on these issues together.”

The residential plan is no longer a focus of the Veterans’ Sanctuary, but in addition to the farm, they recently acquired an art studio, and they host regular “Warrior Writing” workshops for veterans (and some non-veterans, too). In the art studio, they have the machinery to make combat paper, which is paper made from military uniforms. Veterans can cut up their uniforms, put them through a papermaking process, and then use that paper for art or writing. Lewis uses his combat paper for making the covers of his hand bound books of poetry and other writing. He’s published two books through the national nonprofit Warrior Writers, and recently donated copies to the Alternatives Library (another CTA project).

Every Monday is a volunteer workday at the farm, which is on land previously owned by Gary Redmond, who was, before his death last spring, a huge supporter of the local food movement (and owner of Regional Access). Gary donated the land and greenhouses, which were not being used, to Sean Dembrosky, a local food activist who needed space for a permaculture site. Around that time, Sean met members of the Veterans’ Sanctuary who happened to need land for a farm, and the idea grew from there. Today the farm is a collaborative venture between veterans—particularly younger returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets—and local food and permaculture enthusiasts.

Please read the whole article here.

Left Forum

Left Forum

CTA will spend this weekend at the Left Forum in NYC. This year’s theme is “Occupying the System: Confronting Global Capitalism.” According to the website, “The Left Forum convenes the largest annual conference of a broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and the interested public. Conference participants come together to engage a wide range of critical perspectives on the world, to discuss differences, commonalities, and alternatives to current predicaments, and to share ideas for understanding and transforming the world.”

This sounds like exactly the sort of conference the Center for Transformative Action should attend, and we’ve been preparing for it for weeks. CTA Executive Director Anke Wessels and Communications Manager Liz Field will be there at an exhibitor table to showcase our work with our Project Partners around human rights, economic rights, and creating a sustainable future. We will also take part in panels throughout the day. Choosing just a few from over 400 panels will be difficult!

Early registration is closed but folks can still register at the event itself. Saturday evening, Michael Moore will give the keynote address. Tickets are on a first-come first-serve basis. We’re certainly hopeful we’ll be able to see him in person. Also, we’ll be tweeting from the forum using the hashtag #LeftForum. Our twitter handle is @TransformAction. Please follow us or the hashtag for up to the minute updates at this year’s Left Forum.

Ithaca City of Asylum: New Video Offers Portraits of ICOA Writers

New Video Offers Portraits of ICOA Writers « Ithaca City of Asylum.

Ithaca City of Asylum (ICOA) is a Project Partner of the Center for Transformative Action. They are part of a worldwide network of Cities of Asylum, supporting writers whose works are suppressed, whose lives are threatened, whose cultures are vanishing, and whose languages are endangered.

The ICOA has been with CTA for over ten years, and have sponsored four writers to date. Please watch this video about their work, and see some remarkable interviews with the writers who have found asylum in Ithaca, NY

ICOA's writer in residence 2006-2008, Sarah Mkhonza.

ICOA's first writer in residence, Yi Ping, 2001-2003.

What is Transformative Action anyway?

Transformative Action is an alternative paradigm for social action that moves us beyond complaint, competition and “us versus them” thinking. Inspired by the non-violent organizing that erupted in the last century, Transformative Action has three basic components:

Breaking the silence that surrounds injustice

By breaking the silence around injustice, we affirm a fundamental premise of a just society: what dehumanizes you also dehumanizes me. Making the choice to speak out about injustice takes courage. It can require great emotional strength and the willingness to suffer unpleasant consequences. This action alone can transform both those who act and those who witness.

Building an inclusive movement where adversaries become allies

Transformative Action promotes the idea that our efforts to expand social justice are more fruitful when we replace “me against you” strategies with strategies that answer the question: “What is best for us?” This takes confidence that conflict need not be a zero-sum game, in which one of us wins and the other loses. Instead, we listen for shared values, common objectives, and opportunities for mutual benefit. We take time to build alliances, recognizing that true leadership emerges not from individuals alone but from communities working together for a common cause.

Transforming “me against you” thinking often entails attending to anger, pain, and resentment—our own and those of others. For most of us, this is uncomfortable. Yet, as a practical matter, people are more likely to listen to our views after having their own anger and pain authentically acknowledged. We are more likely to hear them, if our own anger has lifted.

It is worth taking time to consider this further. Anger is powerful and at times constructive. Yet, it also has a way of becoming a disempowering fixture in our lives. It can keep us from facing our complicity in our own condition, from identifying the real source of our pain, and from creating much-needed alliances. This insight is essential if we are to transform a stalemate between apparent foes into a unified, inclusive effort against common challenges.

ARTICULATING AN INSPIRING, PROACTIVE VISION

What truly inspires people are innovative approaches that allow us to see new possibilities. When it comes to today’s tough problems (global climate change, systemic prejudice, food crises, terror, persistent poverty) we must go beyond the methods that got us here in the first place. We must release old habits of thinking in order to imagine creative and participatory solutions. An inspiring vision of what we are for—that stays clear of blaming or shaming and resonates with our deepest values and beliefs—encourages us to choose connection over alienation, joy over despair, solutions over bitterness, and new insights over habitual responses. We imagine a positive future, bring it forward into the present, and then live—moment by moment—into the world we wish to create.

Visit our website to learn about how our projects embody Transformative Action

Welcome to the new CTA blog!

Greetings and welcome to the first blog post from the Center for Transformative Action! Our blog will feature regular posts from Anke Wessels, CTA’s Executive Director, Liz Field, the Communications Manager, and other featured guests. We will share ideas and thoughts about what’s happening in the world of transformative action, social entrepreneurship, social change organizations, and grassroots community organizing.