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A few years ago, I stood in a circle of people from many different walks of life.  Our group ranged in age from 20 to 70, and included people from diverse class and race backgrounds.  The leader of our gathering asked for volunteers to make statements that were true about themselves and step into the center. Then she invited anyone else for whom the statement was also true to step in to join them at the center.  This activity, called ?Common Ground?, was being used as a tool to explore diversity and commonalities within our group.  The statements ranged from lighthearted things (such as ?I love to eat?) to more serious ones (such as ?I sometimes try to control what I do not understand?).  In each case, a mixture of people, of varied colors and ages, seemed to be stepping forward.

Last month, four young immigrants began walking 1,500 miles, from Miami to Washington, D.C, to demand solutions to our country's failed immigration system.1

After walking 600 miles, Gaby, Carlos, Juan and Felipe are now entering hostile territory in the Deep South. Last weekend they encountered an anti-immigrant rally led by the Ku Klux Klan.2 And this week they will enter Gwinnett County, Georgia -- home of Sheriff R.L. "Butch" Conway, who is notorious for his anti-immigrant policies.3 According to Georgia immigrant rights leader, Adelina Nicholls:

"Sheriff Conway is one of the most dangerous figures in Georgia, who has turned Gwinett County into a place of fear, racial profiling, arrest, and deportation."

I had a conversation about this with a funder recently and we thought it would be interesting to share these musings with a wider community.  She asked me to ponder a few questions so here are my thoughts in response...

Describe(s) "transformative practice."  Not just the tools used, but also the intention behind "practice."

NBC News and theGrio.com have chosen YES! Jam Alumnus Omo Moses, Founder and National Director of The Young People's Project, as one of the "History Makers In The Making," celebrating 100 African-American history makers and industry leaders.

theGrio's.com honors Omo's leadership and innovation in the fields of Education and Activism, trumpeting The Young People's Project's national math literacy work and Quality Education as a Constitutional Right initiative. "theGrio's 100:History Makers in the Making" selected 100 individuals, each with their own path to success, from 10 fields including business, education, sports, science and the environment, media, service and activism, politics, health, pop culture, and the arts.

Dear Friends,

We have dived right into 2010 with several significant organizational gatherings around our Program Committee, Staff Development Retreat, and Board/Staff Strategic Planning.  It’s been an important time to reflect on what we’ve accomplished, take stock of where we are at, and vision into the new year and beyond.  So far we seem to be weathering a challenging fundraising environment with care and fortitude. Our extended community (that means you!) has been very present with us during our recent conversations and in all of our work, so thank you for being alongside in this journey.

As you will read in the next few blog entries, there is YES! action happening at every level with many different partners all over the world.  This is only a glimpse of our work still so we invite you to visit our newly formatted website, yesworld.org, to learn more.  Our Jam alumni database has been fully integrated there as well so you can easily access information about Jammers and their work.  Please let us know what you think about our new look and content after you visit!

Twenty-seven young leaders gathered from Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Tunisia, and the USA for a transformational week in Jordan's exquisitely beautiful southern desert. Jam participants built friendships and laid groundwork for vibrant partnerships, and gained support to empower their work for sustainability, peace, localization, community resilience, justice, human rights, interfaith dialogue, social entrepreneurship, youth development and conflict transformation. The Jam was held outdoors in the Wadi Rum desert -- a place of deep peace and deafening silence. Sessions were held under Bedoin tents, sitting on luscious soft flat, right up against towering pink cliffs that provided shade from the intense sun. 

YES!'s 8th Annual "Leveraging Privilege for Social Change Jam" will be held from July 26-August 2, 2010, in Ben Lomond, CA (the Santa Cruz mountains).  Join us for an incredible week of personal reflection, story- and skills-sharing, community-building, and transformational learning and healing.  The application is available on-line.  If you are a constituent, we hope you will send in your application, and please do feel free to contact us with any questions!

- Shilpa Jain, LPSC Jam Steering Committee Member and Facilitator
 

The Santa Cruz Community felt the hurt and divide after the murder of 16 year old Tyler Tenorio this October, and in the face of this tragedy, we remembered our partner Shilpa’s reflection that if divide and conquer is a strategy that has been used to destroy, then connecting and self-organizing may be strategies for healing and regeneration. YES! responded quickly in partnership with several local groups including Barrios Unidos, coAction, and Youth in Focus to host a community forum that served as a healing and coalition building response to the racially-charged murder. The dialogues that were already underway between these local orgs around collaboration for cross-race programming for youth laid the foundation needed for us to be able to mobilize quickly for a community need for unity and dialogue.

“As present and future leaders of our communities, we have to take action,” said Ivan ‘Sukkaydan’ Torafing, Igorot from Cordillera, Philippines, in his keynote address to the thirty-five indigenous youth leaders in the opening ceremonies of the Indigenous Climate Connections (ICC) gathering held last November 14-20, 2009.  The conference, in cooperation with Jaringan Tanah Hak Adat Bangsa Asal Sarawak (TAHABAS) and sponsored by YES!, gathered indigenous youths from 18 indigenous communities from eight countries around Asia to learn from each other and formulate strategic actions to address the issue of climate change as an issue of justice and self-determination of the indigenous peoples.  Moreover, it continues to train and build the capacity of indigenous young people’s in utilizing different UN mechanisms and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’ (UNDRIP) in advancing the issues of their communities and nations.