I understand that we all get tired. Hell, I am tired most every day when I wake up  but what is really stopping me from getting angry enough to take action. What is stopping the masses from rising up and demanding change?

One of the things that was shared during the conversation is that some of us don’t want to be seen as angry, bra burning, man hating feminists. Some of us are not even sure we are feminists. Some of us want to feel safe and at home in a community and to work collectively for amicable change. I wonder if those with power, status, and money will ever be willing to give up enough so that we all have equal chance for living our best lives. I wonder if in fact we have to take it from them.

All of this wondering reminded me of an article by Bernice Johnson Reagon called “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century“. In this article Reagon reminds us that in coalition we are not comfortable, we are not safe, we are not at home – in fact we are at war. We would not be outside of the safety of our own little lives if it were not a matter of urgency for us to be together.

I think about people like Gandhi and Mother Teresa who could envision a different way of protest that did not see us wrestling things from the hands of the oppressors. Mother Teresa said she would not march in an anti war demonstration but if ever there was a march for peace she would be there. I have felt that way myself. When I get riled up with anger, my energy is not peaceful. Neither are my thoughts or actions.

That is one of the reasons my friends and I took our daughters to Ottawa for a women’s peace march. While there we were assaulted by a group of men playing touch football. In front of our children, one of us was thrown to the ground and kicked repeatedly. When we turned to the RCMP for support, we were told “We had a safe route to be on and we had left it.” My response was to circle the wagons and stay at home. Hmm. Oversimplified retelling of a story but I feel sad about it just the same.

Today on facebook I received an invite to a group protesting the deadly beating of youth by police and an update about the rounding up of the so called illegal immigrants from local malls. Two big wake up calls that my city is not at peace. Many people are not as comfortable as I am. They have the war of greed, poverty, and discrimination in their faces every day. I am asking myself, “Am I ready for a revolution?”

Are you?

Historically women have received less pay for the work that they do and any work that is considered nurturing work is left to women.

Is that why we see so much community organizing being done by women?

What roles are women taking and being given in community building?

CONVERSATION CAFÉ

10 May 2010

6:00—8:00 PM

Seneca College at Yorkgate Mall

Room 218-219

GUEST SPEAKER: Tonika Morgan
Former youth activist, community worker, first manager of “Women Moving Forward” (Jane-Finch), and now a manager at Toronto Housing

MODERATOR: Deborah Konecny

Please RSVP by phone to: (416) 231-5499 or by email to: torontocdi@gmail.com

þ  Light meal will be provided         þ Child care available — by reservation only

I know that I have friends who inspire me in person. Their approach to life helps me to see different perspectives on issues and different responses to challenges. They are thoughtful and innovative. Their presence in a room always shifts the energy – okay maybe I can’t say that but it does shift my energy to a place of being more open and settled in myself. But online, it is way different. They lurk. They join groups, follow blogs, read articles, search for wisdom and truth but are noticeably silent.

When I shared this observation with chris, he replied, “Yes, the lurking population is, i agree, huge. But that’s the digital divide: lots of spectators and not so many spect-ACTORS (as Boal called them).

With a quick trip to google, I found more than enough information about Augusta Boal and Theatre of the Oppressed to get me started. (I bookmarked the sites that caught my attention to visit later as I continue in my never ending quest to learn it ALL.)

I have copied a paragraph from the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed website to share with you here.

Birth of the Spect-Actor

“Prior to his experimentation, and following tradition, audiences were invited to discuss a play at the end of the performance. In so doing, according to Boal, they remained viewers and “reactors” to the action before them. In the 1960′s Boal developed a process whereby audience members could stop a performance and suggest different actions for the character experiencing oppression, and the actor playing that character would then carry out the audience suggestions. But in a now legendary development, a woman in the audience once was so outraged the actor could not understand her suggestion that she came onto the stage and showed what she meant. For Boal this was the birth of the spect-actor (not spectator) and his theatre was transformed. He began inviting audience members with suggestions for change onto the stage to demonstrate their ideas. In so doing, he discovered that through this participation the audience members became empowered not only to imagine change but to actually practice that change, reflect collectively on the suggestion, and thereby become empowered to generate social action. Theatre became a practical vehicle for grass-roots activism.”

It has me wondering, “What can we do to increase the number of spect-ACTORS in our online communities?” I am curious to see if you have any suggestions.

Starting from Nina: The Politics of Learning. Directed by Rosemary Donegan, Anita Shilton-Martin, D’Arcy Martin. Toronto: Development Education Centre/Osterried Productions (1978). The Latin American educationalist Paulo Freire tells an anecdote about a man who had learned to write his wife’s name, and the emotional effect this achievement had on him. Shows the wide applications of Freire’s ideas for those involved in education. (25 min.)

Moses Coady: Beyond the Mountain. Produced by CBC History Television (2002), A biography of the life and exploits of Dr. Moses Coady. It follows his beginnings in Cape Breton, through seminary to his career at St. FX, highlighting his love of people and his drive for social progress that would be felt throughout the world. The film includes interviews with his colleagues at the Extension Department who participated in the Antigonish Movement. (44 min.)

The Man from Margaree: Moses Coady. NFB (1974), The story of Rev. Dr. Moses Coady of St. Francis Xavier University and the Antigonish movement. (1 hr.)

The Telling Takes Me Home. This video tells the story of activists and folk singers Guy and Candie Carawan. The filmmaker, daughter Heather Carawan, reflects on growing up in a musical and political time with her parents’ views on race relations, community organizing, and the power of song. The documentary includes footage from the Highlander Research and Education Center. (28:26 min.)

You Got to Move. A movie by Lucy Massie Phenix about a group of southern activists going through a course at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, founded by Myles Horton, and leading in the education of workers’ rights, social justice, and democracy-building activists since 1932. (80 min.)

Adventures of a Radical Hillbilly. Film by Bill Moyers, interviewing Myles Horton at Highlander Center, and detailing some of the history of this community-based institution that influenced generations of unions, civil rights activists (including M. L. King, Jr. and Rosa Parks), environmentalists, immigrant rights fighters, gay-lesbian rights activists, youth, and more. (2 hrs.)

Myles Horton, Paulo Freire, and Friends Gather at Highlander. Highlander Research and Education Center. (1987) This tape presents an informal meeting at the Highlander Folk School on Dec. 5 1987, when Brazilian educator Paulo Freire and Highlander founder Myles Horton met with local students and adult education workers to discuss adult education and related topics. (1 hr., 43 min.)

Highlander Research and Education Center. Various short films on Highlander and its 75th anniversary of working for a new world starting from Appalachia in the southern U.S. made recently. (20 min.)

The tone of her voice as she discussed how her relationship with Freire and his works impacted her own work was delicious. It reminded me of how I felt to be learning about feminism as a young woman – and in particular it reminded me of two guest lecturers I had the pleasure of studying with: Nourbese Philip and Lee Maracle. Both of these women pushed me beyond my own comfort zone and demanded that I pushed hard to learn complex thoughts and critically analysize how I was in the world. I still carry them with me today and remember them often when I find myself yearning and striving for my place in this complex world. I still want to do great things. I still want to read great pieces. I still want to sit in a room filled with people hungry for the same kind of change and expectant of the success we will feel when we get there.

I want to be challenged to always remember that any process I am a part of comes with the responsibility of ensuring there is protected space for dissenting views, critical thought, and action. I want to know if you will ask me provocative questions about whether I am walking the walk or just talking the talk.

(The article I am referring to is called “bell hooks speaking about Paulo Freire – the man, his work”, 1993. In Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter (McLaren, Peter & Peter Leonard, eds.) New York: Routledge pp 146-154. She later included these thoughts in a book called Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black.)

But I also remember the joy of watching women moving their hips under the guidance of a creative voice and movement artist. She told fifty women to pretend that they were holding a paintbrush between their butt checks and painting circles without embarassment – just the pure joy of being in their bodies with other women. I remember making quilts with women as a means to not only create something concrete together but as a way to allow our mouths to share hard truths about domestic violence while our hands were busy. I remember my daughter going with some friends to address the staff at her high school on what the staff’s role was in interrupting harassment based on gender or sexual preference. I remember last week when I saw one of those young girls that I ensured had access to computers because she was a girl that she had warmth in her eyes when she saw me.

So I can imagine we can change the world by investing in girls. Can you?

The Girl Effect

What amazes me is the power of simplicity. Today a parent rocked the reliability (dang or is it the validity?) of my questionnaire. She said engagement is not about skills – not at all. It is about access. And to a very large degree she is right.

So what am I am to do now? Am I engaged with a study that will be a part of change or am I involved with reinforcing the status quo? Have I been confined within the powerful structure of academia to have carefully chosen my words, have them vetted by my peers, have them reviewed by my faculty advisor, and approved by an ethics board only to realize that the very process meant to protect the participants in this study has actually silenced, or at very least restricted the conversation with, said parents?

Thinking about this reminded me of a book by Frèire called “Cultural Action for Freedom.” (Follow link to an excerpt of the book to which I am referring.) In one small piece he talks about the need to question textbooks. He reminds us that although they are seen to be neutral they are not. They are based on hidden agendas of the power brokers who had them created. I think it  calls us to question further not only that but the description of the project as it was handed to the author, to the people who reviewed the material, to the kinds of questions laid out in the exercises that went along with the reader. There is no story in the primary reader that exists without the social and historical context within which it was created. And presenting it as being neutral is a dangerous thing to do.

I think I need to question my own actions and thoughts. What am I doing that is perhaps restricting or silencing somehow? How can I change what I am doing so I am a part of democratic communication and a part of transformation?

I have begun to wonder if this dream of formalizing community development into an institute is somehow missing the point. Have we overshot the mark? Have we become inert because what we are doing does not touch the lives of the people we so desperately want to connect to? Can we be a part of transformational change while wanting to play it safe?

Maybe I just need things to get a little messy. I’m in no way giving up. I’m just questioning whether we are, or whether I am, on the right bus.

What do you think?

There was one powerful learning moment that stood out for myself, and that left a lasting impression on many of the participants. And it was the result of a mistake, an oversight by the organizers that created an unfortunate experience for a group of Onkwehonwe (Indigenous) youth who had traveled from communities out of Province to attend this conference. One of the scheduled evening sessions was about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on residential schools, and the relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities. And it was scheduled to take place in a bar – a place that serves alcohol.

The following day, after the morning plenary, the organizers acknowledged an oversight, and invited the Onkwehonwe youth to come up on stage and share their feelings and insights about this mistake. They were articulate, thoughtful, and angry. They proudly displayed their Six Nations and Mohawk flags. Several individuals spoke about what this incident meant to them, personally and culturally, and they shared their reflections on the impacts of residential schools, and alcoholism, upon their communities and their blood history. They put forth their perspectives on how a logistical decision of the organizers had sent a negative message and had hurt them. One young woman channeled her thoughts about negative perceptions of her identity very powerfully into a spoken word performance that brought a standing ovation. I can honestly say it was one of the most poignant and emotional performances I have ever seen and felt. It seemed as though collectively they were speaking truth to power, and we were all learning something important – but it had been at their expense.

This event may have changed the tone of the conference. By directly addressing a wrong, the organizers and these Onkwehonwe youth had created new awareness, empathy, support and interest in those of us who witnessed and heard them. It was an opportunity to address everyone that was not pre-programmed. And afterwards, at lunch tables and in hallways, people asked one another “what did you think of that?”

It has been years since I have seen Virginia and I was delighted to touch base with her to find out what she is doing these days. As a retired school librarian she is now caught up in a beautiful piece of work called the Children’s Book Bank. Located in Regent Park, the book bank is a place for children to go to have stories read to them and each time they visit they leave with a book to keep for themselves. How exciting is that!

This had me thinking about other book and literacy projects that I know about that more famous people have been involved in. Canada’s Ken Dryden shared part of his life story with a group of us attending a celebration of Social Development Canada money going into three large projects in Toronto. (One of them was the Families Are Important Resources project that I coordinated for three years.) He grew up in a family where his dad, Murray Dryden, started a philanthropic connection with Africa called Sleeping Children Around the World, and distributed bed kits, and when possible books, to communities. Or John Wood who was a big shot at Microsoft and left that career to begin a charity called Room to Read after hiking in the mountains of Nepal and feeling inspired to bring the joy of books to a beautiful yet under resourced country. People who stepped beyond their daily lives to take action.

I am curious about the connection between literacy, activism and community development. I know that people such as Virginia, Ken and John choose to turn a part of their lives over to sharing the joy of books with people both here in Toronto and around the world. But how is that transformative?

Judith Bernhard, director of the Masters of Arts in Early Childhood Studies at Ryerson University, shared a story about how empowerment work was linked to literacy in a class called Families and Educational Equity. She asked the class what was the letter Frèire often began teaching literacy to the people in communities? After several guesses, she shared it was the letter “O”. Why “O”? Because he wanted to begin with dialogues in communities about oppression.

Here is a quick piece from Freire about how we relate to our worlds: Paulo Freire – Before the word

As a child, books were a place of refuge for me. They lifted me up from the daily concerns of growing up in a complex world. As a young adult, I know that reading helped to transform my life as I became aware of, and competent with, the language of feminism. I learned the words to help me understand the experiences of my life. I continue to grow and evolve as I learn about the language of empowerment through things such as the pedagogy of the oppressed.

I get excited when someone shares a new book with me like The World Café: Shaping our futures through Conversations That Matter by Juanita Brown with David Isaacs and the World Café Community. A book can provide me a doorway into a new world from within the safety of my own home. Armed with the new tools I gain access to through book, I can go into the world and begin to transform the world one conversation at a time. Or for people like Virginia, by putting one book into the hands of one child at a time.

What about you?

We hope the newsletter will become an exciting tool to capture what things are happening in TCDI in the moment and share them with others.

If you see something that intrigues you, don’t hesitate to get involved. Post a comment or email one of the adminstrators. We will happily find a way for you to participate.

Happy reading!

setting_the_stage_NTM 1.1

There are other ways of looking at things based on ideas of social accounting or popular economics. Social accounting puts an emphasis on what value is being added. It releases us from the yoke of feeling like these projects just eat up resources and instead empowers us to see ourselves and our work as adding value. Popular economics takes economic tools and principles and puts them into our hands so that we can look at what causes inequalities and injustices and then to take action to change them.

In short, taking the emphasis off of budget can create a feeling of abundance and power in understanding our place in community and change. In the coming months TCDI will be looking at NTM project using concepts of social accounting and popular economics. We hope to create a theory of abundance and attract to us partners who want to be a part of the work we will be doing.

So how does change happen?

I have been contemplating that very question for some time now. I have been told there are libraries of books searching for the answer to just that question. I am not searching for complicated answers. I am simply interested in how change happens for ordinary people in everyday life. There are no doubt some simple truths – like controlled breath and jumping that exists out there in the quiet moments in each of our lives. And if we understand the alchemy of those moments, we might get some insight in how to bring about larger systemic change.

As TCDI begins its journey into the Naming the Moment process, we are collectively thinking about how change happens. In the next entry I am going to post some thoughts of other members of TCDI about how they think change happens. I find it all so fascinating and I hope it inspires you to share some of your thoughts on how change happens.

I know that when I was thinking about introducing this topic I keep staring at a blank screen trying to figure out what to say and then BINGO there it was. Sophia had sent me an email and in it was a link to a beautiful piece of art. (The picture below is from the video.)  It is a beautiful representation of how powerful change can be – and it captures the never ending cycle of change beautifully without words. Change happens with a flick of a wrist, the movement of grains of sand, or nations declaring war on each other.

Watching this short video took my post in a direction I had not anticipated. That is somehow poetic. Change often takes me on new adventures I had no idea were in the making.

Naming the Moment is a popular education method for doing social change and community development work.

There are two fundamentals upon which NTM is based:

1. Creating just relationships (i.e. anti-oppression alliances, coalitions, etc.) for the long term necessitates making LEARNING a central feature of social change
2. Change happens in society both incrementally (e.g. through institution-building, education, etc.) and suddenly when there is a conjuncture of various forces (political, economic, ideological, etc.) in a moment of crisis. (Naming the Moment sprang in large part from a process known as conjunctural analysis developed from the work of Paulo Freire, Antonio Gramsci and others).

Naming the Moment is a means by which people can learn to “read” these conjunctures (and the flows of forces that lead to them) and to predict to some extent the occurrence of and nature of such conjunctures.

Naming the Moment is a popular education method and thus a participatory and collective approach to learning that is based on social justice values and anti-oppression principles; it explicitly resists oppression and any unjust use of power; it seeks to build solidarity amongst individuals and groups resisting oppression; and it is a form of capacity-building for groups and individuals. It typically involves groups of people who share, in common, either geography, class, work situation, or some other form of identity (or set of these) and who therefore have the possibility of collective action to change the world in which they live. Popular education resists the structures of learning and teaching that create authoritarian experts and passive non-experts. Through democratic dialogue and using a diverse set of means of creating knowledge (e.g. talking, of course, but also including the use of art forms such as drawing, murals, ‘zines; popular theatre forms such as skits, sculpture, sociodramas, Theatre of the Oppressed; structured learning exercises of many kinds, etc.) popular education puts the tools of resistance into the hands of so-called ordinary citizens. It is a means of sharing power or practicing “power with” and of resisting “power over” as Starhawk suggests.

Naming the Moment has four steps or phases: Naming Ourselves, Naming the Issues, Assessing the Forces and Planning for Action. Each of these represents distinct goals and objectives for the collective work of sharing and analyzing experience and knowledge.

Naming the Moment is a dynamic process that grew from roots and connections between Canadian and Latin American educators. Developed within the Moment Project and led by Deborah Barndt (a ten-year effort within the Toronto-based Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice) it has continued to evolve as has its cousins in Latin America.

The Catalyst Centre, a popular education worker co-op in Toronto, has developed Naming the Moment by identifying and naming previously implicit steps creating a seven-step process dubbed Seizing the Moment. The steps include: Setting the Stage for Democratic Communication, Naming Ourselves, Naming the Issues, Crafting Meaning, Planning for Action, Taking Action and Evaluation. In Latin America – Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, et al – a similar process has been developed and is called sistematizacion. A difficult word for English speakers and difficult to translate as well, nonetheless, the concept of systematizing knowledge is one that is also key to Naming the Moment.

Systematizing is a crucial aspect of popular, participatory processes that desire to have positive impact on the world, i.e to advance positive social change. The strength of popular education participatory processes is the success these have in drawing out people’s experience, sharing this in a creative and even compassionate manner and affirming the struggles that individuals undergo. Not surprisingly, this is also the weakness of participatory processes. A common mistake is to facilitate a wonderful sharing of experience and to leave it at that. This is called go-aroundism: everyone gets their few minutes, shares their two cents, it gets noted on flip chart and then the facilitator thanks everyone for coming and the meeting adjourns. Lacking here is the struggle to identify patterns in experience (allowing for agreements, challenges and dissent), to explain those patterns, critique them and then to negotiate and affirm those patterns that are consistent with our values and resist those we deem oppressive.

This identifying and explaining of patterns is nothing less than theory-making. However, to call it this often relegates this practice to the domain of academics and intellectuals. Popular education processes recognize that everyone makes theory all the time. Anytime we answer the “why” of things, we are venturing into theory-making. Popular education recognizes that theory can be made through dialogue (i.e. democratically, critically, creatively). But more than that, when we make theory this way, informed by social justice values, anti-oppression and anti-colonial politics, we make better theory! Finally, this theory-making need not happen only in the halls of academe, far from the messy and noisy streets of our lives, but can happen – in fact, MUST happen – in the midst of life.

This is what Naming the Moment and sistematizacion is all about: the making of transformative theory from the raw material of shared experience and collective knowledge and doing this within the messy challenges of life (including feeding each other, providing daycare, licking envelopes, making phone calls, providing assistance to those who need it in order to participate, and so on). Systematizing means that we do not simply accept everyone’s understanding of their own experience as the ultimate truth of that experience. If we are going to find patterns that connect and that can change things for the better, then sometimes we need to challenge each other’s understandings (even of our own experience). Doing this with compassion and respect is a fundamental popular education ethic. A key challenge is to move from the simple collection of anecdotes to the systematizing of that experience in order to tell the stories of those patterns that connect. Systematizing isn’t merely a fancy word for theory-making. It is democratic and participatory theory-making for social justice.

But, as noted, sistematizacion is a mouthful for an English-speaker. It’s not a word that runs trippingly off the tongue. Nor does conjunctural analysis help matters much. Thus the phrase “Naming the Moment” which has the advantage of being understood quickly in a common sense sort of way. But it also acts as a powerful metaphor and statement of intent: one goal of Naming the Moment is precisely to identify the patterns of change and to name what is going on such that it can be changed: name the moment, as it were.

The Catalyst Centre’s development of Seizing the Moment merely fills in some of the pieces, locating the original four phases of Naming the Moment in the more complete cycle from planning and preparation to implementation (of whatever actions were developed) and evaluation. Seizing the Moment also encourages a stronger action footing than “naming” suggests.

So what’s this got to do with community development? A popular education approach to community development has several distinct advantages and at least one very powerful (and often deal-breaking) disadvantage.

First, the disadvantage: it takes time. A popular education approach to community development takes a great deal of time. And the structure of society, the structure and availability of funding, the urgency and magnitude of the work that needs to be done, most often compels organizers, activists and agency personnel to seek faster more expedient solutions. Put quite simply, a democratic and participatory process of social change that treats with equal value the means and ends is one that needs time. Information can be shared quickly – and all the moreso in our hyperspeed, hyoer-wired world. Learning, however, takes time.

The advantages of this approach are numerous especially given that it accomplishes a number of things simultaneously: relationship building, collective analysis, theory-making, policy development, skills training, and much more. It is community development for the long haul.

One final thing to call attention to is the role of documentation in all this. Naming the Moment has always put great value on documenting the process well. This is important both for practicing democratic communication as well as preserving a collective memory over the years. Thus the documents that follow:

• Revisiting the Boats and Canoes by Deborah Barndt
• ‘Naming the Moment’ – – a participatory process of political analysis for action by chris cavanagh
• Seizing the Moment – 1-page intro
• Seizing the Moment – 2-pager
• Seizing the Moment and the Spiral Model
• A ‘zine about Seizing the Moment (print it double-sided and you can fold and staple it into a booklet)

Newsletters from the 1991-1992 Series of Naming the Moment Workshops:

1. Oct 1991
2. Nov 1991
3. Dec 1991
4. Jan 1992
5. Feb 1992
6. March 1992
7. April 1992
8. May 1992

When I attended a conference for International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), I learned of a project in Bristol, U.K. where municipal government is using what they call E-democracy to engage its citizens in consultations about government planning. I was excited by the idea of this type of relationship catching on here in Toronto and have stayed interested in learning more about online communities.

I have been involved with online discussion communities for a variety of reasons. I have tried online dating, writing groups, debate clubs and social movement groups. Each experience has been positive in some ways but overall not satisfactory. I keep joining and creating groups searching for a place to experience an A-HA moment where I can see the variables that will create successful online democratic and engaged community.

Recently a colleague/friend of mine posted an exciting project that he is starting. Joel Gordon will be creating a collaborative film with filmmakers, artists, marketing minds, broadcasters, innovators and about online social networking. The project, called Connect with me TV, will capture individuals’ experiences and thoughts about online communication and how it is changing the way these people work with each other and the kind of work they do. This collaboration will happen by using twitter, facebook and blog features and promises to be an exciting documentary in the end.

I met Joel Gordon in the making of a short documentary about the Families Are Important Resources project. During the FAIR project, I attempted to introduce parents, frontline staff and other community activists to the online world through the use of yahoo groups, facebook groups, webpages, blogs and internet research. Some of these attempts lead to individuals increases their skills and use of online communities but there was no EUREKA moment when everyone got it. The project had hoped to achieve a vibrant online community with community generated resources. That did not happen but my belief that online communities could be magic has not waned.

This year Toronto Community Development Institute (TCDI) used online registration for workshop presenters and conference participants and this fall we will be formally launching the blog. I wonder how the use of technology will impact on democratic participation and hope that it will continue to open doors and connect people in ways that are empowering and facilitate positive change.

I began poking around the website and discovered a blog and many articles and books by him. One of the phrases from the web pages that stood out for me is “Doing Democracy.” Hmmm. What an interesting concept.

At TCDI we often talk about democratic processes. We encourage workshop presenters to approach their topics with this sensibility. We strive to use democratic processes in the way we relate to each other as TCDI organizers. Democratic processes are used by people who believe that everyone has a right to fully participate in all aspects of public and private life. But doing democracy, what does that mean?

In the context of Carr’s work, this means examining how educators shape democratic learning in schools. Are we just talking about it or are we doing it? It also acknowledges that democratic education is political work as it includes resistance to unfair practices and strives for change. I feel curious about how each of us is “doing democracy.” I invite you to share your questions, thoughts or experiences on this topic.

TCDI – Mission Statement (first draft – presented at Planning Group mtg. 09/07/09):
To advance community development and social justice in Toronto by creating inclusive spaces for learning and sharing, and facilitating networks across different groups which results in community mobilization.

Some Feedback Comments – TCDI Planning Group mtg. 09/07/09:

• The term “democratic” is missing from the statement.
• We need more reference to concrete activities.
• “Building community capacity” is a more attainable goal than “community mobilization”.
• We should have a separate “vision statement” to add concrete ‘ends’ (mobilizing for what?) to the ‘means’ of the mission statement.
• We could compose a grouped “statement of purpose” that includes together a vision statement, values statement, etc.
• “Facilitating” is a vague term, but appropriately vague for the context of a mission statement.
• Should it be “networking” rather than “networks”?

TCDI – Mission Statement (alternative draft – based on Planning Group feedback):
To advance democratic community development and social justice in Toronto by creating inclusive spaces for learning and sharing, and facilitating networks across diverse groups which builds community capacity.

The workshop Painting Our Stories – Engaging Community in a Storytelling Process (with Catherine Campbell, Deborah Barndt and Chris Rahim) produced this poster on the theme of this year’s Institute. Click on the image for a larger version (500K)

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