Humanize the Earth!

one currenct project

One of the projects I’m working on at AboutUs is LASIK Dallas. We’re eventually working on each city.

new HUB Housing Cooperative website

hubcoop.org

It’s where I live!

Digital Excellence - Environmentally Sustainable Best Practices Improve the Well-Being of All Neighborhoods

I recently posted a link to the Ten Principles for Digital Excellence. Here’s one I particularly like:

7. ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE BEST PRACTICES AND INNOVATIONS IMPROVE THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF ALL NEIGHBORHOODS. The tools of the information age must adhere to and support the highest levels of environmental and economic sustainability. The city should use the new network as a means to disseminate and capture information vital to improving the sustainability of our city, such as gathering air and water quality data and improving transportation choice. Economically and environmentally sustainable processes for disposal and recycling of outdated electronic materials should be supported by the City and technology vendors in all communities, particularly those low-income areas traditionally targeted for the potentially harmful disposal of used and toxic computer hardware. The City and technology vendors should support the creation of neighborhood-based recycling and refurbishing initiatives for environmental remediation and job creation.

Academy Award for Best Networking

I received (credit for this post title to Lars) this email today (only emails removed, and link formatting changed slightly):

From: Janet Feldman
Date: Fri Feb 16 2007 10:58 AM
Re: O/net Conference: Networking Some Participants (Minciu Sodas, ActALIVE, et al)

Hello Dear All,

This is a networking mail for the Omidyar conference taking place in Gulu, Uganda, from Feb 19-21. I am networking people who contacted me abt it (from postings), and/or who are affiliated with Minciu Sodas, ActALIVE, and O/net. Have a fantastic conference, all!!

I’m delighted to read that Mark Grimes (O/net) will be linking up with Fred Kayiwa (Minciu Sodas). And to report that at least one member of ActALIVE will attend the conference, and represent us there. This is Dennis Kimambo (an O/net member too, who is also affiliated with the Peace Tiles Project).  Others may include Paul Mwirigi and Ron Odhiambo. Lars Hasselblad Torres (Peace Tiles Project), Joy Tang (oneVillage Foundation), and myself will be there in spirit!

Mark, hello and happiest 2007!   I’m hoping that you might give Fred, or post to some among us, the business-template program you mentioned when we last spoke. 

It would be very helpful to a number of us working within Minciu Sodas, and founder/director, Andrius Kulikauskas, including the Kenyan I was originally thinking about when we discuused this–Sam Kongere of Udogo Youth Development in Mbita–who is working on a project proposal including a crafts business and ICTs-equipped learning center, and could benefit greatly from this guidance. 

Others among us in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, and elsewhere could also benefit, as could the oneVillage Foundation, based in the USA and working in Africa (Joy Tang and Jeff Buderer). OVF is an ActALIVE member, and runs an MS forum called Back To The Root.

For everyone, Mark is a social entrepreneur who has created and worked with a number of humanitarian nonprofits, and is developing , an organization-idea-vision for “doing good”, which involves individuals and groups working together to make the world a better place (can’t get better than that!). has “in house” business models and outside partners, affiliates, and alliances, all working together on this vision. He is also a board member of the Peace Tiles Project.

As to other intros:

1) Christina Jordan is director of Life in Africa Foundation, located in Gulu, Uganda, and the primary organizer/host of the conference.   Immense thanks for everything, Christina!!!

2) Dennis Kimambo of Nakuru, Kenya, is a co-founder of REPACTED, a youth theater troupe which focuses on HIV/AIDS and development issues, and will be representing ActALIVE, a global coalition whose members use the arts to address HIV/AIDS and the MDGs.  I (Janet Feldman) am its founder/director, and I also run the international branch of a Kenyan HIV/AIDS and development nonprofit, KAIPPG.  I am moderator of Holistic Helping at MS, a forum which works towards integrative solutions to issues related to development (HIV/AIDS, poverty, food insecurity, lack of ICTs access).

3) Fred Kayiwa is a Ugandan student who will be representing Minciu Sodas and our various working groups. He is at Holistic Helping and Learning From Each Other

4) David Mutua is the Nairobi-based director of CAWD-Kenya, a branch of CAWD (Charity for African Welfare and Development), located in the UK. Pam McLean is the director, and is moderator of Learning From Each Other, at MS. 

5) Eric Wanjamah (hello Eric!!) is a social worker who is especially interested in helping people in special circumstances, such as those affected by poverty, HIV/AIDS, and war. He has spent time helping in Darfur, Sudan, as has another Kenyan, Moses Kariuki, who will be at the conference, but whose email address I do not have (hope people will meet him!).  Moses works with the Nasir Community Development Agency, an organisation formed by Sudanese who have fled Sudan, as well as friends from Kenya who share the dream.

6) Olivia Mugabirwe is an assistant lecturer at Makerere University (Education Faculty), who also works in youth-related projects, to enhance their participation in community development activities. She is a founder of PeerLink Initiative Uganda (PELI-U), which promotes youth involvement in HIV/AIDS prevention, care, support, and mitigation, as well as sustainable livelihood and environment management activities. PeerLink uses ICTs extensively in its work, and seeks to link “wired” youth (often in urban areas) with “non-wired” youth (mainly in rural areas). A unique aspect of its program is combining a focus on ICTs literacy and access, with HIV/AIDS education and prevention. 

7) Monica Nankoma works with Outside the Dream Foundation , a US-headquartered nonprofit providing education and more for youth affected by HIV/AIDS, poverty, and war in Uganda. She is based in Uganda, and has also worked there with Life in Africa Foundation. 

8) Issa Isihaka is a Tanzanian youth who is working with various organizations such as GYCA, ISCA (International Student Conference on HIV/AIDS), and ARYI. He is involved with issues related to HIV/AIDS, development, environment, ICTs, and education, and has recently attended the World Social Forum in Nairobi.

9) Ted Ernst is with the Humanist Movement, which has a number of projects in African countries.  Recently he and I discovered a common working link to a refugee camp outside Accra, Ghana, called Budaburam. 

10) Paul Mwirigi is an ActALIVE member who is with AIESEC Uganda. AIESEC is the world’s largest student organization, which has a number of programs including an international exchange program. AIESEC Africa is focused in particular on addressing HIV/AIDS through youth leadership and volunteerism. 

11) Ron Odhiambo works with the Sant Egidio Community in Kenya. In addition, he is an artist and playwright, who has created and been performing a play on the Peace Tiles (how to make them and what their purpose is) and has helped to facilitate the making of 3000+ tiles in Kenya. I am also ccing Lars Hasselblad Torres, Peace Tiles Project creator. Both are ActALIVE members. 

12) Ken Chelimo  is an ICTs expert who is working to set up the Kenya Telecentre Network, a branch activity of Telecentre.org and UgaBYTES, a Uganda-based regional telecenter network. Ken has recently set up an information-management system for Regional AIDS Training Network, a regional network based in Nairobi.  Ken is working with a group of nonprofits (including KAIPPG) in Kenya called GRASSUP NOW, who use ICTs to address issues related to sustainable development (sponsored by The Commonwealth of Learning).

13) Mike Wanyama is a Kenyan health advocate, and member of Global Youth Partners Kenya (affiliated with UNFPA). 

14) Abdou Karekooma is a Tanzanian post-grad student who is a long-time peace activist. 

With blessings and “O-ffections” (artistic and otherwise) always, Janet  (Feldman)

Digital Excellence

PRINCIPLES OF THE CHICAGO DIGITAL ACCESS ALLIANCEThe following principles have been adopted under the Campaign for a Community Benefits Agreement. We believe these principles should guide the development of the wireless network and the opportunities that emerge from its formation.

more …

Miss Shuganah’s Mutterings

I’d like to welcome Debbie to her new blog: Miss Shuganah’s Mutterings

Neighbors Project

Via west north is the Neighbors Project here in Chicago. An excerpt from their Neighbor’s Manifesto:

I call on the urban generation to fearlessly pursue our passions and principles in order to inspire and engage the rest of the country to come out of isolation and rejoin the local and national conversations. This manifesto is the embodiment of my hope in a cultural evolution towards an urban future.

I’ve been expressing for a while now that I think the future of humanity is in the cities.  I have some close friends that espouse a kind of “back to the land” philosophy that seems to take them to rural, or semi-rural places.  While I do see that we need to have a more intimate connection with the natural world (hence my involvement with the Chicago Conservation Corps), that natural world, including food production, is also right here in the city.  It’s close-by and doesn’t require burning fossil fuels to get to it.

Yoga for Geeks | Unplugging, Unhunching, Expanding

I just ran across Sarah Pullman and her site Yoga for Geeks | Unplugging, Unhunching, Expanding. I haven’t read much of either site yet, but she’s a geek for social change, and I dig that, so check her out!

link

I have lots to write about after my trip to Denmark and the Netherlands. Here are topics rolling around in my head:

• LocalNames and WordPress plugin
• Future of Wiki Conferences
• Opening Space at a traditional conference
• Inviting others to build groups in the Humanist Movement
• Air travel and terrorism
• BeyondYes, large-scale decision-making

For now, I’m jetlagged like crazy and will give you only this link to a revamped website of Council 257 of the Humanist Movement

70 Years Ago Today

This post from Michael J.’s Notiohas been in my drafts folder since January. Seems it’s time for it to come out. :-)  Cool stuff about co-ops.

Terry Appleby, General Manager of the Hanover Co-op, of which I am proud to be the current board president, wrote:

On January 6th, 1936, in the middle of the Great Depression, 17 families from Hanover, New Hampshire and Norwich, Vermont gathered to discuss the creation of a society of cooperation to meet their common needs. According to founding member Charles Bagley, “at the close of the meeting they signed the register, paid the initial fee of one dollar and became charter members.” They thus formed the buying club that later in the year would be incorporated into the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society, and joined with consumers in Berkeley, and Hyde Park in Chicago and many other places who were also inspired by the idea of the transforming power of cooperation.

One of the first purchases by the club was for fresh citrus fruit from Florida, scarce in Northern New England at the time. Hanover Co-op still celebrates that purchase with an annual citrus sale in January. Here’s hoping you’ll join in a symbolic toast (of orange juice!) to the visionaries at each of our co-ops who have kept alive this dream.

Cooperatives present an alternative model of providing goods and services. They are member-owned, and organize around serving member needs. Sometimes members are workers, sometimes the members are customers – sometimes they are both, thereby tying together the combined self-interests of producers and consumers. In an era of so-called “customer-focused organizations” with un-navigable voicemail menu systems, cooperatives provide an honest alternative to greed.

If you’re interested in learning more, or even starting a new Co-op, there are some good resources listed in the “Cooperatives” topic on this weblog, particularly around July 2003.