Last time I wrote I talked about how frusterated I was after watching the movie at our Americorps Meeting and how badly I wished I could be doing something. I want to go out and inspire change or help work to change.
Well today I received a link to a series of very inspiring videos. The web site is called Shatterbox.com and it was started about a year ago by a young woman who wanted to inspire... well people like me to do something they love and get involved. She is fulfilling this mission by asking people to post videos about their experiences working for an organization that they love. and then posting them on the Website. From the empty pages and apologies on some of the other pages its clear that the site as it exists currently is new or under a bit of construction. But it is clear that there are more things coming to shatterbox. There is a blog set up and entire community page filled with people who have posted videos and joined Shatterbox.
One of the people who joined organized something called the Purpose Project. His video describes this idea he had one day to put together the visions that all of the social change leaders had in the previous generations that are now reaching an age of retirement and use their stories to inspire the younger generations.
Its amazing to me how these stories can be so inspiring and motivational and at the same time so frusterating. Its refreshing, especially in light of so many things that I've realized about life and adulthood lately, that there are people out there who still want to inspire change. Not everyone is synical and willing to accept "how things are" or how people are. But how do I become like these people?
I guess this is a question I have been asking myself for a while now and its not a small question, I suppose, either. Its just something that I want desperately.
Wednesday, April 28
Tuesday, April 13
Social Change
On Friday at our Americorps meeting we watched the documentary "Crips and Bloods:Made in America."
After spending four years working at the Innocence Institute with a boss that went to Kent State during the shootings, and then spent his post college days reporting on crime and interviewing gang members and mob men before starting the Innocecene Project, I was well aware of the views the people in these communities develop about their survival and possibilites in life. I'd heard it from the innmates I interviewed for cases and from my boss when he told stories about the interivews he'd done.
My work at the Innocence Institute ended almost a year ago and Ive been thinking for a few months now how much I miss doing the kind of work where I really felt like I was inspiring change and part of something that was making a difference in society.
Watching this movie and talking to other Americorps members after it ended really brought all of that out all over again. I want to go to those communities I want to be part of something that is helping these young kids see that there are other things they can do. They don't have to do what they're parents are doing or their neighbors are doing.(That was a comment one of the men in the movie made.) I want to help somehow, but I have no idea how to begin to organize something like that. Or where to go to get involved in helping these low income neighborhoods or families where drugs and guns are sold like ice cream is in my suburban neighborhood in Alexandria.
Now the question is where to begin?
After spending four years working at the Innocence Institute with a boss that went to Kent State during the shootings, and then spent his post college days reporting on crime and interviewing gang members and mob men before starting the Innocecene Project, I was well aware of the views the people in these communities develop about their survival and possibilites in life. I'd heard it from the innmates I interviewed for cases and from my boss when he told stories about the interivews he'd done.
My work at the Innocence Institute ended almost a year ago and Ive been thinking for a few months now how much I miss doing the kind of work where I really felt like I was inspiring change and part of something that was making a difference in society.
Watching this movie and talking to other Americorps members after it ended really brought all of that out all over again. I want to go to those communities I want to be part of something that is helping these young kids see that there are other things they can do. They don't have to do what they're parents are doing or their neighbors are doing.(That was a comment one of the men in the movie made.) I want to help somehow, but I have no idea how to begin to organize something like that. Or where to go to get involved in helping these low income neighborhoods or families where drugs and guns are sold like ice cream is in my suburban neighborhood in Alexandria.
Now the question is where to begin?
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