Week One
-
Day #7: Catch-Up and Reflect
More time today to catch up and also go deeper. Also, part of learning and reflecting is not simply about thinking, but also paying attention to our emotional and embodied reactions. There is important information in our feelings and bodies. Day #1 – Embrace Community Day #2 – Embrace Wellbeing and Belonging Day #3 – Embrace Fierce Love Day #4 – Respect Indigeneity and Right Relationship Day #5 – Celebrate Diversity, Embrace Equity, Practice Inclusion If you are comfortable doing
-
Day #6: Catch-Up and Reflect
We are leaving space on the weekends for Challenge participants to catch up on any topics from the week that you may not have been able to get to and/or to go a bit deeper in your explorations of a particular prompt, topic or materials. See below for links to all the prompts so far, all of which speak to how we can shift from “me to we” in our thinking, feeling and activity. Day #1 – Embrace Community Day #2 – Embrace Wellbeing and Belonging Day #3 – Embrace
-
Day #5: Celebrate Diversity, Embrace Equity, Practice Inclusion
01 Learn Diversity, or variety and difference, is a source of joy and creativity in life. Those who would choose to deny difference, and reduce “we-ness” to only those they perceive as being exactly like themselves, are actually saying “no” to the many gifts we all have been given as human beings. Diversity in both the human and more-than-human realm (think biodiversity) is also a key to resilience and provides the raw materials from which to fashion new possibilities and solutions. So we say, celebrate the diversity! Diversity in and of itself connects to,
-
Day #4: Respect Indigeneity and Right Relationship
01 Learn Experiences of and access to love, wellbeing and belonging are impacted by history and the situations in which people live and grow. The current dominant food system in North America is directly connected to the colonial patterns that have been practiced here for hundreds of years. These practices have othered and oppressed Indigenous peoples and their communities with devastating impacts to their wellbeing. Penobscot lawyer, activist and teacher, Sherri Mitchell (Weh’na Ha’mu Kwasset) defines colonization as “the act of appropriating or forcibly overtaking a place and exerting control over it.” The process of “settling” this
-
Day #3: Embrace Fierce Love
01 Learn What’s love got to do with racial equity and social justice? The Reverend Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Senior Minister at the Middle Collegiate Church (a 900-member multiracial, multicultural, and inclusive congregation in New York City) and curator of the Revolutionary Love Conference, explains – “Racism is a putrid, festering hole in our nation’s soul, and that will only change when we have the courage to love in a different way. That love must become an everyday spiritual practice, like flossing or brushing our teeth.” And Dr. Gail Christopher, long-time social justice advocate and catalyst of the
-
Day #2: Embrace Wellbeing and Belonging
01 Learn Another way to put more “we” in what otherwise might be only thinking about “me” is to embrace wellbeing and belonging. “We are all wired for wellbeing.” So say our friends at The Full Frame Initiative (FFI). Wellbeing is about the wholeness of people and communities. According to FFI, wellbeing is the combination of needs and experiences that are necessary for us to successfully navigate challenges and to have health and hope. Wellbeing is based on five core factors that are largely socially determined: safety, stability, mastery, connectedness, and meaningful access to relevant resources. To
-
Day #1: Embrace Community
01 Learn One way to “shift from me to we” is to embrace community, or what we hold in common. What is community, and why does it matter to our work for equity and social justice in food and other systems? Early on in our equity learning journey at Food Solutions New England, our Network Team read portions of john a. powell’s powerful book Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society. In it he writes, “There is a need for an alternative vision, a beloved (emphasis added) community where
-
Week One Theme: “Shifting From Me to We”
This week will look at why it is important to shift perspective from seeing ourselves as completely separate individuals guided only by self-interest, to understanding ourselves as unique beings who are also a part of something much larger and wonderful. It seems that many of the social and systemic challenges we face come from our failure to acknowledge our fundamental interconnectedness, or as Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, that we are “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Until we “remember to re-member,” there is only so much progress we