Food Solutions New England
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Day #21: Final Reflections
Today, we want to thank you for joining us on this journey to co-create a world that welcomes, celebrates, and values the uniqueness that we each bring. We invite you to spend a little time on this final day of the Challenge reflecting on how your participation has helped you to think, feel, sense and act differently as we move from “me to we” in realizing transformative change in communities, food systems and beyond. What have you learned? What has been affirmed for you? What new commitments have surfaced?
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Day #20: Catch-Up and Reflect
Again, we are leaving space on this last weekend of the Challenge for participants to catch up on any topics from the week that you may not have been able to get to and/or where you want to go a bit deeper in your explorations of a particular prompt, topic or materials. See below for links to all the prompts of this past week, all of which speak to how we can build “a bigger ‘we’.” Day #15 – Build Bridges and Solidarity Day #16 – Connect Food and Faith-Beliefs-Spirituality
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Day #19: Weave Collective Dreams of “The Better”
01 Learn At Food Solutions New England, we believe that vision and imagination are powerful tools for change in food and other systems that can help us forge paths to the bigger and better “we” that is desired by so many. As we explored in yesterday’s prompt, the stories we take in and share about what is possible for ourselves and others can have real impact and ripples! In this spirit, we invite you to watch and/or listen to two short segments of a video from a talk given by Penobscot educator, author and attorney Sherri Mitchell
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Day #18: Raise the Next Generations With Care
01 Learn Our children are our gifts to the future. Our commitment to these young people demands we celebrate their differences, acknowledge the challenges they face at different stages, in different places, and explore the possibilities for their future in ongoing and authentic ways. Though some adults have historically been reluctant to discuss differences among children, including racial differences, we now acknowledge that celebrating diversity and difference allows children to embrace their unique bodies, personalities and cultural heritages.The American Psychological Association encourages parents and caregivers, to talk openly about and acknowledge diversity, affirming that one “race” or
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Day #17: Make “Sacred” Space, Connect to All Our Kin
01 Learn Another way we can build a bigger “we” is to “take time out of time,” or make sacred space, to become more aware of and connect to the more-than-human world. We are one species among many, and Indigenous teachings remind us that we are so young compared to the sun, moon, wind, oceans, mountains and many other creatures, both plant and animal. It is important for us to know our place, and to respect what these other kin are telling us about living in right relationship with one another and the rest of Earth’s inhabitants.
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Day #16: Connect Food and Faith-Beliefs-Spirituality
01 Learn In 1964, as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he shared the following often quoted words “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.” Beliefs, faith, and spirituality shape our ideas of what is right and wrong, and what is valued or dismissed. They inform how we act as individuals, as communities, as countries, as part of an inter-connected, and interdependent global community. So what do
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Day #15: Build Bridges and Solidarity
01 Learn “Solidarity is a verb, a practice, a strategy. This is how Solidarity Is, a project of Building Movement Project, introduces their Principles of Transformative Solidarity Practice. The Building Movement Project also points to the difference between what they call “transactional solidarity” — being a spectator, bystander or mildly interested participant — and “transformative solidarity,” which requires us to challenge ourselves to commit for the long term, move away from the status quo and deepen relationships rather than walk away when they become hard. “It’s a daily, lifelong practice,” said Deepa Iyer, director
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Week Three Theme: Building a Bigger “We”
This week we will look at how we can continue to expand the “we” that we currently consider to be “us” to a larger, more diverse WE. Building “a bigger we” is certainly about creating more relationships and partnerships and a larger sense of community across human differences. This is also the destination of our work so that we might know equity and justice. If we truly understood ourselves to be connected to all other beings, human and more-than-human, and acted accordingly on a daily basis, we would be in a much different place. So how might we go about
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Day #14: Catch-Up and Reflect
More time today to catch up and also go deeper, if it is of interest to you. And a reminder that part of learning and reflecting is not simply about thinking, but also honoring our emotional and embodied reactions. There is important information in our feelings and bodies. Day #8 – Address White Privilege and Supremacy Culture Day #9 – Address Poverty and Othering of Those Living in Poverty Day #10 -Advance Nutrition Equity and The Right to Nutritious Food Day #11 – Advance and Advocate for
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Day #13: Catch-Up and Reflect
We are leaving space on the weekends for FSNE REC 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 of this past week, all of which speak to how we can mobilize and focus “the current ‘we’.” Day #8 – Address White Privilege and Supremacy Culture Day #9 – Address Poverty and Othering of Those Living in Poverty
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Day #12: Support Community Food Sovereignty and Self-Determination
01 Learn The idea of “food sovereignty” is central to a truly equitable and sustainable food system. This term is defined as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.” U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance is an accomplice that works to assert democratic, “people” control over our food
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Day #11: Advance and Advocate for Equitable Food Policy
01 Learn Many racial and food justice advocates recognize the need for a fundamental transformation of how food is produced, processed, and distributed and/or shared in our communities. Such a transformation would need to center the human right to nutritious food for all people, focusing first and foremost upon the people who are not equitably served by our current food systems. This level of transformation requires changing our behaviors at individual, institutional, and cultural levels. Therefore, new local, regional, national, and global policies —changing laws and regulations while providing the necessary resources — are
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Day #10: Advance Nutrition Equity and The Right to Nutritious Food
01 Learn Working for nutrition equity and advancing the right to food movement are critical ways to ensure that everyone has access to adequate and nutritious sustenance. Transforming food systems into ones that reflect these as core values requires us to identify and address the historic and systemic roots of racism, discrimination, bias and marginalization in our existing food system. As noted by Darcey Freedman and researchers from Case Western University, nutrition equity is a state of having freedom, choice and dignity in food traditions and culture that will support the whole health of
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Day #9: Address Poverty and Othering of Those Living in Poverty
01 Learn Addressing poverty is another focal point around which to mobilize allies, as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference exemplified in starting the Poor People’s Campaign nearly 60 years ago. Poverty is in turns exhausting, infuriating, and demeaning. Surviving it demands a high capacity to prevent the sense of not belonging from diminishing one’s soul along with one’s health and overall wellbeing. Poverty affects millions of people in the U.S. alone. Estimates range from 12.4% or 78.4 million people (almost 1 out of every 4 people) to 112 million (almost
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Day #8: Address White Privilege and Supremacy Culture
01 Learn The systemic racism in our food system and society specifically targets Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) and limits and/or denies them access to meeting their core needs for wellbeing and belonging, such as healthy food and water, shelter/protection, healing/healthcare, and education Although all people come from the same human species, homo sapiens sapiens, ideas of “biological race” have been incorrectly and deceptively used to explain both physical differences and diverse forms of cultural expression. This understanding is also used to justify unjust treatment of certain people and communities, despite being debunked by
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Week Two Theme: Mobilizing the Current “We”
This week we will look at areas where we can focus collective efforts with those to whom we are already connected to achieve equitable wellbeing, belonging, and right relationships in food systems and beyond. These are not necessarily easy things to do (all the more reason to do this with others), and we believe that shifts made in these areas would go a long way in bringing about a more love-bound community in the place of the current hierarchy of human value. Tema de la Segunda Semana: Movilizando el “nosotros” actual
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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