Introducing MG’s 2012 Earth Skills Training Calendar!
admin : January 25, 2012 5:37 pm : allposts, Featured News
Movement Generations’ Earth Skills training track is a series of interactive, hands-on & land-based workshops. They are designed to help us restore and manage our relationship to our own work and to the resources that meet our basic needs. Organizers, community members and all participants will gain practical skills that both help communities weather the impacts of the economic and ecological crises, and lighten our collective footprint on the planet. We aim to cultivate these skills in organized communities that want to build grassroots power by creating place-based, community controlled economies.
Earth Skills Training #1 – Restoring Health, Childbirth & Independence from Industrial Medicine
Saturday March 24 | 10am-5pm | Location TBA
In order for our communities to be truly resilient, self-sufficient and able to weather the impact of scare resources (money, services, etc.), being able to access ‘health care’ in the basic & broad sense and not depend on the medical industrial complex is crucial.
In this training we will highlight the importance of natural healing. We will talk specifically about restoring the role of Women in facilitating health, and look at the invaluable work of Midwifery and birth as a clear example of one of the most fundamental human experiences that has been co-opted and highly industrialized as part of the capitalist/dominant-culture way of life.
We are proud to bring you Sara Flores – Certified Nurse Midwife, Nurse Practitioner in Woman’s and Queer Health, Registered Nurse and founder of the ReCLAIM Collective of healers (Resisting Colonial Legacy & Its Impact on Medicine), Atava Garcia-Swiecicki – founder of Ancestral Apothecary, herbalist, flower essence, acupressure, massage and dream-work practitioner, as well as other amazing midwives and healers!
Participants will learn practical healing and techniques from first-aid to making plant- medicine.
Earth Skills Training #2 – Bee Keeping
June (date TBA) | 10am-4pm | Tassafaronga Community Garden: 975 – 85th Ave, Oakland 94621
Collecting honey from wild bee colonies is one of the most ancient human activities and is still practiced all over the world today. Bee Keeping is the practice and art of maintaining bee colonies in hives in order to collect honey and other valuable materials produced by bees that have been used for health and healing for many centuries.
In this training we will consider the importance of bees and other pollinators at a time when biological diversity is collapsing at the fastest pace humans have ever experienced. We will learn about what it takes to maintain a bee colony, how to harvest honey and other products of the hive, as well as how this practice can strengthen our local community of pollinators.
This training will be hosted by Acta Non Verba: Youth Urban Farm Project at the Tassaforanga Recreation Center in East Oakland.
Earth Skills Training #3 – Gleaning in the City
August (date TBA) | 10am-4pm | Location TBA
Gleaning is the act of collecting leftover crops from farmers’ fields after they have been commercially harvested or on fields where it is not economically profitable to harvest. Recently gleaning has become part of an overall urban sustainability strategy, with overgrown fruit trees in residential neighborhoods being a major source.
In this workshop we’ll come to understand just how to establish a gleaning operation, that can not only meet community nutrition and economic needs, but also fosters building neighborhood relationships and networks that provide security and support.
Earth Skills Training #4 – Rainwater Harvesting: Installing Rainwater Catchment Systems
November (date TBA) | 10am-4pm | Location TBA
Given the critical nature of securing water in a future of water scarcity, we are excited to offer this training in 2012, after a hugely successful Rainwater Harvesting training this past fall at the People’s Grocery Garden & Greenhouse in West Oakland.
“Water is Life” is a globally used slogan that captures the critical necessity all living things have for this precious element. And yet, it has been turned into a profit-making commodity that prevents numerous communities from accessing clean water for their health and survival.
In this training we will learn about one step we can take towards becoming stewards of our own water supply again. We will install a simple and effective system to capture & store rainwater that falls on our roofs. This system is low-cost, low-tech and easy to duplicate in many urban settings!
Sign up for Movement Generation’s email newsletter, for up-to-date announcements as we develop details for each training.
Native Americans Applaud President Obama’s decision rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline. Obama acknowledges his commitment to Native Americans to listen to their concerns
admin : January 25, 2012 5:36 pm : allposts, Featured News
Congratulations to the Indigenous Environmental Network and other communities and organizations for their victory in stopping the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline! The decision by the Obama administration to deny the permit to build and operate the pipeline is greeted as a victory by Indigenous peoples who have been fighting to block the massive project that would carry oil extracted from Canada’s tar sands to refineries across the US and Canada. The following statement was released on January 18, 2012 by the Indigenous Environmental Network, including statements from tribal leaders and native organizations.
Bemidji, Minnesota - Tribal leaders and Native organizations from the United States and Canada are standing together today pleased that President Barack Obama is acknowledging his pledge to listen to the voices of this countries’ original people, by rejecting the Transcanada Keystone XL pipeline. Recent months have brought tribal leaders to Washington DC requesting Obama to reject the pipeline. “Tribal governmental leaders from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, the Oglala Sioux Tribe, and the Sac and Fox Nation met with President Obama and his administration in Washington DC in early December to deliver a message to reject the Keystone XL pipeline in defense of Mother Earth,“ says Tom B.K. Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network.
“I say miigwetch, thank you, to the Creator for giving President Obama and the U.S. Department of State the courage, strength and wisdom to deny the presidential permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline. Lifting up this issue as a Native rights issue bringing our tribal grassroots and governmental leaders together with environmentalist and private land owners of the prairie lands sent a message loud and clear that this was the right thing to do,” said Marty Cobenais, lead pipeline organizer with IEN.
Debra White Plume, a grandmother of the Oglala Lakota Oyate who was arrested in the Washington DC protest of the pipeline says, “Rejection of the Keystone XL oil pipeline is a reason to celebrate! At least that source of contamination that was a threat of our drinking water sources, the Missouri River, and the Ogallala Aquifer has been removed. Now we just have to stop the uranium mining that is poisoning the aquifer every day.”
“President Obama and the State Department deserve our thanks for having the foresight and courage to reject the permit application for the pipeline. The stated number of jobs on the project was so inflated that it started to outweigh the health, environmental and climate impacts being experienced by the Cree, Dene and Métis communities living downstream from the tar sands in Canada. In any of these carbon intense fossil fuel developments, and its pipeline infrastructures, economic externality costs have to be thoroughly assessed,” said Pat Spears, President of Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, based in South Dakota. “In the Northern Plains our tribes have alternatives for clean renewable energy.”
“This is one battle won for our Mother Earth,” said Clayton Thomas-Muller, campaign coordinator with IEN Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign. “Other pipeline battles linked to the Canadian tar sands continue. We remain vigilant in our work with First Nations in Canada and grassroots leaders to halt the tar sands. We are working with activists in British Columbia to stop the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, and other pipelines throughout Canada.”
New Video: A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests
admin : January 25, 2012 3:53 pm : allposts, Featured NewsDecolonize Jeju: Jam Docu Kangjung, Bay Area Premiere
admin : January 25, 2012 3:46 pm : allposts, Featured NewsFriday, January 27th
7-9pm
Eastside Arts Alliance
(2277 International Blvd, Oakland)
Hella Organized Bay Area Koreans (HOBAK) will be hosting the Bay Area premiere screening of short films by independent filmmakers about people’s struggles against the construction of a military base on Jeju Island.
On the island of Jeju, off the tip of South Korea, the South Korean government has been trying to build a huge naval base in Gangjeong Village that will not only host the Korean military, but also US naval warships and destroyers. From the beginning, the villagers have been resisting the construction of this base, but they have been brutally suppressed by the police and mainland military, as well as heavily fined for the “obstruction of governmental affairs.” This naval base threatens not only the ecosystem and the livelihoods of the villagers here, but the geopolitical balance in the region. Join HOBAK at Eastside Arts Alliance’s Final Fridays film screening to learn more about the incredible story of Jeju’s resistance against the naval base! Along with a full program and other solidarity activities:
INTERVIEWS — AnakBayan, Palestinian Youth Movement, and other allies will be interviewing each other about links between the many fronts against US imperialism around the world.
SONGS — performance by Dohee and Adria of Jeju Warrior.
VALENTINES GRAMS — send messages of love and resistance to people in Jeju.
Urban Tilth Honors Dr. MLK Jr. with a Day ON (Not a Day Off)!
admin : January 25, 2012 3:43 pm : allposts, Featured News
 This past Monday, Jan 16th, Movement Generation was proud to participate in Urban Tilth’s MLK Day of Service at the Richmond Greenway. Each year, Urban Tilth throws an annual day of service that brings 100s of community members together. This year, volunteers helped grow and maintain the beautiful community garden on the Richmond Greenway, while community organizations hosted tables of information and fun activities, and talented performers took the stage. 
MG has closely partnered with Urban Tilth in the past year, currently collaborating with them through our resilience-based organizing work. For the event, MG hosted a table with materials and info posters, that made the connection between climate change and the global ecological crisis and the importance of Urban Tilth’s work to grow community resilience and localize their food system! We were excited to be a part of the event, and to support Urban Tilth in doing the critical, powerful work that they are doing for communities in Richmond. To learn more about Urban Tilth’s work, visit urbantilth.org. |