Blue Heart
November 2016
You're Funding Movement Generation's Vision for Ecological Justice
November Action Opportunities
Take your support even further this month with these recommended actions.
National:
Stay Updated on Standing Rock. The Sacred Stone Camp is leading the peaceful resistance and organizing effort against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Follow them on Facebook for daily updates on the situation and the best ways you can help from afar.
Meet the November Artist: Erin Yoshi
"My message for folks in the Bay Area working to support black and brown-led movements for social and ecological justice is to unite over class lines and recognize similarities, privileges, and difference. I appreciate those who walk with sensitivity towards privilege, seek to continually understand the ongoing effects of systemic racism, believe in the right of self determination, and allow for communities to tell their own story."
Erin Yoshi's art goes beyond the easel. Her artwork is a reflection of her journey through the contradictions of life, amplifying the beautiful, the raw, and the downright ugly. The work is rooted in her historic, cultural memories and informed by current global conditions. She uses her creative practice to inspire, engage and transform space. Through her practice, she strives to create hope and lines of camaraderie. Yoshi is a member of The Trust Your Struggle Collective (US), COI (LA), and APC (Colombia). She holds an MBA in International Sustainability. She previously managed two public art non-profits as the Executive Director of the Estria Foundation and the Interim Director of the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles. Yoshi has created murals in: Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, the Philippines, Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands and across the United States.
Meet the Movement Leaders
Blue Heart Feature Interview We had the chance to sit down with Mateo Nube, MG Co-Director (pictured here with his son Nilo), to discuss Movement Generation's vision for a more just and equitable Bay Area.
Why We Love Movement Generation
At Blue Heart, MG continues to play a foundational role in our thinking about what climate justice looks like. As we connect with other movement-building organizations in the Bay Area, we consistently hear these organizers reference Movement Generation’s ideas and trainings as they wrestle with their own questions of strategy, leadership, and vision. MG "walks the talk." The organization is structured as a collective - they share ownership and co-create their vision for a just transition to a new economy that values life over profit. Blue Heart funds will support their Black Land and Liberation Initiative, which is reclaiming land across the U.S. and returning it to black communities that have been historically dispossessed of their land and labor. This program is advancing racial and economic justice in a tangible way. It is returning dignity and sovereignty to those that have been marginalized by our economy and contesting the structure of resource control in the U.S.
Gopal Dayaneni, Carla Maria Pérez, Josh Healey, Quinton Sankofa
Brooke Anderson, Ellen Choy, Michelle Mascarenhas-Swan, Mateo Nube
DIG DEEPER
Recommended readings and resources for Blue Heart members, curated by Movement Generation staff
What Does a New Economy Look Like?
4min Video
Gopal Dayaneni of Movement Generation deconstructs the problem with our extractive economy and lays out a vision for transforming our current system to “live better and more interconnected lives”. The ideas here are the bedrock of Movement Generation’s philosophy and principles. We highly recommend it!
MG Program Your Dollars Are Supporting!
9min Video
Permaculture for the People is a 2-week course training oppressed people in traditional methods of living in balance with their environment. Coming out of the most recent P4P course, four partner organizations are receiving 100 hours of work for community land projects. Over 500 community residents/year will benefit from using these newly developed spaces for racial justice education and healing, food access, local economic development, and community organizing.
Long Read
“Love” and “transformative” are two of the most watered down words in the Bay Area. This beautiful article seeks to reclaim and reground them with examples from today’s biggest social movements such as #BlackLivesMatter. How could you apply these concepts at your organization? Find Movement Generation’s story featured on page 39.
Resiliency as a framework to tackle climate justice
Long Read
Looking to get nerdy about resilience as a frame for advancing just and equitable strategies to address climate change? This paper provides both the 20,000 and 200 foot view of the what, how, and why of building resilience to climate in our cities. Movement Generation’s chapter is really good.
Putting Your Dollars to Work
Each month, $10 of your subscription goes to our partner organization. In October we raised $590 and this month we raised $810. Let's keep this community growing!
By choosing to invest in Blue Heart you are investing in social change not supported by traditional philanthropy. We believe that model is broken. Billions have been spent, but we are losing ground on most social issues. Responding to the root causes of injustice requires building the self-determination of the communities most marginalized by our dominant, extractive economy. And this means funding the small, scrappy, movement-building organizations on the front lines. Your ‘return on investment’ may not be thousands of acres protected or the number of jobs directly created, but rather stories of how the programmatic work of these organizations is transforming how their constituencies are resourced to reclaim dignity and identity. By voting with your dollar, you believe this type of transformation is possible.
Every three months we will feature a grassroots organization that is doing critical and timely work beyond the Bay Area.
In January 2017, we will be supporting the water protectors and artists of the Standing Rock resistance, as a powerful movement that deserves national attention and funding.
Upcoming at Blue Heart...
Icons by Federico Panzano, Edward Boatman, David Courey, Arturo Molina