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News from Leadership for a Changing World A program of the Ford Foundation in partnership with the Advocacy Institute and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University For more information about the awardees or program, contact Deborah Walter at dlwaltr@aol.com or (908) 522-1677 May 2003 Newsletter LCW BOUNDARY CROSSERS Cornerstone Theater and Faith-Based Community Partners Create New Play with Music
The Cornerstone Theater Company is collaborating with Los Angeles churches and community groups to develop and present an inspirational new play with gospel music. Called Order My Steps, it features more than 20 community members, professional actors and singers. The Black AIDS Institute, Watts Village Theater Company and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC) are co-producing the play. Bill Rauch (brauch@cornerstonetheater.org), the Cornerstone's artistic director, met Phill Wilson (phillw@aaainstitute.org), executive director of the Black AIDS Institute, when they each received a Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) award in 2001. Rauch and Wilson have worked closely to involve African American clergy in the Cornerstone project, which emphasizes boundary crossing and community building. Order My Steps is the latest project of Cornerstone's Faith-Based Theater Cycle, a five-year series exploring how faith can unite people — and divide them. Eight years ago, Cornerstone presented Central Avenue Chalk Circle at WLCAC, building lasting bridges between African American and Latino residents of Watts. Now Cornerstone returns to the same location, performing Order My Steps in WLCAC's Phoenix Hall (at 10950 Central Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90059, half a mile north of the 105 freeway, 213.613.1700 ext. 33) from June 12 to July 6, 2003.  TROSA Joins with Duke Center for Documentary Studies to Present Exhibit on Leadership
Until July 12, 2003, an exhibit at the Porch Gallery of Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies is exploring the leadership philosophy of Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers (TROSA). The exhibit, curated by Barbara Lau, with photographs by Cedric Chatterley, is called "Each One Teach One" — TROSA's motto. The exhibit shows TROSA residents learning leadership skills as part of their day-to-day routine. The two-year TROSA program helps drug and alcohol abusers change their lives by becoming active citizens and community members, not just sober individuals. Residents provide peer counseling and community support, and serve as role models once they graduate and transition into the larger community. Current residents, who graduated from the leadership program, help operate TROSA. LCW award winner Kevin McDonald (kmcdonald@trosainc.org) directs TROSA. The exhibit is part of an ethnographic research project on leadership, sponsored by the Center for Documentary Studies, TROSA and LCW's NYU/Wagner Research and Documentary Component. You may view it at 1317 W. Pettigrew St., off Swift Ave. (919.660.3663).  SVPAC and OVEC Collaborate on Conference Report: The New Environmental Activists
The University of Massachusetts–Amherst Political Economy Research Institute released a new publication, The New Environmental Activists: Fighting Pollution, Poverty and Racism by Building Natural Assets, based on a three-day conference in Baton Rouge in 2001. Participants included LCW winners Barbara Miller (paccrcco@imbris.com) of the Silver Valley Peoples Action Coalition (SVPAC) and the late Laura Foreman of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition (OVEC). Janet Fout of OVEC can be reached at ohvec@ezwv.com. The New Environmental Activists is available at www.umass.edu/peri/newenviron.htm. ANNOUNCEMENTS AND ACTIVITIES  Project HOME Breaks Ground for Learning Center and Technology Labs
In the North Central Philadelphia community in which 2002 LCW award winner Project HOME (maryscullion@projecthome.org) works for revitalization, more than half of high school students drop out. In partnership with the School District of Philadelphia, Project HOME plans to change that — by providing comprehensive literacy and technology education to 700 area children and adults yearly. In January, Project HOME and regional political and business leaders held a groundbreaking ceremony for the $13-million, 38,000-sqare-foot Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs. Project HOME is developing the center together with the Comcast Corporation and Lynne and Harold Honickman of the Honickman Foundation. A January 17, 2003, article in the Philadelphia Enquirer featured the project. Completion is scheduled for December 2003. LCW WINNERS IN THE MEDIA  Parade Magazine Tells Nation How SEARAC Assists Southeast Asian Immigrants
On May 4, 2003, the Sunday newspaper supplement Parade magazine, with one of the largest readerships in the nation, featured the work of the Washington, DC-based Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC). KaYing Yang (kaying@searac.org), who directs SEARAC, a network of 137 community organizations nationwide, won a 2002 LCW award. As Parade reported, she "spent 10 years helping fellow refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia set up their new lives in America... Thousands have been helped by SEARAC and its affiliates. They have gone on to become teachers, doctors and computer programmers, and many have returned to the center to offer assistance to others."  Financial Times Reports Phoenix Day Laborers Win Center
On March 19, 2003, the Financial Times Global News Wire service told how day laborers pressed the Phoenix City Council to approve their creation of a new day labor center. The Times reported, "For generations, the laborers, who are mostly immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, would station themselves before dawn on the streets near Paradise Valley in Phoenix. There they would patiently wait for hours for a 'boss' to appear and hire them to clean a patio or paint a house." LCW awardee Salvador Reza (tona@tonatierra.com), coordinator of the Tonatierra Community Development Institute and spokesman for the day laborers union, proposed setting up a center where the immigrants could wait for prospective employers. "After lengthy arguments with Phoenix councilmen, and with the support of several human rights groups, the day laborers finally got their employment center at the beginning of March." The Macehualli Work Center, partially covered to shelter workers, is on the outskirts of Phoenix on a plot of land leased from the city by the laborers themselves. As The Arizona Republic reported in February, "Part of the safety angle is a tracking system where laborers log how many hours they worked and for whom. Organizer Salvador Reza said lack of regulation has led to worker exploitation." Silver Valley Peoples Action Coalition Featured in Scientific Journal and Newspaper The February 2003 issue of a professional journal, The Science of the Total Environment, included an article called "A Critical Evaluation of Public Health Programs at the Bunker Hill Superfund Site," by John F. Rosen. This article emphasizes the need to remove lead contamination thoroughly from the interiors of the homes and schools of the Bunker Hill Superfund site. Also, on May 8, 2003, the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported that a judge in Coeur d'Alene, ID, denied a motion by Silver Valley mining companies to dismiss a class-action lawsuit focusing on the health and property of people living near mining pollution. Both of these articles described the work of LCW award winner Barbara Miller (paccrcco@imbris.com), director of the Silver Valley Peoples Action Coalition (SVPAC). LCW PROGRAM NEWS NYU Wagner Researchers Explore LCW Research and Documentation with Scholars On May 5, 2003, researchers at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service conducted a public conversation between scholars whose approaches have influenced the LCW's Research and Documentation component. Peter Reason, a leading expert in cooperative inquiry, is a pioneer in the study of collaborative, experiential and action-oriented forms of exploration. He directs the postgraduate program in action research at the University of Bath's School of Management in England. Jerome Bruner, a cognitive psychologist, promotes the use of narrative storytelling as a tool to understand human behavior. A professor at NYU, Bruner co-teaches the Lawyering Theory Colloquium. Reason and Bruner shared with the audience the intellectual history of their work, how they first encountered cooperative and narrative inquiry and how this influenced their own work — as well as the theory and practice of others. The audience joined the discussion. "The conversation helped the NYU/Wagner team both to continue to develop our understanding of research approaches that bridge theory and practice and to reinforce our commitment to develop practice-grounded knowledge in partnership with LCW co-researchers," says Sonia Ospina (sonia.ospina@nyu.edu). Ospina is a NYU/Wagner professor who works with LCW winners on a national, multi-year study of how community-based social-change initiatives perceive, create and structure leadership. Copyright © 2004 Advocacy Institute |