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Community Organizing Residency

Interested in a career in community organizing but wondering how to move forward? The Community Organizing Residency (COR) is a six-month, paid residency for people from different faith backgrounds who want to make community organizing their profession. They will gain social justice experience working with leading community organizing groups in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Read about 2010 – 2011 Resident Naim Shah in the LA Times: Working to boost social activism among Muslims Organizers bring people together to act on their shared values and interests, to create more meaning in their lives,…

You are American if…

You are exactly like me. For those who haven’t heard yet, a Hindu was meant to give the opening prayer in the Senate yesterday, but before he could begin, he was interrupted by “patriots.” (video) (background pieces, 1, 2) I think Anna of Sepia Mutiny has it right that when she says that the pilgrims came for religious freedom. However, we have to understand that religious freedom still meant for those who had the power to exercise it, lest we forget what happened to the Native Americans and great civilizing “crusade” of bringing the Gospels. Her intent is right though.…

Grass Roots Development May Hold Promise in the Muslim World

I would actually hope that it holds promise for everyone: There is, Khan averred, a “dominant player fallacy” or the tendency to place “too much reliance in national governments and other institutions which may have relatively superficial connections to life at the grass-roots level.” Thus, “urban-based outsiders often look at these situations from the perspective of the city center looking out to a distant countryside, searching for quick and convenient levers of influence.” The secret, then, is to work “from the bottom up” and not from the top down, as is so often the case. As he told the dinner…