Profile | Guerrilla Griots Human Rights Media Arts Center

Username: guerrilla griots
City: Ithaca
State: NY
Ripples: 0

About Me

We believe that the planet’s current ecological and economic crisis is a direct result of criminal justice and environmental policies which promote globalization and massive industrial development over cultural diversity and community-based solutions to social problems. We challenge society’s current over-reliance on criminalization and incarceration by connecting 500-year-old issues of prejudice, inequality, oppression, and discrimination with the increased use of policing, supervision, exploitation, and resource extraction nationwide and abroad. We witness the ways in which these life-threatening conditions disproportionately affect communities of color from Indigenous people in the Arctic on the frontlines of global climate change to poor communities fighting neighborhood health hazards caused by big business, to immigrants struggling to survive and students of color in inner-city and rural classrooms being fast-tracked on a school-to-prison pipeline. Understanding that the health of Mother Earth and her inhabitants is linked to the preservation of biodiversity which is directly linked to the preservation of diversity of cultures, lifeways and knowledge systems, we work to empower youth and adults to identify the issues which adversely impact their lives and actively challenge institutional imbalances which threaten their futures and the futures of the Seventh Generation.

Cause Area

Education, Energy, Environment, Health, Human Rights

Change Agents I Back

The Big Green Bus The Big Green Bus | Leaner, Meaner, Greener; The Big Green Bus is Back!
Backed since 2009-06-23

Fan

Christopher Swain Christopher Swain | Swim For A Healthy World
Backed since 2009-07-10

Fan

Jevyn Nelms Jevyn Nelms | The Queen and The Pawn Go Back in the Same Box!
Backed since 2009-11-06

Fan

Tanya Fields Tanya Fields | Mom From the Boogie Down Seeks to Bring Urban Farm Uptown
Backed since 2009-09-23

Fan

My Recent Comments

  • also glad to hear that you and your comrade are "ok"... and still committed to the work... thanks for sharing and offering a reality that young people need to hear... sometimes activism is given a "celebrity" gloss (especially in this country) and it is possible to lose sight of the life and death nature of the work... many people have sacrificed everything (including their lives) fighting for what they believed to be right... so this is the real deal and give thanks that you can (and want) to keep going... struggle leads to progress and we send positive energy that your progress continues... good luck!
    Posted to Rachel Zedeck : The Dark Side of Working in Africa on Mar 15, 2010 08:03 AM
  • peace hashim... where to start is a challenging question... we just got off a 2-hour conference call for a statewide prisoner justice conference we have been helping to organize for the last 6 months... and it feels like we are no closer to answering this question as the conference fast approaches than we were in september; what we are realizing is that community organizing is a circular phenomenon... based on our experience, if you want a community garden, then you gotta engage the community in the planning, design, construction, and operation of the project... but the community feedback may differ from the initial goal... which requires more input and relationship building... which oftentimes brings us back "full circle" to where to start? preserving, protecting, and prioritizing green spaces is so crucial to our futures... and the healthy futures of our communities... we salute your efforts to enrich your area, and wish you all the best with engaging your neighbors on next steps... it is not easy, but well worth the time and energy! keep us posted... in the meantime, here is a link to a video we made about similar moves locally: Ithaca's Peoples Garden Project, http://blip.tv/file/2098312
  • thanks rachel... the used-to-be-youth in our collective wish they had a program like GGs when they were younger too! but we give thanks that working as an inter-generational team means we all get to learn and grow from each other... so even if we started later in the game, we all bring something dynamic and powerful to the mix; we definitely encourage everyone (who can) to use media tools to highlight their stories... almost all of the teens come into the program with little, to no, experience with digital video... and, yet, create some amazing work despite many personal challenges... so we can identify with our peers in Nairobi; we have discovered that sometimes, just having a camera/marker/mic/pencil/reflector in our hands encourages us to see our world with new eyes... along with our role in creating our futures! empowerment is infectious... and media-making comes in all shapes and sizes... so we are sending some positive energy to our comrades, and hope to share work soon!