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Organization: Institute for Community Leadership
The following information may be cited or quoted as long as the source is accurately mentioned and the words are not taken out of context.
Posted: Jan. 31 2010,17:58 If you wrote this report, you will find a button here that you may click
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Postal address of organization/institution

24833 180th Ave SE
Kent  Wa  98042

E-mail address of organization/institution

Info@icleadership.org

Website address of organization/institution

www.icleadership.org

Telephone of organization/institution

253 872 3612

PRIORITIES: All of the organization's domains of culture of peace activity

EDUCATION FOR PEACE
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
HUMAN RIGHTS
DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION
UNDERSTANDING, TOLERANCE AND SOLIDARITY
INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY

TOP PRIORITY: The organization's most important culture of peace activity

EDUCATION FOR PEACE

PARTNERSHIPS AND NETWORKS: What partnerships and networks does your organization participate in, thus strengthening the global movement for a culture of peace?

Martin  Luther  King Jr Freedom Center, Oakland California.
62 school districs in rural, urban and tribal communities of the West Coast.
Legacy of  Jack Hunter O'Dell and Martin Luther King Jr and the O'Dell Center in the State of Washington

ACTIONS: What activities have been undertaken by your organization to promote a culture of peace and nonviolence during the ten years of the Decade? If you already made a report in 2005, your information from 2005 will be included in the 2010 report.

Conduct Nonviolence Leadership Poetry Workshops in 62 school districts of west coast, with delegations traveling to 17 states, Nicaragua, Cuba, Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada and El Salvador.
Nonviolence Leadership Poetry curriculum and trainings for community organizers and teachers offered at 180 acre training facility, and in school and community centers across the United States.
Inter-racial, inter-generational, diverse team of trained presenters working on completion of Doctorates in Education featuring Nonviolence Leadership Curriculum of the Institute for Community Leadership with Fielding Graduate University.
23 city Gratitude for Peace Tour with diverse youth of various regions, meeting with Congressional delegations, faith based institutions, tribal leadership, solidarity and peace organizations, Summer 2007.
Presentation of Paper on Role of Nonviolence Leadership Workshops in Shaping Democracy in World Peace Forum, Vancouver Canada, 2005.
Participation in Congressional Civil Rights Tour with 38 members of Congress to Selma, Birmingham and Montgomery Alabama, 2008.

PROGRESS: Has your organization seen progress toward a culture of peace and nonviolence in your domain of action and in your constituency during the second half of the Decade?

Because of the success we have had in the schools over the past 10 years we now operate an Education and Reflection Center that focuses on cadre and movement development work through nonviolence and literacy. Programming at The Jack Hunter O’Dell Education and Reflection Center (The O’Dell Center) utilizes the literacy process--specifically reading, writing, and listening.  Our curriculum has been developed over fifteen years of intensive regional, national and international work, and incorporates poetry written by poets of the Americas, with social content.  The curriculum increases the analytical, problem solving, and social skills of student participants.  In essence, it is a truly innovative and highly successful effort at assisting youth and adults to discover their place in the world and grow the tools necessary to develop their ability to change themselves, influence change in those around them, and actively participate in organized change movements. In addition, advanced weekly study session are held for adults concerned with cadre and movement development. More experienced members scaffold new comers to the work of organizing for change by modeling and through direct instruction.

OBSTACLES: Has your organization faced any obstacles to implementing the culture of peace and nonviolence? If so, what were they?

Youth today are in need of those internal and external resources that enable one to overcome weaknesses and confront fears, to walk down hallways and sidewalks and confront peer pressure to do lousy in school, cultivate violence to solve problems, disrespect others, and pursue instant gratification answers to loneliness and fear.  We need to provide youth today with the opportunity to develop relationships with courageous youth and adults willing to stand up, speak up and risk the rejection of making choices pushing back against the status quo.  Youth and adults willing to pass up personal comfort and satisfaction for group or other centered comfort and satisfaction.

PLANS: What new engagements are planned by your organization in the short, medium and long term to promote a culture of peace and nonviolence?

ICL, a nonviolence education/action organization, organizes education and advocacy work in communities throughout Washington State and around the country.  ICL’s mission is to empower individuals and organizations to create a more just nation and world and to develop and sustain within themselves the strength, hope, leadership and organizational integrity to bring about that vision. We collaborate with local organizations and institutions. Our most basic work takes place in public schools, or through tribal, municipal or country agencies and community based organizations. ICL produces nonviolence education through a variety of well-proven, interactive venues including workshops, seminars, trainings, organizing, teach-ins, rallies and assemblies.
ICL is dedicated to personal character transformation and social change.  The primary goals of ICL are to inspire voice from the voiceless and elicit power from the powerless through developing one's inner realm strength--knowing your values, where you come from, a sense of purpose in life, developing integrity, self-esteem, humility and honesty.  Then making contributions to society according to one's own beliefs and values.  
All of ICL’s nonviolence efforts prepare individuals and families to engage in their own reality, and to authentically integrate in the economic, political and cultural tensions that affect them and their communities. ICL’s programs conform to Dr. Martin Luther. King Jr.’s six principles of nonviolence.  Each program develops in the context of struggle against what Dr. King calls our nation’s “triplets of injustice: racism, materialism and militarism” and prepares individuals and families to struggle for their own vision of a more just, peace-filled and democratic community and country.

GLOBAL MOVEMENT: How do you think the culture of peace and nonviolence could be strengthened and supported at the world level??

“Education needs to go where life goes. It is foolish that education takes up the only time man has for preparation without actually preparing him. Education needs to give the means to solve the problems that life may present. The great human problems are: the preservation of existence and the conquest of the means to make it amenable and peaceful” (Jose Martí, Obras Completas, 2001).

The current moral and economic crisis facing our nation and our planet asks public education to redirect itself, insuring serious problem solving and courageous character transformation take place.  Theodore Bramweld in Education as Power (1965) defines crisis as “a major dislocation of institutions, habits, methods of living, skills and values.”  Value disorientation leads to scarred and distorted personalities.  Instead of experiencing life with purpose, individuals fall prey to instant gratification and shallow experiences in attempts to satisfy deep, moral dilemmas and pains. As society is faced with crisis and the weakening of values, beliefs and community relationships, philosophies themselves enter into crisis.  Teachers and school personnel begin approaching their careers in terms of contract hours, benefits and rights. Instead of teaching to arouse and inspire life, teachers teach for a living.  Students react to the shallow content and facts of text books with boredom, aggression, the inability to identify connection or purpose in school, and disrespectful, alienating behavior.  

In crisis, schools teach our students to feel good about doing bad, and feel bad about doing good.  Students learn to feel embarrassed and humiliated at expressions of respect, humility, generosity, loyalty, honesty and hard work.  And they learn to feel strength, power and acceptance from peers by acting with resentment, revenge, anger, bullying, arrogance and dishonesty.  

Public education is the foremost and single institution we entrust with the task of transferring culture and shaping democracy. In it we invest our hopes for the overcoming of both individual and group shortcomings and deficiencies. In public education we invest our anticipation of the more enlightened idea, the more noble practice and the fairer and just way of treating one another and living on the planet.
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Organization: Institute for Community Leadership

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