Listening Project Training and Resource Center
Fall 2006 News and Needs Letter
1036 Hannah Branch Rd., Burnsville, NC 28714; www.listeningproject.info; 828-675-5933
"The Listening Project is a wise, simple, brilliant method for defusing community
conflict and engendering creative unity." —The Millennium Whole Earth Catalog
RSVP has always been a messenger of hope and possibilities. Yes, sometimes
all the violence and injustice feels overwhelming. The war against the poor, brought to
light in the aftermath of Katrina, and the war in Iraq are certainly good examples. On
the other hand, it took a decade of anti-war activity during the Vietnam War era to build
up the kind of anti-war sentiment we now have with Iraq. Opposition to the Iraq war isn’t
as visible as it was then – not so many media-covered demonstrations for example. Yet
poll after poll shows a high level of anti-war sentiment.
Our opposition to war has taken new forms and new levels of sensitivity to
people with opposing views. For example, we are careful now to communicate that our
opposition to the war does not mean we are unpatriotic or that we are against the
soldiers. Our movement is more intergenerational, more politically astute, less
polarizing and better able to listen to the concerns and needs of citizens who are
moderate and conservative -- and searching for answers – just like us.
I believe that the current rise in anti-war sentiment was partly made possible by
increased public awareness due to the successes of Civil Rights and Vietnam War era
organizers. And today’s anti-war work will strengthen future peacemakers.
We can never lose faith in the potential of human-kind. This has been brought
home time and time again through Listening Project interviews where we listen with
empathy and open-heartedness, even to those who have supported injustice and
conflict. As we travel down the path of listening, building trust and finding
commonalities that comes through listening, we find at the core of humanity openness
and a deep desire for justice, love and peace. Through listening we are more able to
find the way forward.
In this letter, we bring you people who show us the way forward and we
provide you with ways to get involved. I am eternally grateful for the wise and
beautiful souls I have met during this past year through the Gulf Coast and Harlan
County Listening Projects and through the visionaries and activists who come together
each year here in our community to celebrate and build a better future through the work
of permaculture. They inspire me and give me hope. – Herb Walters, Director, RSVP
THANK YOU FROM THE STAFF AND BOARD OF RSVP. YOUR FINANCIAL
SUPPORT IS GREATLY APPRECIATED AND NEEDED
The Gulf Coast
Listening Project
Post-Katrina Family Reunion
Interviews with Katrina evacuees
conducted by the Gulf Coast Listening
Project (GCLP) present an in-depth look at
critical social issues and possible solutions.
And the voices of these survivors are
becoming catalysts for change.
The Gulf Coast Listening Project is
composed of coalitions formed by
community, church and civic organizations
in Atlanta, Birmingham, and Columbia, S.C..
These coalitions, with RSVP serving as
project director, have thus far completed
and recorded in-depth interviews with 26
Katrina evacuees. Results of these
interviews can be viewed at
www.listeningproject.info.
GCLP interviews provide critical
analysis and insights on social issues such
as race, class, poverty, tax policy, national
security and ongoing needs of evacuees.
This is an opportunity not just to hear
people’s stories, but also to learn from the
wisdom, insights and solutions shared by
citizens who are, in the truest sense of the
word, “survivors.” It is an opportunity for us
all to create dialogue, education and action
programs in communities throughout our
nation that can address issues of poverty,
prejudice, inequality and human needs.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION
Education via the media has already
begun, including coverage in Birmingham
and an hour-long interview with WFAE
public radio in Charlotte. We are also
assisting staff from the Oprah Winfrey show
in their search for evacuees who can be
resources for an upcoming program.
Meetings of evacuees and local citizens
have occurred in Columbia, Birmingham
and Atlanta. Planning is now underway in
Birmingham and Columbia for dialogue /
education / action programs that will
address local and regional justice concerns.
In Birmingham, Peter Furst reports:
“We will be forming a task force that
includes representation from 1) agencies
serving the poor 2) already existing grassroot coalitions and advocacy groups 3)
individuals and families including evacuees
and locals who face injustice. The task
force will set priorities and discuss ways to
better engage those affected and how to
make services more effective.”
Methodist Church to Use Gulf
Coast Listening Project to
Support Multiculturalism
The Gulf Coast Listening Project will
be a primary focus of a three day long
conference of the Southeast Jurisdiction of
the United Methodist Church in April 2007.
The Southeast Jurisdiction represents over
12,000 churches. Bi-annually it has been
holding a conference that focuses on issues
of multiculturalism.
RSVP has been working with Rev.
Dr. Carl Arrington, director of African
American Ministries for the Jurisdiction and
a team of church leaders to develop and
conduct a three day workshop entitled:
"Listening and Dialogue as Tools for
Embracing God’s Diversity" - which will be
attended by all three to four hundred
conference participants.
The conference will feature what we
have learned from our GCLP interviews and
will bring participants into dialogue around
the issues of multi-culturalism, diversity and
inequality that we are addressing in the Gulf
Coast Listening Project. We are also
setting up the event so that there will be 40
to 50 trained participants who can return to
their communities prepared to conduct
similar programs within their own churches.
UPDATE ON
HARLAN COUNTY
LISTENING PROJECT
Drug Abuse, Economic
Development and the Arts
(from Robert Gipe)
Harlan PACT (Partnerships Affirming
Community Transformation) has continued
to work on processing and applying the
results of our 400 Listening Project
interviews. Many taboo subjects about drug
abuse and other problems in our county are
now more out in the open and being
discussed. Movement is happening
towards community-based solutions.
Meetings with the Harlan County Jail
have resulted in initiation of a counseling
program at the jail. Also, Joan and Andy
have gone on to put together meetings with
our local district judge and county attorney
and a counselor who has developed a nonprofit organization which specializes in
providing counties with a system where
folks on probation have better access to
counseling and training that will help them
figure out ways to avoid the behaviors that
put them behind bars.
I have enjoyed watching how the
Listening Project and the PACT play,
entitled Higher Ground, intertwine. The
play’s script would not have had near the
resonance, or some of its stories, if it
weren’t for the Listening Project. Both the
play and the Listening Project oriented
people to first look at the community’s
strengths and assets before leading folks
into an exploration of the challenges,
particularly drug abuse, that we face. In
many ways, the play was part of the
community report on the Listening Project.
It certainly put before nearly two thousand
people the issues surfaced by the Listening
Project in a way that kept them (for the most
part) from becoming too defensive. I felt
like the play also demonstrated how
addressing problems could be something
that is in part affirming of our community.
We’ve accepted three invitations to
present parts of the play and discussion
about its development, including the
Listening Project. One is at a communitybased responses to drug abuse conference
in Johnson City. Another will be at the
University of Kentucky College of Medicine,
which is considering working in rural areas.
The third will be for the East Kentucky
Leadership Conference.
I am also interested in connecting
the listening and the community arts to a
creativity-based approach to helping people
address their mental health issues—
particularly depression, anxiety, and despair
which are prevalent in economically
depressed Appalachian communities like
ours. These were primary needs revealed
by the Listening Project.
(from Andy Jones)
We have pursued funding from
Appalachian Regional Commission to work
on economic opportunities around our trails
systems. We’re going to continue seeking
support for the project, so I think there is a
Listening Project link to emerging economic
development activity in Harlan county.
“The Listening Project is the best
tool I know of for bringing people
together, getting people to talk, and
bringing out solutions to community
problems.” – Joan Robinette,
coordinator of Harlan PACT
Listening Project
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NOTICE: Unicoi County, TN,
residents, with help from
Harlan PACT coordinator
Joan Robinett, are initiating a
Listening Project to help
gather data about cancer rates
in Erwin so that a response can
be filed by Oct. 15 to a federal
health agency’s public health
assessment of the area
surrounding the Nuclear Fuel
Service Inc., plant in Erwin.
Southeast Annual
Permaculture
Gathering
by Chuck Marsh
An annual reunion of friends-family,
a time of retreat and rejuvenation,
learning, fun, joy and magic...
The 13th Annual Permaculture
Summer Gathering was held this past
August at Arthur Morgan School in the heart
of the Celo Community Inc. CCI is a land
trust with 1,100 acres of commonly owned
and environmentally protected land in the
Blue Ridge Mountains of western North
Carolina. CCI is also the home of Rural
Southern Voice for Peace, which is one of
the organizers of the event.
Permaculture is an ecological design
approach to creating regenerative human
habitats. The Gathering provides a place for
permaculture practitioners, organic farmers,
green builders, naturalists, healers, activists
and others interested in creating and
implementing sustainable ways of living.
We come together to relax,
rejuvenate, and share our knowledge and
experience with each other for the common
good. This year over 100 folks from eight,
mostly southern states came together to
delight in each other's presence and
recharge our collective energy for another
year of work for the earth and her
inhabitants.
Affinity circles take place throughout
the weekend to explore our shared interests
in various topics. These circles cover a wide
range of topics from wild plant and
mushroom forays, wastewater treatment,
food preservation, herbal mead making,
permaculture design, networking for
change, healing with plants, alternative
economic systems, urban design and so
forth. We share fresh food from our gardens
and delight in spending quality time with old
and new fellow collaborators working
and playing for a better world.
Saturday night we create sacred
space through a ceremony that calls forth
the human story --- including our individual
and collective struggles, hopes and our
visions for renewal. A torch-lit silent walk
up into Silver Cove then brings us to a ritual
return to earth, air, fire and water as we light
a bonfire that becomes the center of song,
dance, prayer and celebration.
The whole weekend is a celebration
of our love for this earth and each other and
a rededication to our individual and
commonly held commitment to serving the
life of this beautiful, though endangered,
garden world.
Entrance to the Gathering
First Annual Winter Permaculture
Gathering at the Peace Farm
January 12-15, 2007, Waldo, Fla.
(just north of Gainesville). Contact Jill
Shealy 352-328-1634 or
solealunadesigns@yahoo.com
Understanding Race,
Poverty and New
Directions Through the
Eyes of Katrina
Survivors
a playground, a lake, a tennis court and an
Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The building, which held so much
history for the black community, was
destroyed during the hurricane. But to
Cheryl’s dismay, the parish made no move
to recover the space as a community center
Interview with Cheryl Page, Atlanta, GCLP
At the time that Hurricane Katrina
hit, Cheryl Page was living in Atlanta, Ga.
She suffered no direct impact from the
storm, but her family suffered tremendous
losses. As the storm was approaching,
many of her relatives evacuated, traveling to
Atlanta to stay with her while they waited
out the storm. When they returned, they
found that everything—including the house
where Cheryl grew up—had been
destroyed. Cheryl is currently working as an
interview coordinator for the Gulf Coast
Listening Project.
Cheryl describes her childhood
household as the “center of the community.”
Her mother, Alli Thomas, had been the
eldest daughter in a family of eleven
children. She was nineteen when she gave
birth to Cheryl, who was the first of her nine
children. They lived in Pointe A La Hache
along a river that divided the rural
Plaquemines Parish, located south of New
Orleans and bordered by the Gulf.
“Even though my mom had nine
children of her own, she always had two of
somebody else’s children,” Cheryl recalls.
Her mother, a trusted member of the
community, acted as a counselor for
troubled youth, and her home functioned
more or less as a community center.
But Cheryl says it took decades for
the parish to establish a real community
center there that black people could have
access to. “As a child, we did have
community centers there -- but it was
understood that black people weren’t
welcome,” she says. In 1982, that resource
was finally built. Weddings, family reunions,
and other celebrations were held there. It
featured basketball courts, a baseball field,
once Katrina had passed. “They have since
put almost a thousand of these mini
traveler-trailers on the property – most of
which are not being used,” she says. “And
they closed in the swimming pool with dirt.
It’s as if they’re saying ‘now that it’s
destroyed, let’s keep it that way'.” That was
the single resource for youth that existed in
the community, she points out. “And they
could have put this anywhere else but there.
It means that all of our work in all these
years has just gone down the tubes.”
In an overview of life before Katrina,
Cheryl says, “Life was hard, and black
people were always pretty much out of
work.” The main industries that employed
black people were the fishing industry and
the coal plant, but she says that without
sufficient employment opportunities for the
upcoming generation, the community was
“beginning to die.”
Her mother, aunt, four sisters,
cousins, children and grandchildren left on
the Saturday before the storm hit and
headed for Cheryl’s three-bedroom house in
Atlanta, where she lives with her husband
and two daughters. The night before the
hurricane, 34 people were crammed into her
house, and 23 stayed the entire month. “My
neighbors saw the cars on my lawn with
Louisiana license plates and came by with
food and clothes and money, anything and
everything.” Neighbors even volunteered to
drive family members to pick up
medications and get the assistance they
needed.
In addition to hosting everyone,
Cheryl had to deal with a brief
hospitalization, leaving her with an $8,000
bill since she was uninsured. One of her
uncles, meanwhile, had stayed in New
Orleans and was missing after the storm.
He’d gone to the Superdome for five days,
and after they finally tracked him down, he
got on a bus to Atlanta.
While her family was treated very
well by Cheryl’s church and surrounding
community, they experienced problems
when dealing with any governmental or
social aid agencies. The Red Cross, the
food stamps agency, and others were
swarmed with hurricane evacuees, so there
were long lines to contend with that could
sometimes last entire days.
Her family members needs have
been met for the most part, but there are a
few unresolved issues that have led Cheryl
to travel back and forth to Louisiana to offer
her assistance. “Let me just tell you how
things work for poor people,” Cheryl says.
Her 75-year-old mother, for instance, has a
monthly income of around $500 and
multiple health issues. Her food stamps
were cut off for a month due to confusion
about her permanent address entry on the
paperwork, and no one from the agency
communicated what the problem was. She
recently had a problem paying her phone
bill, because the Baton Rouge mail system
failed to deliver her payment to the phone
company. Wal-Mart was unsuccessful in
tracking the money order she used to pay
the bill, and the phone company sent a
letter saying they would sue for the amount
she owed. “I told her not to worry about it,”
Cheryl said. “What else can they get? She
doesn’t have a house to live in; she doesn’t
own anything anymore. What else can they
get?”
It’s her family’s belief in God and the
Catholic faith that has carried them through
this, Cheryl said. “We all prayed many times
during that whole process, and we still
continue to pray.”
The main thing that makes it difficult
for people to rise out of poverty, Cheryl
says, is a “denial of access” to things like
higher education and well-paying jobs. “A lot
of people are poor because of low wages,
high living costs, poor education, lack of
health care, lack of affordable housing, and
expensive childcare.
“If you have an income that’s $601,
you are just past the poverty line. That one
dollar over can mean you’d be denied food
stamps, health care for your children, and a
whole host of things. How do you pay rent
and pay utilities and bring your kids to the
doctor? .... It all goes back to not having
access to the things you need.”
In Pointe A La Hache, Cheryl says,
the recovery effort is far from being done.
People are still waiting to settle insurance
issues, and anyone who lost a home,
whether they were middle-class or lowincome, was reduced to the same level after
losing everything. “They were basically left
holding the bag.”
When asked what lessons the
country could learn from the experiences of
her community, Cheryl responded: “We
need to realize that the U.S. is one of the
most unique places on earth, with a variety
of all kinds of people, and just because
some one has a black face doesn’t mean
they’re poor. The people you saw on
television with the bundles under their arms
and everything, not all of those people were
poor.”
When asked about improving race
relations, she said, “I’d like to see people
treated according to humanity, to treat
people in need without looking at the color
of their skin.”
What could be done to improve
disaster response? “The leaders need to
come together and stop passing the buck,”
Cheryl said, quoting one of the people
interviewed during the GCLP. She believes
the Gulf Coast Listening Project will provide
a “voice for the people.”
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Your community can sponsor and
develop a GCLP Dialogue, Education
and Action program with RSVP
providing guidance, training and
resources. Contact:
(www.listeningproject.info)