[JourneydeJenny email 12/11/06] "Announcements ~ Jenny's Journey"

Hello friends!!

I am excited to announce a few updates to my yearlong journey as a traveling
cross-pollinator. (For a refresher on what I'm doing please see below.)


**!** Announcing my blog! **!**

You can now check out journeydejenny.blogspot.com for photos, stories and
reflections on my journey. This is my first time creating a blog or a
website, so please offer me suggestions for improving my communication with
y'all. I want this blog to serve each of YOU!


**!** Update: Community Supported Activism **!**

I am more than halfway to my $6000 goal to fund this 8-month global journey.
Thank you to the many dozens of people who have already contributed!

I have put myself out there as a Community Supported Activist because of all
the people who have told me that they support me and the unique work I am
doing. Please consider contibuting a few dollars if you are inspired by
this journey, and see yourself somehow reflected in this work.

I am using this funding to get to Africa and then visit and work with other
organizers in a variety of social movements. At the World Social Forum next
month in Nairobi, I will identify and connect with people whom I want to
learn from, and then spend 6-8 months visiting them (in Africa and SE Asia)
to soak in the nuances of their issues and strategies (and share stories
from Portland, as appropriate). I will report back in my emails and blog,
and then of course with the experiences infused into my work for the rest of
my life.

Contributions of any amount ($100, $50, $25, $10, $5, whatever!) are much
appreciated, and will go far. You can donate via Paypal on my blog
(journeydejenny.blogspot.com) or send checks to me at 177 Edmands Road,
Framingham, MA 01701.

I am so honored to do this work!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!


**!** Announcing my email list! **!**

As you see, I have put y'all into a riseup.net list to make it easier to
share cross-pollination travel updates. Please let me know if you don't
want to hear from me anymore!


**!** So where am I now and what's next? **!**

I just spent five weeks in Tucson, AZ, putting this cross-pollination idea
to the test (read about it in my blog). Now, I write to you from my
hometown near Boston where I am finalizing the details of my international
travel plans and working a lot of jobs to earn money for the trip. I am
also meeting a whole bunch of other folks heading to the World Social Forum
in Kenya next month - so exciting! If you are going to be in Boston/NY over
the holidays, gimmee a ring!


Many smiles and blessings to all of you...

in community and in peace,
Jenny
503-548-8459


p.s. For those of you not sure what this is all about:

I am taking a year to practice being a full-time networker among
social/ecological movements. I am building upon my five-year foundation of
active involvement in community projects in Portland, OR. During this time I
have addressed a variety of issues including innovative solutions to urban
growth and planning, public involvement, transportation, regional
governance, the built environment, fundraising, neighborhood associations,
non-profits and grassroots organizing.

Now I am seeking community organizers/activists to learn and share stories
about grassroots social/ecological change. I believe that our challenge and
opportunity is to see ourselves as an ecosystem of change agents--many
actions and relationships that build to create larger patterns/paradigms.

I'm finding that if we simply take a moment to listen to each other's
stories, or attend "someone else's" meeting or event, we would find quite a
few opportunities to learn from each other and support each other's work. If
every activist went to just one other meeting/event a month, everything
would integrate so quickly! So can we listen to each other enough to realize
our collective power?

I am planning to attend the World Social Forum in January in Kenya to meet
with organizers from around the world. From the WSF website: "The World
Social Forum is an open meeting place where social movements, networks, NGOs
and other civil society organizations opposed to neo-liberalism and a world
dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism come together to pursue
their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, for formulate proposals,
share their experiences freely and network for effective action."

After the Forum, I hope to spend 6-8 months visiting the people that I meet
there in order to learn directly from their experiences. I ask for your
investment of wisdom and support with planning and financing this journey. I
will bring this with me across the world and return with applicable lessons
with which to move forward.

My intention is that this journey both reflects and serves grassroots social
movements locally and afar.

See my blog for more! journeydejenny.blogspot.com