Where have you been putting your energies these last tumultuous months? With the stresses of the pandemic, the ongoing struggle for the movement for Black lives, the reality of a summer with no camps and uncertain school plans for the fall, everyone is trying to hold things together as they seem to be flying apart. We are all operating under conditions of instability and full-on challenge, but it also seems to be a time of tentative hope and energized engagement.
We have talked a lot about how this moment of crisis is an opportunity, and how much potential is latent in the courage, creativity, and flexibility of our allies, neighbors, colleagues, friends, and family members. The old systems are breaking, their weaknesses revealed; they are ready to be redesigned.
This summer at GWI, we focused on pivoting to more online programs and offerings, while navigating the quickly changing conditions on the ground, as a team and as individuals deeply involved in our communities. Part of our mission is to illuminate the Good Work happening in the Hudson Valley, to shine a light on what Just Transition looks like in action. We believe in the power of storytelling to connect us and inspire us to make change. We are humbled and inspired daily by the people, projects, initiatives, and community actions that are growing and shifting in response to this unprecedented time.
And so, we are launching Illumination, a new blog series, to spotlight the many ways you are already building the future that we need here and now, bringing into being more resilient, regenerative, and just communities.
By hosting a diversity of voices and sharing the Good Work of vital initiatives, we aim to provide a clearer vision of what Just Transition looks like, refracted through the living experiences and aspirations of the people who are making change already.
The stories, reflections, and posts in this series will help guide us as we navigate towards health – economic, physical, cultural – over the coming months and years. They will provide a glimpse of how we can ensure that we rebuild our economy with a living sense of possibility, ensuring we build for equity and a baseline of financial security. They will encourage us to lean into the creation of robust new systems for shared resources and shared joy. How can we heal and move beyond division into a future of collaboration and wisdom?
We see the role of GWI as providing a platform for open exchange.
We are committed to encouraging listening and learning across a diverse array of people, who themselves bring different perspectives and life experiences to their writing and sharing. We aim for this to be a place to uplift voices that are not always heard, and to illuminate ideas that are not always seen, joined by a shared vision of a regenerative and just economy.
We can’t wait to see what emerges.
If you missed it, our last blog series, called The Transition Narrative, covered GWI’s transition from a traditional non-profit to a worker self-directed nonprofit, as experienced and shared by our team of six.
