http://creative-empowerment.org Wellness Residency, Empowerment Institute, Partnership Facilitator Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:03:12 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Freedom Land    Quilombos are Brazil's version of Maroon communities, consisting predominantly of the descendants of escaped African slaves, who define themselves in terms of their relationship to the land, family ties, territory, ancestry, traditions, and cultural practices.  Over 3.5 million Africans were imported to be slaves in Brazil beginning in the ... http://creative-empowerment.org/2008/01/30/kalungas/ As in: This is “it.”What I know about Alto Paraíso de Goiás after a week: About 8,000 inhabitants municipality wide.  Settled by slave-holding colonizers in the 1750s, officially declared a city in 1953.  Just over 2 hours (220 kilometers) outside of the capitol Brasilia.  Situated in the Chapada dos Veadeiros (Dear ... http://creative-empowerment.org/2007/12/18/it/ (a little background reading)The following are some great excerpts that help provide the context for our interest in this region. The author, Thomas Isaac, has had a long career as an organizer and internationally known expert on cooperatives, paticipatory government, and decentralization. He is currently the Kerala State ... http://creative-empowerment.org/2007/07/30/why-were-in-kerala-india/ Week 2: Reflections, Projections and the Present MomentSeema has just taken off (with Osho's The Book of Woman in hand) to join her family in the central Kerala city of Ernakulam, and left me here in Thiruvananthapuram at CDS for 5 days of researching and interviews. I'm being ... http://creative-empowerment.org/2007/07/19/india-my-love/ Preface: Another thing Seema and I realized this week is that even as people of color, we've been so institutionalized by “formal” education that we automatically start our endeavors with the analytical instead of the intuitive. This week we remembered that this is our work, and that we ... http://creative-empowerment.org/2007/07/19/india-2007-co-op-questionnaire/ CEC founder, Egypt Brown worked to help organize the Healing and Spiritual Practice Space at the recent U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta (https://www.ussf2007.org/), taking responsibility for the conceptualization, design, and construction of the five indoor and outdoor altars. She also served as a primary shrinekeeper during the Forum's five-day ... http://creative-empowerment.org/2007/07/07/2007-us-social-forum-in-atlanta-georgia/ CEC fieldwork began in August 2006 in Bahia, Brazil. Egypt travelled all over the state of Bahia evaluating site possibilities. Besides her first choice of the beloved Ilha de Maré, off the coast of Salvador, she travelled inland to the Chapada Diamantina towns of Mucujê, Valle do Capão, ... http://creative-empowerment.org/2007/06/04/fieldwork-so-far/