In 2002, a friend of mine gave me a report entitled, "Uniting America" by The American Assembly. The ultimate recommendation called for a "National Dialogue" at the citizen level. They described a multi-partisan, dialogue-that-leads-to-action event format that would work for every social or political challenge we have!
It was the most inspiring thing I had read since Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I thought to myself, "I would love to live in a society that had a National Dialogue!"
A few years later, in 2006, while watching The Academy Awards, many actors and directors whose films had social and political story lines, were asked why they chose to make such a socio-political film . And, they all seemed to answer that they "hoped that the film would ask questions that would become a part of the National Dialogue."
And, there it was again - those two words: National Dialogue. A few days later, I heard an interview with an actor saying that he hoped that people would go "have a drink or cup of coffee" after the movie to talk about the issue raised in the film. And I realized that I wanted to do that - I wanted to talk about the issue in a social setting. I then began meeting people that felt the same way - we all wanted to talk about and take action on social and political issues more than we were. We all felt overwhelmed by how much information is available, and wanted to go to an event where we could express our opinions and ideas, and hopefully, take action with other like-minded people! And, we wanted some of these activities to happen on-line, and some to happen face to face, in person.
As we talked, we realized that the most significant thing that we needed help with was connecting the dots (that's why we have three dots in our logo) between: accessing information, voicing opinions and taking action. We found that these three activities were most often disconnected from one another, and if they were more connected in an event format we would speak up and take action more often!
This became the basis for Actionshops and what AND... ACTION!'s mission is today.
To date, we have created the first hard copy, information kits on Climate Change, the genocide in Darfur, and women's rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and hundreds of people have participated in events held at Harvard University, Santa Clara University, CUNY Lehman College, SUNY New Paltz University, T Salon, and organic coffee shop.
We have written senators, watched documentary films, read articles, blogged, reduced our carbon foot-print during a 6-week program, joined existing advocacy and non-profit groups and their action campaigns, and we made new friends!
Today, we are putting together the pieces for the "We ARE The People - Me and We is all We'll Ever be" to be held in Newtown, CT in Fall 2010. There will be civic arts & crafts activities, moments of silence, history jeopardy games, Actionshops and more!
Remember; Me and "We," is all we'll ever be.
Sincerely yours, Véronique C. Marchal
Founder
VERY SPECIAL THANKS TO::
Amary, TK, Wynne, Firth, Joanna, and Victoria - our first Actionshop hosts and information researchers.
Bob Peterson, Creative Director, Musical Director and Animator of our actiontoon.
