"Being the Change" A free workshop that introduces participants to nonviolence principles and strategies November 15 5:30-7:30 PM Open to the public Pizza provided! 
"The Power of Nonviolence" Seminar on Gandhi & King October 13-Dec 8 Thursday, 6:00-8:30 PM Gandhi Reading Room in the UR Rush Rhees Library Contact: 585-276-4962 (Donations accepted) 
Gandhi River Keepers! All are welcome! Refreshments and tools will be provided Friday, October 28 3:00-5:00 PM Meet in front of the UR Interfaith Chapel Contact: 585-276-4962 
Gandhi House Work Party 929 South Plymouth Ave Rochester, NY Saturday, October 29 1:00-5:00PM Rain Date: Sunday, October 30 1:00-5:00 PM All are welcome! Tools and refreshments will be provided contact: 585-276-0203 
M.K. Gandhi 2011 Fall Intensive
November 10-13, 2011
Thursday 4:00-9:00 PM
Fri-Sun 9:00-5:00 PM
UR Interfaith Chapel
Registration is required
Contact: 585-276-4962
You can always follow the Gandhi Institute on Facebook and through our website:
 
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MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
211 Interfaith Chapel Box 270501 Rochester, NY 14627
p. 585-276-4962
f. 585-276-0203
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  Dear Friends, I am writing after a busy two weeks, some of which you'll hear about below: a house party for Gandhi's birthday at our not-yet-completed new space, a restorative justice conference last week and a trip by staff this past weekend to visit Occupy Wall St in New York City. We have had some new faces join us. Welcome to Mennonite Voluntary Service worker Andrew Buschert from Goshen, Indiana and intern Anna Pfifer from Europe. Andrew is working on our new space full-time, and Anna will be sharing her gifts with us as a videographer. She made the film about our house party for you to enjoy below. Lastly, we said goodbye to long-time Gandhi Institute administrator Trish Goodman, who will luckily continue with us as a volunteer. Many of you have met and spoken with Trish over the years. Her cheerful spirit each day will be sorely missed! Keep reading to hear more, and please keep in touch. in peace and hope, Kit Miller Director of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence This issue is dedicated to Nobel Peace Prize recipients Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman "for their nonviolent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work." |
 Gandhi Institute Celebrates New Home! This story was featured in the Democrat & Chronicle |
From the sidewalk, the house at 929 S. Plymouth Ave. looks like it's seen many better days. But Sunday, members of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence picked this old house to celebrate the birthday of the man who inspires their work because next year this former abandoned crack house will be the home for the institute. "We are celebrating Gandhi's birthday - he was born Oct. 2, 1869," said Kit Miller, institute director. "This was originally scheduled to be a house-warming party when we started rehabbing this house months ago, but it has been an abandoned house for the past 17 years and it needed a lot more work than anticipated." Mohandas K. Gandhi, more commonly known as Mahatma which means "great soul", organized nonviolent protests that eventually freed India from British rule in 1947. Named after Gandhi, the institute is a nonprofit organization that helps individuals and communities develop resources and practical skills to promote nonviolence. The organization also sponsors classes on nonviolence, mindful communication, sustainable living and restorative practices. It is currently based at the University of Rochester. The new center, expected to be completed in December, will offer office for staff, a meeting area and rooms for visitors. The century-old house is actually owned by David Skinner and David Knoll, who own 26 houses in the southwest neighborhood across the river from the University of Rochester. Skinner said he first came to the neighborhood in the 1970s as a UR student. After graduation he returned in the 1980s to Rochester and started investing, with partner Knoll, in the area. "We are really delighted at the prospect of luring the Gandhi institute into the neighborhood," said Knoll. "They wanted an urban community presence and we are looking to bring a positive energy to our neighborhood." The university has been promoting the area for students for the past several years. Neighborhood leaders are beginning to see changes in the area with new investment such as the Staybridge Suites hotel at Brooks Landing and the Gandhi Institute. "Words cannot describe what is happening in this neighborhood," said John Borek, co-chair of the Southwest Common Council. "It is transforming and it is a collaborative effort of many, many people."
JBLACKWELL@DemocratandChronicle.com
You can watch the video of the house party by visiting:
M.K. Gandhi Institute celebrates new headquarters!
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UR Micro-farm Looking for Volunteers |
Hi everybody! We're getting really excited about our program coming up! Just a reminder that it is going to be next Saturday, October 29. We'd like to have people out to the farm at 11am, but we'll be there for a good chunk of the day so feel free to come and go as you please. In case you haven't heard, we are going to be sheet mulching to prepare (and create some new) beds for the spring. I know that many people aren't familiar with this process, so here is a link to a page that sums up the process nicely: Sheet Mulching If you do plan on coming, we'd ask that you bring some type of material that we can use for the sheet mulching. These materials can include: - Newspaper - Cardboard - Old t-shirts that you don't mind handing over to the earth Yours sustainably, Eric and Caitlyn -- To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. -M.K. Gandhi
Directions to the Micro-farm: The Micro-farm is located on the South Campus in Whipple Park. From East River Rd turn onto Murlin Drive, located next to the Laser Lab. Take this road to the end and turn left on Richardson Rd. The garden is off to the right, behind apartment 597. |
"I am part and parcel of the whole and cannot find Truth apart from the rest of humankind." -MK Gandhi
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Meet the 2011-12 Class of Gandhi Service Fellows
( The next edition of Swadeshi Now will introduce our readers to the five remaining members of the 2011-12 class of Gandhi Service Fellows.)
Mohammad Husain Bawany
Hometown: Rochester, NY
College and Academic Pursuits: St. John Fisher College, Dual majoring in biology and religious studies.
Nature of Gandhi Service Project: "Coexistence: Dinner and Dialogue" event to be hosted at St. John Fisher College. The goal is to bring together students from various Rochester campuses for the purpose of embracing religious diversity, learning about new traditions through dialogue, and building strong connections with individuals through communal learning.
 Faye Gura
Hometown: Washington, DC
College and Academic Pursuits: Faye is a senior at the University of Rochester studying Applied Mathematics and Chemistry.
Nature of Gandhi Service Project: After two years of leading local Alternative Spring Break programs, she will pass the torch and mentor a new leader. She will also be organizing an exciting solar cooking and sustainability competition that will culminate in a sunny spring picnic and fundraiser. She hopes that this competition will shed light on Gandhi's ideals of nonviolence in an accessible way to all students, especially those studying the natural sciences and engineering.
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Just How Nonviolent is Occupy Wall Street? Mohandas Gandhi's theory of social action entails that we select the right cause, use the right means, and leave the results to a higher power. Before spending two days and one night in Zuccotti Park, the makeshift encampment and epicenter of Occupy Wall Street, I had serious doubts about the movement's cause, means, and even spirituality. From far away in Rochester, it appeared that this planned revolt was a political circus orchestrated by disenfranchised youth. The general message appeared to center on corporate reform but looked to be muddied by a plethora of issues typically associated with the extreme left. Moreover, it was difficult to discern any form of spirituality emanating from scanty, slanted and superficial news stories in publications like the New York Times.
After witnessing these events first hand, I can report that Occupy Wall Street may not have a clear message but speaks with a clear voice. The "core" demonstrators want the world to know that corporate greed is poisoning the heart of the American democracy. They also want the world to know that young people are tired of sitting on the sidelines while their government fails to provide meaningful jobs, adequate health care, and effective environmental conservation.
Protestors use a variety of means to express their concerns. These means include music. street art, political theater, subversive journalism, and radical hospitality like offerring two free meals a day. On the scene, it is clear that the protestors are able to talk about these complex issues with both thoughtfulness and tremendous passion. One of the more encouraging examples I can share with readers is a communication technique known as the "people's mic." Denied access to electronic amplification, protestors have developed a means of sharing information that uses the collective voice of the crowd to echo the words spoken by individuals. But some of the means are crude and counter-productive. One protestor was ominously dressed in zombie garb and walked around limply with an apocalyptic placard promising to "eat the bodies of the rich."
In general, the chaotic scene is imbued with a healthy appreciation for nonviolence that acts as a glue to the many conflicting elements that appear to be in tension with each other and could erupt into violence otherwise. For example, the three major rules that everyone must obey as they enter "Liberty Plaza" include: no drugs and alcohol; no stepping on the park's flowers; and no disrespecting other people's belongings. I discovered that this spontaneous community is based on the principles of respect and hospitality. It felt safe to sleep in the park and I never encountered direct violence. However, this community was not always allowed to be as self-sufficient as it wanted to be. I awoke at dawn to witness several NYPD and paramedics lifting an unconscious man onto a gurney and rushing him to the hospital. The self-elected OWS medics were forced to stand on the sidelines while the city's emergency responders tried to save the man's life.
As for the movement's spirituality, I did see so-called anarchists flaunting their atheism in a belicose way, and most people would concede that the movement is primarily secular in nature.
Yet the very sight of thousands of people exercising their inalienable right to speak truth to power is a tantalizing experience that sends shock waves down the nervous system of the soul. I also admired the small but energetic bands of protesters singing civil rights hymns that would have brought a smile to the face of Martin Luther King Jr.
So yes, there is a spirituality surfacing in Zuccotti Park.
However, it is too early to surmise where this powerful energy is going and just how far it can take a grassroots revolution founded on such an unspiritual ambition as occupation.
George Cassidy Payne
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Wangari Maathai, 1940-2011
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"The environment and the economy are really both two sides of the same coin. You cannot sustain the economy if you don't take care of the environment because we know that the resources that we use whether it is oil, energy, land ... all of these are the basis in which development happens. And development is what we say generates a good economy and puts money in our pockets. If we cannot sustain the environment, we cannot sustain ourselves." |
 Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, 1922-2011 | |
"But for Birmingham, we would not be where we are today." |
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