Harvest from the first Social Shift Gathering, Philadelphia, PA, 10/23/2010

[Ria Baeck]

Hello Mates!

Weaving in the harvest from the first Social Shift intergenerational gathering in Philadelphia that I spoke into our circle....

Liz Laboy, Willie Tolliver and I from the NYC AoH were invited by the caller. We volunteered to be 'wisdom council' and grounded the work in the 2-loops adn the Patterns of AoH.

The calling team became Social Work professors and professionals with long histories in the halls of power of major child welfare and juvenile
justice institutions and supporting foundations in the US who also
deeply identified with the communities most effected by these
institutions (as foster parents, family members of incarcerated, etc.)

The calling question was "what could we co-create if we really put our children in the center?"

About 40 people showed up from Washington, DC; Washington State; Los Angeles, CA; NYC; Westchester County, NY; New Jersey; and Philadelphia, PA. 

The harvest is from the young participants:

"You older folks are not finished. You have not kept your promise to us. You have not cleaned up this mess - public education, child welfare,
juvenile justice. We expect you to keep working and doing so with us.
You are people. That you are now elders does not give you permission to
sit on the sideline. You have paper (degrees). How has that paper helped
you? Why should we believe that paper will help us? The path to the
paper is seat time in classrooms. Is this education?"

Liz, Willie and I would love to tap into wisdom in the field for what's next and to connect to thinking partners and co-creators who are working
with this same edge! Yes?

Peace, Kelly