My hometown of Oakland California has always had a lot of homegrown solutions. We're practically notorious for it, and if you know what I'm talking about then there you are, and if you don't, I'm not going to link to it because the less said about our more infamous moments, the better.
I will say that we've grown up a huge number of charter schools (some good, some not so) and back a couple of decades ago we grew up the historic peace-making agreement between the Blood and Crip gangs, and we're home growing a lot of marijuana right now to make life easier for some folks.
We've also apparently got a solid program for growing our own citizen's defense corps, of a sort.
Citizens of Oakland Respond to Emergencies is our program for training lay people to support first responders. For more than two decades, this program has been educating Oaklanders about self reliance, neighborhood organizing, and emergency preparedness and responses.
I'm going to sign up for their next basic class, and have invited several of my Oakland based friends to do the same. Once I get a few takers, I'll propose a challenge, something on the order of a free dinner to whoever brings the most of their neighbors along with them. I've been meaning to come up with a way to invite the people in my building over for a summer barbecue--maybe I'll run that as a show-and-tell... hmm...
You need to be a member of Urgent Evoke to add comments!
Join Urgent Evoke