Doorstep Revolution

Here's news of a project I'm involved in (words edited from the Arts Council of Wales website):

Gentle/Radical is a Cardiff-based grassroots organisation and they have received £40k in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund to build on and amplify the creativity and contribution seen within communities and across civil society during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The funding, made possible thanks to National Lottery players, will enable Gentle/Radical to work within the neighbourhood of Riverside, listening to and sharing different experiences and stories and imagining together, what is possible for the future. The project is called Doorstep Revolution and initiates a hyper-local street-by-street outreach and doorstep engagement programme, aimed at creating a vivid COVID-portrait of one of Wales’ most diverse and rich multicultural neighbourhoods.

The project will establish an outreach and volunteer team who will conduct hundreds of dialogues - socially-distanced doorstep interviews, zoom chats, and phone chats - to gather perspectives on the Lockdown experience, its challenges, surprises, transformations, and opportunities, as well as insights into how residents have experienced life – and might wish to experience it – in the future.#

Gentle/Radical will engage a cross-section of multi-generational, multi-lingual Riverside voices, focusing intensively on residents in eight selected streets, and up to five households from others. An outreach and volunteer team will be trained to use audio recording equipment to conduct doorstep dialogues over the first three to four months. The last two months will be focused on using gathered narratives and dialogues to create 1) a multi-lingual Riverside community newspaper/publication and 2) a podcast/web repository bringing together recorded interviews, stories, and reflections around the COVID experience, as well as commentary on what the future could - and should - hold.

Comments

What does it mean to be non-creedal?

Steve Caldwell says "The problem here isn't humanism vs. theism for theist Unitarian Universalists -- it's the non-creedal nature of Unitarian Universalism" This is a good point. We need to think much more deeply about what it means to be a non-creedal religion. The first thing I want to say is that there is more than one possible understanding of non-creedalism. The Disciples of Christ are a non-creedal church, they say here : " Freedom of belief. Disciples are called together around one essential of faith: belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Persons are free to follow their consciences guided by the Bible, the Holy Spirit study and prayer, and are expected to extend that freedom to others." Quakers are also non-creedal and say here : Quakers have no set creed or dogma - that means we do not have any declared statements which you have to believe to be a Quaker. There are, however, some commonly held views which unite us. One accepted view is that th...

LOST and theology: who are the good guys?

***Spoiler alert*** I'm continuing some theological/philosophical reflections while re-watching the series LOST. One of the recurring themes in LOST is the idea of the "good guys" and the "bad guys." We start the series assuming the survivors (who are the main characters) are the "good guys" and the mysterious "Others" are definitely bad guys. But at the end of series 2 one of the main characters asks the Others, "Who are you people?" and they answer, in an extremely disturbing way, "We're the good guys." The series develops with a number of different factions appearing, "the people from the freighter" "the DHARMA initiative" as well as divisions among the original survivors. The question remains among all these complicated happenings "who really are the good guys?" I think one of the most significant lines in the series is an episode when Hurley is having a conversation with ...

What is Radical Christianity?

Radical Christianity is about encountering the God of love . It is first and foremost rooted in the discovery of a universal and unconditional source of love at the heart of reality and within each person. God is the name we give to this source of love. It is possible to have a direct and real personal encounter with this God through spiritual practice. We encounter God, and are nourished by God, through the regular practice of prayer, or contemplation. Radical Christianity is about following a man called Jesus . It is rooted in the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jewish prophet living under occupation of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. It understands that's Jesus' message was the message of liberation. His message was that when we truly encounter God, and let God's love flow through us, we begin to be liberated from the powers of empire and violence and encounter the "realm of God" - an alternative spiritual and social reality rooted in love rather th...

Reignite

Search This Blog