East Side Institute

Join Katy Bee, founder of the Joy First Foundation, for a workshop on how to approach people to connect respectfully and joyfully for networking, fundraising and making new friends. She will take you through the whole process – from approaching people, picking up on their cues, gratitude and recognition, making connections and how to build with them. Bring your fears, excitement, and questions...and jump right into Katy Bee’s playground.

Saturday, Oct 19
12:00 - 1:30 PM Eastern US
Fee: $50 | $35 | $25 | Pay What You Can

Register here: https://ow.ly/8u8I50TrouQ

In the Midst of Turmoil People Across the Globe are Creating the Power!
Join Us at Performing the World.
Register Here: https://ow.ly/Mptw50ToxOf

6 Weeks to Opening Day!
Early Registration Ends in 4 Weeks

First look at the agenda for Opening Day: https://ow.ly/l9Cq50SVaiX

Hello Everyone

Performing The World is right around the corner and WE NEED volunteers!

Scheduled to take place from September 26-29, 2024, Performing The World 2024 will be a virtual event, offering a unique opportunity to engage with a diverse and international community.

For more information about the conference please check out our website www.Performingtheworld.org

We are looking for Zoom Jockeys, People interested in Digital Outreach and Marketing, and Live Translators!

Whether you're a novice or an expert we would love to have you a part of the team.

If you or anyone you know are interested please contact our tech and media person Desire Wandan at [email protected]

Big movement. Big book! Congrats to ChrisHoff ErinSegal and JulieCho for their new “Encyclopedia of Radical Helping.” Social Therapeutics proudly in the pantheon of postmodern, collaborative approaches.

The final two days in Setúbal, Portugal were full of wonderful new connections with the interconnected progressive communities that Morgane Masterman and her colleagues at Associação Faísca are a part of. On Friday Chris and I led an evening workshop titled “Embrace Uncertainty/Tap into Collective Creativity” for the activists at Cooperative Sociedade de Estudos e Intervenção em Engenharia Social, a Social Services and Solidarity Cooperative, founded in 1980 which aims to support and promote the exercise of active citizenship and the development of institutions, associations, communities and groups (https://www.cooperativaseies.org). Their center was beautiful and welcoming, and we had a joyful evening exploring our diverse relationships to uncertainty and practicing and playing with offers in many languages. We asked the question of “What is to be human?” and introduced Holzman and Newman’s offer of a dialectical relationship of creating new cultures for being and becoming. The evening ended with an absolutely delicious potluck. I am so appreciative of the ways these humans welcomed Chris and me into their community. Can’t wait to see what emerges.
On Saturday morning Lea Čikoš led a training for intercultural team leaders from Associação Faísca Voadora and Chris, Morgane and I joined as participants. We’d been hearing about these trainings, and especially the language animations from Lea and Morgane over the course of the week and it was great to see it in action—and play around with Portuguese, Spanish and Serbian as the only monolingual speakers in the room. Lea also blended the Amazing Silence exercise with philosophizing by asking questions without answers to help the team develop in their ability to lead during conflicts.
Then into the car and a drive to a beautiful cooperative farm outside of the city where Morgane had invited us to lead about 25 of the cooperative members in a conversation on community, leadership, and decision making. While the group was open about some of their struggles, they were also incredibly appreciative of the community they have built and allowed us to bring some joy, lightness, and curiosity to their ongoing efforts to create an inclusive and non-hierarchical collective. I had a chance to do some weeding in the sweet potato field while music played across the fields. And our evening ended with a stunning and powerful theatrical dance performance by Monica Chiquillo.
And of course, in the last 24 hours before we left, Chris, Lea, Morgane and I sat by the sea and ate, drank, and talked about so many things including how we might invest our deepened connections going forward. Can’t wait to see where we go! So appreciative of this intimate, rich week together. - Carrie Lobman

On the last leg of our journey Chris Helm and I travelled to Setúbal, Portugal to work and play with East Side Institute Associates Morgane Masterman and Lea Čikoš. They are master intercultural facilitators and animators of youth work/youth exchanges across Europe. We are being hosted by Morgane's organization Associação Faísca Voadora, an NGO that organizes local, European and international intercultural activities. And they are not surprisingly colleagues and friends with other amazing play and performance activists who we now get to meet.

We had a chance to do a drumming circle with children in a social housing complex at Projeto Sem Sem (in)Diferenças Bairro da Bela Vista one of Faísca’s partner organizations working with children and youth living in social housing. We’ve had free ranging political, pedagogical, methodological and cultural conversations with Vanessa Iglesias Amorin of the Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal and Mario Rainha Campos the Educador pela Arte at Casa da Cerca_Centro de Arte Contemporânea on topics such as “what is meant by community?” and “is poverty something we can talk about opening?” And everywhere we have gone Lea has introduced the Developing Across Borders social therapeutic emotional development practice.

A fun part of being able to travel on behalf of the East Side Institute is getting to spend informal in-person time with our dear associates and colleagues around the world, who not surprisingly are some of the most playful people around! We've walked and laughed and eaten and drank and posed for Lea's masterful selfies. - Carrie Lobman

Our trip to Morocco is in part the story of the East Side Institute's developing relationships in Morocco and exploring how to deepen these partnerships and make new ones. Yesterday those all came together in a workshop hosted by East Side Institute Associate Karima Oeurjani at the Ibn Hazm Secondary School. We partnered with Dr. Abdelaziz Zohri of Africa Voices Dialogue, Jamila Harrad and Hafsa Kathir from Tamkeen Community Foundation for Community Development to create a three-hour workshop for twenty-two students on Wondering and Wandering. It was wonderful to meet the principal of the school, Fatima Diani, who is clearly an advocate for her students and a fan of Karima’s playful, loving community-building approach to teaching. The themes of appreciation and dreaming were built within one of the Institute’s signature activities of “creating collective performances in response to everything we’ve done today.” And then...the day ended with a fantastic home cooked meal at Karima M'hamed Ouerjani's house with wonderful new friends. - Carrie Lobman

The East Side Institute trip to Morocco continued...Breakfast with Karima Kadaoui the co-founder and executive president of Tamkeen Community Foundation for Human Development. From the moment she and Lois Holzman met during the pandemic, we have been discovering and exploring resonances. Karima and her team have created a project in vulnerable neighborhoods that challenges the cognitive-emotive divide, where creating relationships is inseparable from learning, and which gives people tools for transforming conflict into community. We then saw all of this in action in Ksar el-Kebir a historic city near Tangier where children, university students, and community members poetically shared their stories. The day ended with a gorgeous walk on the beach looking across to Spain with new friends Nadia Sandi and Nassira.

they travelled the next day to Rabat, the capital of Morocco, where they were met by East Side Institute International Class graduate Fatima Zahra who has moved up to best host ever for cooking us a traditional Morrocon Friday cous cous and then setting us up for a nap before our afternoon workshop at the - Ecole Normale Supérieure of the Mohammed V University with 45 newly minted English teachers. We delightfully explored the relationship of play, learning, development, and curiosity.

Moving on to Casablanca where they were invited by Abdelaaziz Zohri, the co-founder of Africa Voices Dialogue, and International Class alum Karima Ouerjani to co-lead a workshop with teachers and students at the American Language Center on ensemble building. They particularly loved Cathy Salit and Performance of a Lifetime's Amazing Silence activity.
And then they ended the day in one of many favorite ways--playing with a curious and delightful seven-year-old.

Hey Folks

Our colleagues Carrie Lobman and Chris Helm spent their first full day in Tangier, Morocco 🌟 it was an incredible day spent mutually sharing the work and play with the East Side Institute and the Tamkeen Community. 🌟
Their meeting was filled with inspiring conversations and deep connections. Together, they explored how appreciation, doing the inconceivable, and the belief that "through others, they become themselves" resonate deeply within both organizations.

I love how Tamkeen begins their transformative work with the simple yet unusual question, "What would you like to do?" It reminds me of the early days of the All Stars Project, Inc. and the Unemployed and Welfare Councils.
Feeling grateful for the exchange of ideas and the shared commitment to the human ability to go beyond what is to co-create what is becoming. Here's to more collaborative moments and the ongoing journey of growth and discovery! 🌍❤️ - Carrie Lobman