The Role of Community Initiatives in Transitioning Society: Observations and Strategies in the U.S. and Europe

Public lecture/forum for the Sociology Colloquium Series:  

Wednesday, November 8, at 12 noon.  3017 SSMS conference room.

The Role of Community Initiatives in Transitioning Society: Observations and Strategies in the U.S. and Europe

How do we increase community resilience and well-being as social, economic and environmental problems deepen?  The global Transition Towns movement catalyzed community-led initiatives to advance social change. Bringing people together to accelerate positive change at the community level helped inspire a new level of climate action. Today the Transition movement works with many others to supports neighbors, local organizations and businesses to work together and with local government to launch projects and strengthen well-being. Projects to expand local food, energy, economy and culture engage people to work together in positive, creative, practical and fun ways.  How does the process work?  How does it support existing local groups and leaders? How does it engage more and diverse people in practical action?  I’ll share experiences and stories of successful models from both the U.S. and Europe.

 Tina Clarke Bio/Background

For over thirty years, Tina Clarke has been a campaign director, trainer, educator, consultant and strategic advisor to national and international social change movements. She has spoken at hundreds of academic institutions, consulted with over 400 social change organizations, and catalyzed, trained and consulted with hundreds of grassroots citizen groups and thousands of citizen leaders.

Since her first community organizing and public education job with the City of Minneapolis in 1982, Tina has been involved in energy problems, politics, solutions, social change and grassroots leadership development. Now, as a leading international trainer in community resilience, Transition Towns and leadership development for climate justice and climate futures, Tina is a consultant for a 38-member European coalition, Ecolise (www.ecolise.eu/), on increasing civil society-citizen leadership and citizen/NGO collaboration for addressing climate, economic and social instabilities.

Co-sponsors:  Critical Futures in America:  This Changes Everything, The Global Environmental Justice Project, Department of Sociology, and the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies’ Environmental and Climate Justice Studies Research Hub

Page Editor

Melissa Bator
Melissa Bator
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