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Showing posts from April, 2021

Ithaca Children’s Garden Anarchy Zone

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ithacachildrensgarden.org Offering year round education in the form of innovative, research-based programs, events, and workshops, designed for children, families, schools, educators, volunteers, and community members Ithaca Children’s Garden is described as a program and a place. The garden was organized in 1197 by organized in 1997 by Harriet Becker, Mary Alyce Kobler, and Monika Roth. In 2004 the organization secured a lease of 3 acres in Cass Park from the city of Ithaca. The garden’s Nature Anarchy Zone demonstrates and exemplifies the   educational and developmental benefits of unstructured play. Kids can get dirty digging for worms, playing with rocks and sticks, building forts, climbing trees, and generally daring to engage in the kind of wild and unsanitized play that was common 70 years ago but would scandalize today’s average helicopter parent.   Somehow   children’s lives and time have become overwhelmingly structured, scheduled play dates appointment outin

Empowering LGBTQ Youth, Homeless Veterans, Teen Parents and War Survivors

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twitter.com Dove Pressnall, founder of Survivors' Truths, was compelled to take action. From 2004 - 2006, while working as a trainer and field supervisor of Liberian counselors and social workers she listened to the stories of war survivors including women survivors of targeted sexual violence, male and female torture survivors of all ages, and conscripted child soldiers. She found that by getting victims to  tell their stories it not only empowered them but also helped change perceptions of them and their experiences from negative to positive. Survivors' Truths has since greatly expanded its mission since Dove relocated to Los Angeles in 2007.  The organization's goal is to transform media coverage and  media imagery of not only war survivors but here in the U.S also  homeless veterans, LGBTQ youth and teen parents from negative to positive. Their work transforms impressions and stereotypes by telling positive stories and empowering those society has tended to victimi