16 pages., Article # 6FEA3, via online journal., We examined how the Twin Ports Climate Conversations (TPCC), a community-based climate communication project, is influencing local climate awareness and response. A survey of TPCC participants and subsequent roundtable discussion event were used to explore program impacts, outcomes, and future directions. Results showed that the TPCC project has been effective at increasing awareness and facilitating contacts and may be leading to actions that range from information sharing to personal behavioral changes. Future directions include engaging new audiences and promoting more on-the-ground climate action. TPCC can serve as a model to help other communities start cross-sectoral climate conversations.
13 pages., Article #:v58-1a2, via online journal., According to the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, without urgent global changes, climate catastrophe caused by warming of greater than 1.5°C will occur by 2030, endangering the planet's capacity to sustain human populations and livelihoods. The National Network for Sustainable Living Education administered a national survey in January 2017 to assess how well-positioned Extension is to address sustainability in the communities the organization serves. Educators from 40 states responded, and 1,395 usable surveys were received. Survey results will help Extension employees discover opportunities for innovation and relevancy in their programming.
14 pages., via online journal., This article addresses a stated need within the food justice movement scholarship to increase the attention paid to the political socialization of hired farm hands in industrial agriculture. In Canada, tackling the problem of farm worker equity has particular social and political contours related to the Canadian horticultural industry’s reliance on a state-managed migrant agricultural labour program designed to fill the sector’s labour market demands. As Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) produces relations of ‘unfree labour’, engaging migrant farm workers in social movement initiatives can be particularly challenging. Critical educational interventions designed to encourage migrant farm workers’ contribution to contemporary social movements in Canada must therefore confront the socio-cultural obstacles that constrict migrant farm workers’ opportunities to participate as full members of their communities. In this article, I argue that social justice oriented approaches to community-based arts can provide a means for increasing the social movement contributions of farm workers employed through managed labour migration schema such as Canada’s SAWP.
9 pages, Poverty is an important issue for third world Sub-Saharan African countries such as Ethiopia. To assist with poverty alleviation, a great number of nongovernmental organizations have moved resources into the region, but the problem has not significantly improved. This paper studies the Jerusalem Children and Community Development Organization (JeCCDO), an NGO that has engaged in poverty alleviation programs in Ethiopia for more than 35 years. The study examines communication practices used by JeCCDO as part of its poverty alleviation programs in Negede Woito community (Bahir Dar, Ethiopia). We use a qualitative research methodology to assess the organization’s communication practices, as well as the challenges it and the Negede Woito community face. Poverty is perceived as lack of resources by JeCCDO, but the community also prioritizes other forms of poverty such as psychological and cultural. Our findings reveal that JeCCDO is renowned for using a social enterprise development model and a participatory communication approach. However, in practice we find these are not used. In the models, endogenous knowledge and grassroots communication were vital to community development, but JeCCDO did not implement them during planning, implementing, and evaluating community-based programs. Community workers who coordinated the organization and the community were Negede Woito community members. Besides grassroots communication, knowing the context and living situation of the community is mandatory for development agents. JeCCDO did not contextualize development efforts, such as sheep fattening and poultry for people who did not have shelter. In conclusion, we propose that nongovernmental organizations and development workers should reconsider their communication contexts and practices while launching new poverty alleviation programs.
21 pages., Article #:2659, via online journal., Urban gardens are continuously negotiated, contested, and remade. One of the primary
ways that these spaces are negotiated is through the ways that communities self-organise to manage
them. Drawing on critical urban scholarship, this article explores the ways in which the dynamics of self-organisation in urban gardens both shape and are shaped by the spatial development of the sites. Reflecting on two cycles of participatory video-making with urban gardeners in Seville, Spain, the article specifically examines how the motivations of the gardeners and the issue of communication influence the dynamic relationship between self-organisation and the spatial development of gardens.
