Events on the HorizonAnticipate
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Provocate's ProjectsInnovateProvocate’s BlogsMore than just providing additional details, Provocate's Blogs let you look inside Central Indiana's intellectual, cultural and civic infrastructure. Bookmark them, and be sure to leave your thoughts in the blogs' comment sections.
IndyBuzz — The blog that inspired Provocate, IndyBuzz first showed just how substantial Central Indiana's intellectual, cultural, and civic scene is. It revealed how many significant events are taking place every week, and how these events can be made even more significant if we treat them as opportunities to pool our creative energies. Today IndyBuzz is where the brainstorming for Provocate happens. It's where Team Provocate exchanges thoughts, previews the importance of upcoming initiatives, reviews events after they have occurred, and strategizes about how to follow up new ideas.
Make Music Matter — Central Indiana has an unusually lively music scene, with world-class performances every week. Make Music Matter reflects Provocate's belief that live music is more than just pretty sounds. Music events are celebrations of creativity, invitations to all of us to come together to expand our views of the world. Make Music Matter previews upcoming performances, telling you about the artists and offering samples of the music you'll hear. It suggests what to listen to, how to listen, and why it's important.
The Provocate Review of Books — The city that produced Kurt Vonnegut has to take books seriously. The Provocate Review of Books previews and interviews novelists and poets who are coming to town. It engages local writers of works of fiction and nonfiction in critical discussions. And it allows Team Provocate (and others) to suggest books that will help provoke innovative ideas for solving the challenges we face.
The Unofficial IndyTalks Blog — Provocate's engagement with IndyTalks, the series of community-based discussions taking place at different venues across the city to promote civic dialogue while exploring what Indiana needs to survive and prosper in the 21st century. Read previews of IndyTalks events, ponder connections of IndyTalk events with other developments in Central Indiana, and discuss how we can turn fascinating civil conversations into important civic initiatives. [For the official IndyTalks blog, visit www.indytalks.info.]
Indy Goes to the Middle East — One of Central Indiana's important global/local developments has been the interfaith ties with the Middle East. December 2009 to January 2010 a second International Interfaith Initiative-led group is going to Jordan, Israel and the West Bank. The goal: to identify further opportunities for local-to-local partnerships that can contribute to finding solutions for such global problems as the Iraqi refugee crisis, Jewish-Muslim conflicts, and extreme poverty for Palestinians. After the group returns, Indy Goes to the Middle East will explore further p;ossibilities for interfaith transformation of the Middle East ... and the Middle West.
Bridging Africa & Indiana — Some of the Hoosier initiatives in Africa are famed around the world ... think of the ever expanding partnership between Indiana University Medical School and Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya. 999 other initiatives between Indiana and Africa are less well known, but not necessarily less important. Churches and universities, service clubs and junior high classes, tour groups and educators ... Bridging Africa & Indiana looks for the promising efforts and the ways we can make them more effective.
A Billion Links between Indiana & China — Through immigration, trade and investment, tourism, humanitarian initiatives, adoption and many, many other ways, more links are connecting Indiana and China. This blog looks at how to increase the number of those connections, how to make the connections thicker, how to make them smarter ... how to increase the benefits on all sides.
Notes from a Flat State in a Flat World — That Indiana is isolated and insulated form the world is an unhelpful myth. As the world becomes flatter, power is not only being shifted upward, toward internaitonal markets and multilateral institutions. It is also being thrust downward, to community organizations, local businesses and state governments. This blog looks at how Indiana is responding to the challenges of glocalization. IndyTalks & ProvocateA citywide effort designed to foster a sense of community through respectful and creative civic dialogue, some of the city and state’s most imaginative organizations will examine Indiana’s future from their own unique perspective in provocative and fresh ways through the IndyTalks initiative. Afterwards, join Provocate and the collaborating organizations to continue conversations begun in these events, and help turn the ideas into actions. For more on IndyTalks, visit www.indytalks.info; to peek inside Provocate's thinking about the series, visit The Unofficial IndyTalks Blog.
Jan. 13 — IndyTalks launches with a live radio interview with Richard Longworth on WFYI. Find out why Longworth's book about the Midwest and globalization, Caught in the Middle, is generating such a buzz ... and what it means for civic life in Indiana.
Feb. 24 — 7 Simultaneous Lecturers: Indy Arts and Globalization. Surrealist art collective Big Car and friends stage a panel discussion at the Central Library with seven prominent figures in the city’s art scene ... all speaking at the same time. Audience members will be given the power to raise or lower the volume of each speaker as the talks go on, capturing the all too common feel of experts expounding on art and economy.
March 18 — Backyard Pundits: Public Leadership & Ethical Questions for Indiana’s Future. A group of Indiana's leading thinkers comes to Marian University to ask: “What role should the Indiana public intellectual serve in engaging ethical issues that affect all Hoosiers?” and “What are some ethical concerns specific to the character of Indiana and Indianapolis now and for the future?”
Apr. 21 — When Did I Get Old? UIndy's Center for Aging and Community organizes a panel of experts at the Athenaeum to discuss how we can maximize the opportunities offered by a graying population.
May 4 — Food for Thought. The Indiana Humanities Council organizes dinner conversations at venues across the city, addressing the question of food and community in the 21st century.
June 15 — Is it Good to be a Hoosier? Historian James Madison discusses how the distinctive traits we associate with people of Indiana can be an asset or liability in the years ahead.
July 22 — What the Arts Mean to Indianapolis. The Arts Council of Indianapolis discusses how culture can connect Indiana and the world, at the Indianapolis Arts Center.
Sept. 30 — An Evening with Anthony Bourdain & Eric Ripert. Celebrity chefs leave the TV screen to come to Clowes to chat about how food and eating can connect local and global.
Oct. 7 & 14 — Hoosier Values: Can We Reconcile Independence & the Common Good? Hoosiers value their independence and self-reliance, but they also value their families and communities. A provocative panel organized by Christian Theological Seminary and IUPUI's Common Theme will engage the participants in conversation about where these values intersect, where they compete, and how “Hoosier values” and ethics should (or should not) help shape Indiana’s future. Provocate … The Think TankHere are some examples of Provocate's research in spring 2010. To learn more about these and other projects, contact John Clark.
Great Decisions 2010 ... The Glocal Edition
Every year more than a thousands organization across the country organize a series of eight foreign policy discussions around the Foreign Policy Association's "Great Decisions" program. It's a wholesome way for ordinary Americans to imagine telling DC-based policymakers what we would like them to do about urgent international issues. Provocate doesn't think we need to tell our national government leaders how to solve these problems, even if they listen to us. People in Central Indiana are forming partnerships with local groups around the world to address global problems. Team Provocate is drafting eight counter-chapters to the Great Decisions series that will offer thought-provoking global & local perspectives, and counter-intuitive solutions.
Multiethnic Indiana ... Who Are We, and How Are We Doing?
April 26 will see more than 400 leaders from across the state will gather to discuss "Building Indiana's 21st Century Communities." Provocate has been asked to provide background research for the conference. Coming just as the census is getting underway, this will be a chance to obtain a qualitative and quantitative perspective on issues of immigration and ethnic diversity. What groups have been moving to the state? And what are some of the good (and bad) ideas communities have been devising to respond to the flows of newcomers?
The Children of Abraham and the Iraqi Refugee Crisis
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have each been shaped by the experiences of refugees ... and each views refugees in very different ethical and social terms. This study looks at how the strands of the three Abrahamic faiths view obligations owed to refugees, and seeks ways that the US, Israel, and predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East can address the enormously destabilizing crisis of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Syria, and Iran. |
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 She will come to Indianapolis later Â
January 13 was supposed to be a big day for Central Indiana’s connections to Haiti. Acclaimed Haitian American author Edwidge Danticat was scheduled to speak this evening at Butler. Expected to attend were many of the remarkable local groups who are working with Haitians to make their country a better place, groups working also to give Hoosiers the chance to be global citizens. Ms Danticat was eager to meet with these groups and individuals after her talk, to hear about the links between a Midwestern city and her home country. It would have been a great evening, and as always with great evenings like this it could have generated entirely unexpected new initiatives and ideas for partnerships.Â
The terrible earthquake that shattered Haiti yesterday has postponed this evening’s event, while of course making the event even more urgent when we do have the opportunity to gather. Ms Danticat is preoccupied trying to get word from her family and will not be able to come to Indianapolis until an unspecified later date. If you want to hear a bit of what she missed, an interview with NPR this morning can be heard here.Â
We can make a differece as Haitians pull their broken homes and hospitals together. Central Indiana has a quantity of connections to Haiti that surprised Ms Danticat … and I could give her only a partial list.Â
- St. Thomas Aquinas church, a few blocks from Butler, is one of dozens of Indiana churches with a twin parish in Haiti. Joe Zelenka has made several dozens of trips to Haiti in recent years. He and his fellow parishioners will be important players in rebuilding the neighborhoods in which they work.
- Fran Quigley of IU-Indianapolis Law school and the IU Medical School partnership with Moi Universityin Kenya is a passionate friend of Haiti. Fran can look with depth and insight at Haiti’s often mutually reinforcing problems of human rights abuses, medical needs, and poverty. Fran’s brother Bill is a law professor at Loyola and runs an important center for Haitian human rights.
- A distinguished Haitian Hoosier is Berny Martin, an internationally renowned fashion designer who makes his home in Indianapolis. He was planning to dres Ms Danticat for her Butler event this evening. Berny has been honored by the UN for his work fighting poverty and injustice in his home country. Learn about Berny’s work at www.catouwear.com
- Marian University students from the school of nursing will spend their spring break on a medical mission in Haiti. On of the professors leading the trip is Barbara Blackford.
- Marian’s partner on their mission is the south Indianapolis organization working in Haiti, Fellowship of Associates of Medical Evangelism.
- The Timmy Foundation also send medical missions to Haiti.
- One of the world’s important research centers on haitian culture is the Creole Institute at Indiana University Bloomington
 How it looked BEFORE the earthquake Â
These will be part of the rebuilding efforts in the weeks and months ahead, and we are fortunate to be able to help such a vital project. In the meantime, immediate assistance to Haiti can be provided through some of these organizations:Â
American Red Cross (Reportedly has contributed $200,000 to Haiti relief.)Â
AmeriCares Help For Haiti. Goes to their International Disaster Relief Fund.Â
Chuck Simmins also has this blog - http://northshorejournal.org/haiti-earthquake-aid - of coverage of the Haiti Earthquake Disaster and where to donate, including any organizations that may not be listed here.Â
Doctors without Boarders – not a Haiti Specific page as of this writing.Â
HaitiArise - HaitiArise has provided education and relief for the past six years. It’s a registered Canadian charity and reports that 100 percent of donated funds go directly to Haiti.Â
Haiti Emergency Relief Fund – by Vanguard Public Foundation in San Francisco. Established for Haiti before the Earthquake.Â
Mercy Corps - Mercy Corps’ website is devoted to the Haiti Earthquake Disaster; they’re deploying a team bound for Haiti now.Â
Partners In Heath – You can use the drop-down menu to specify donations to Haiti.Â
Yele Haiti – Wyclef Jean’s Haiti initiative to assist his native Haiti.Â
UNICEF - UNICEF has set up a special page for donations for the children of Haiti. In an email, UNICEF’s Alissa Pinck reports: “UNICEF’s country office in Haiti and the regional office located in Panama is on the ground and have already deployed emergency teams to assess the situation and determine what the additional emergency needs are for the people of Haiti.”Â
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 If talking about globalization makes Hoosiers nervous, Provocate has an easy suggestion: More talk! We have many chances this year thanks to IndyTalks, a very diverse series of events sparked in part by Richard Longworth’s excellent book, Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism. Some of the region’s most creative institutions have cooked up a heady mix of discussions, performance art, video discussions, and pitch-in dinners. But whether the series becomes more than just a bunch of cool events, whether it sets off public conversations that are both civil and creative … that’s up to us. Read on …Â
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Continue reading Get ready for IndyTalks
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The International Interfaith Initiative is collaborating with The Village Experience to host the second annual Middle East Journey, leaving Indianapolis on December 27 and returning on January 9th 2010. Middle East Journey is a delegation eleven of conscientious citizens from diverse faith and vocational backgrounds who are traveling to the Middle East to learn about and participate in programs that are effectively building a better future for the region.
Continue reading To Boldly Go . . . Preview of a Transformative Journey
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 Fran Quigley's "Walking Together, Walking Far: changing lives from Kenya to Indianapolis"
Fran Quigley, a poverty lawyer in Indiana with a penchant for journalism, wanted to report on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. When he heard about the start of a partnership between Indiana University Medical School and Moi University Teaching hospital, he immediately got a journalist grant to go to Kenya and begin reporting. From that happenstance, he witnessed the evolution of what appears to be the most transformative AIDS/HIV care programs in Africa. His book Walking Together, Walking Far: How a U.S. and African Medical School Partnership is Winning the Fight Against HIV/AIDS relates that story.  Provocatrix Louise Klann met with Fran to talk about his book and to find out what AMPATH has been doing since the publication of his book.
Continue reading Looking for the right holiday gift? “Walking Together, Walking Far”
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An all-star cast of local organizations working for change around the world can be found in the 2010 Village Experience calendar, “Moving Forward by Giving Back.” At $10, it’s less than a dollar a month … all of the money goes to the featured nonprofit organizations. To order a calendar contact info@experiencethevillage.com, or stop by the Village Experience shop at 6055 N. College Avenue, Indianapolis, IN 46220
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Featuring a dozen of Provocate’s favorite groups …
Continue reading Get your 2010 Village Experience calendar now!
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 How can something so delicate be so damaging? One of the hardest hammers hitting poor countries today is malaria. As many as half a billion people are infected each year, mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. One to three million people die from malaria each year … and they don’t have to. A vaccine does not yet exist, but it is preventable by giving families insecticide-treated bed netting, spraying walls with inexpensive insecticides, killing mosquitoes where they breed, and providng people with proper informaiton. It is treatable with relatively inexpensive anti-malarial drugs that can prevent it from becoming deadly. What makes malaria cruel is that it is not just a symptom of poverty, it is also a cause of poverty. By making it harder to work and learn, malaria helps keep poor countries poor.
Stating that neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) not only promote poverty but also destabilize communities, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Sabin Vaccine Institute President Peter Hotez call upon the public-health and foreign-policy communities to embrace medical diplomacy and NTD control as a means to combat terrorism. “Controlling Neglected Tropical Diseases May Be Key To US Foreign Policy”
We can do something important about this. Read on …
Continue reading Fighting Malaria from Central Indiana
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The global economic meltdown has thrown even more people in Africa and around the world into desperate poverty. At the same time, the crisis here has led many in rich countries to feel as though we have lost any previous ability to help the billion-plus who are living on less than a dollar a day … if we have any money to spare, think many, we should use it to help our next-door neighbors, not unknown strangers on the other side of the world. In reality, the economic crisis may change the urgency of foreign aid, and may have shifted the political will to help in wealthy democracies … but the really important questions about providing those most in need with humanitarian assistance have not changed at all. Long before the meltdown, fierce debates raged about the effectiveness and rationale of foreign aid. could helping poor countries actually make poverty worse? And why should we feel a burden to help those who are not our own fellow citizens anyhow.
Several widely discussed books have lately staked out different positions on these questions. Princeton philosophy major Katherine Culver, who studies ethics and public policy, gives a careful critique of five of them:
Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey Sachs
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It by Paul Collier
Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa byDambisa Moyo
Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor by Paul Farmer
The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty by Peter Singer
Can the very different arguments made in these books about how to end poverty in Africa be reconciled? Might they even be synthesized? And what implications do they have for the hundreds of nongovernmental local-to-local partnerships that connect Indianapolis and Africa? Provocate uses Katherine’s excellent review of these books as a roadmap to conversations throughout Indianapolis this fall, events at which you can talk with people who are engaged in helping Africans and others find solutions for soul-crushing poverty.
 The partnership between IU Med School and Moi University in Kenya has provided a platform for dozens of other relations to flourish What you will discover at these events is that Hoosiers don’t see a transfer from “us” to “them” … they see themselves as part of a relation that entails mutual obligations and that transforms all partners. Their reasons for engagement differ widely, from religious to commercial. But almost all will say that they are engaged so they can become different than they were when they began, so they can become better. At the end of her review, Katherine discovers the great Russian anarchist Petr Kropotkin, who finds the correct phrase: “Mutual aid.” It’s an insight that the writers she reviews could have used.
Read on …
Continue reading “Mutual Aid”: A Dialogue between Katherine Culver, five contentious writers, and the people of Central Indiana
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Provocate is well-known for attracting the most creative thinkers and most energetic doers in Central Indiana. The current Provocate team is no exception. Look for us at events around Indianapolis. Let us know how we can help connect you to some of the many important initiatives that are transforming neighborhoods and the world.
And if you would like to learn about joining Team Provocate, contact John Clark.
Want to meet Team Provocate? Read on … Continue reading Team Provocate
months gone by
Wednesday December 9, 2009
Riverwalk Lodge in Broad Ripple
6-9pm
The money raises will provide:
- Iraqi refugees living in and around Amman, Jordan access medical and education supplies
- Enable the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Jerusalem to continue dialogue between Arabs and Jews
- Help young children in Bethlehem so that they can participate in wholesome after-school programs and summer camps
The donations from this dinner will be delivered directly to these programs by an Indianapolis interfaith delegation which is traveling to the Middle East Dec. 27-Jan. 9. For more information visit: http://www.experiencethevillage.com and click on Destinations-Jordan
If you’re like me, when it comes to watching performance you’re equally entertained by incredible failure as you are brilliant success. A quaking teenager’s rambling wedding toast culminating in a fart joke, is every bit as entertaining as the reticent stepfather’s heartwarming words to “Daddy’s little girl.” What I’m saying here is, if the potential to witness a reasonable degree of public humiliation is as titillating to you as it is to me, then you should get yourself to a PechaKucha night.
It just so happens that this peculiarly-named event will take place at the Indiana Museum of Art this Thursday, November 12th, as one of the myriad activities currently underway during Indy’s Spirit & Place Festival. Read on …
Continue reading PechaKucha: Hyper-presentations for a crowded bar
Novelists & writers
Second Story is a marvelous nonprofit creative writing project for young writers in Greater Indianapolis. Through classroom exercises, after-school tutoring, and other special programs and events, Second Story helps kids 6 to 18 find joy in writing as they discover their voices, explore their world, and embrace a life of curiosity and self-expression.
Second Story is hosting a unique and free after-school program on Mondays this fall for students in the grades 3-6 located at the Wheeler Arts Community at 1035 Sanders St. in Fountain Square. Programming starts October 12 and runs through December 10, for a total of ten Mondays from 3:30-5:30 p.m.Â
The first half of each session will be dedicated help with writing or reading related homework. The second half will be set aside for creative writing games and writing prompts that are meant to be both accessible and fun for the students. Some of the work produced during this time will be published online and in a semester anthology. All young people in grades 3-6 from anywhere in the city are welcome to attend this free program. Parents will need to arrange for transportation for children participating in the program.Â
We are currently seeking 20-plus volunteers to help with this program. You don’t have to be a professional writer or teacher to help (though writers and teachers are more than welcome!). We’re looking for volunteers who are interested in creative expression and helping kids succeed. We’d also like volunteers to make a regular commitment to being there each week, but we could also use others who can fill in on occasion. You will receive training and support as a volunteer instructor.Â
For more information, visit http://www.secondstoryindy.org or contact Jim Walker (317) 408-1366 or jim.secondstory@gmail.com.
Interfaith
Reverend Richard Hamilton
A native Hoosier, the Reverend Richard Hamilton became pastor at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in 1959, where he served for nearly eight years during which the church and its congregation expanded dramatically. Â Since leaving St. Luke’s, Reverend Hamilton has continued to serve Indiana’s congregations in varying capacities, including as Senior Pastor of North United Methodist Church.
Related Readings
1. http://www.nicumc.org/news/nic_article.php?sid=937
2. http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=3757&wit_id=4501
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Chances to Make a DifferenceInitiateVolunteer Opportunities ... Change the WorldCheck back soon ... there are many ways to become engaged!
If you would like to suggest volunteer oppotunities to be featured by Provocate, contact Anna Remenschneider of Team Provocate. Upcoming fundraisersDec. 21
ThereIsEnough will be having a benefit concert at Birdy's (2131 E. 71st Street, Indianapolis) on Monday, Dec. 21 at 8:00 pm, with performances by Ashworth, Scott Rice, Erin Kelly and more. Come learn more about ThereIsEnough and how to address global needs such as food, water, clothing, housing, health care, and justice. (21+ only). Find out more about this new faith-oriented group at www.ThereIsEnough.org |
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