Frithjof Bergmann

Frithjof Bergmann founded the Center for New Work in Flint, Michigan in 1981 and has developed a number of suggestions about work as a calling and a vehicle of self-realization, in rotation with mainstream employment, and involving a self-sufficiency that technology itself makes possible.  He has worked with individuals and communities in the U.S., Canada, Germany, South Africa, India, and Saudi Arabia on developing positive strategies for dealing with the changing nature of work.
Professor Bergmann’s interests include continental philosophy –- especially Hegel, Nietzsche, Sartre, and Existentialism generally –- and also social and political philosophy, philosophical anthropology, and philosophy of culture. His seminal work, On Being Free (1977), was issued in a paperback edition in 1978 and had twelve printings.
He resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan and continues to write and lecture on the practical, social, and cultural implications of philosophical thought.

Frithjof Bergmann’s Website

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- Judith Snow

Judith Snow, MA is a social inventor and an advocate for Inclusion – communities that welcome the participation of a wide diversity of people. She is also a visual artist and Founding Director of Laser Eagles, an organization making creative activity available through personal assistance to artists with diverse ability.

An exhibition of 23 of Judith Snow’s paintings is currently on at the Royal Ontario Museum until mid-January 2012. The focus of the exhibit, “Who’s Drawing the Lines,” is on the value of art facilitation and her journey of discovering Inclusion. You can learn more at the Judith Snow Foundation.

Vandana Shiva

Ecological Activist

Decades ago, a young Indian woman living near the Himalayas was on her way to one of her favorite rivers as a child. She wanted to visit it before she left to pursue her Ph.D. in Canada. When she reached the site, however, she was stunned: the river was gone.

“That made me realize that I couldn’t take for granted that our beautiful world will continue to stay that way, and there are very powerful interests out to destroy it,” said environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva in an interview with the Post. “I’ve been sort of an ecological activist ever since.”

In a speech she gave at UWM on Friday, Shiva criticized worldwide efforts to privatize public services, including Gov. Scott Walker’s efforts to weaken pubic employee unions and a recent proposal to privatize the Milwaukee Fire Department.

“Wisconsin has evolved into the epicenter in the struggle for our unity, our common humanity, our oneness in democracy, contested by privatization, commodification and corporatization of all aspects of our lives,” she said.

Shiva is an internationally prominent environmental activist and founder of Navdanya, an organization that focuses on saving and distributing native seeds to local farmers. She advocates for the use of traditional farming practices and against the use of biotechnology, such as genetically modified seeds.

Read an excerpt from Vandana Shiva\’s book, Ecofeminism

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Gar Alperovitz

Founding Principal, The Democracy Collaborative; Author and Lecturer; Professor of Political Economy, University of Maryland

Gar Alperovitz, Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland, is a Founding Principal of The Democracy Collaborative. He is a former Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard and King’s College of Cambridge University. He has served as a Legislative Director in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and as a Special Assistant in the Department of State. Earlier he was President of the Center for Community Economic Development, Co-Director of The Cambridge Institute, and President of the Center for the Study of Public Policy. Dr. Alperovitz’s numerous articles have appeared in publications ranging from The New York Times and The Washington Post to The Journal of Economic Issues, Foreign Policy, Diplomatic History, and other academic and popular journals. Dr. Alperovitz is also author of The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, published in 1995, and the 2002 book, Making a Place for Community: Local Democracy in a Global Era (with Thad Williamson and David Imbroscio).

Gar’s Website

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- Gloria Lowe

Founder/CEO, We Want Green Too!
Gloria Lowe is a long-time community activist on Detroit’s east side. She is a craftsperson who has learned over the years that by working with our hands we can heal ourselves, rehab our homes and rebuild our neighborhoods.

Article by Gloria Lowe

- Jenny Lee

Allied Media Conference

Jenny is Director of Allied Media Projects (AMP). AMP is the local host of the annual Allied Media Conference in Detroit, which attracts North America’s most creative and skilled media makers and social justice organizers. Launched in 2002, AMP relocated to Detroit in 2007 because of the vibrant media-based activism here. Though we’re a small nonprofit, we bring jobs and visitors’ dollars to the city.

Through the conference, AMP has fostered conversations about community media potentially transforming Detroit and other “dying cities” throughout the world. Folks in Detroit — or anywhere that requires a hustle to survive — know that creativity is an abundant and renewable resource. Jenny Lee believes that we can build on that.

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Article by Jenny Lee on “Detroit’s Grassroots Economies”

Patrick Crouch

Capuchin Soup Kitchen

Patrick Crouch is the program manager of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen’s Earthworks Urban Farm, “a working study in social justice and in knowing the origin of the food we eat.” He is an organic farmer, a community gardener, beekeeper, forager of wild foods and herbs, and fermenter of foods and ideas.  He has spent the last six years farming the urban lands of Detroit and working for safe food for all peoples of Detroit.  You can read more about his day-to-day adventures in Detroit in his blog, Little House on the Urban Prairie.