JOIN OUR JOURNEY AS STORYTELLING RESTORES THE 'HOOD Register Today & Begin Saturday 7/16 At 10:00am Call 773-678-9541 Today 5733 S. University ~ Conference Room Partial Scholarships Now Available Through Sponsorship of University of Chicago Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture 
| | ORGANIZING YOUR WALKABLE VILLAGE Walk-to-Work, Walk-to-Shop, Walk-to-Play, Walk-to-Learn "Surthriving" In The Age of Energy Descent Saturdays, July 9 to August 27, 10:30am-1pm University of Chicago/Civic Knowledge Project Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture 5733 S. University, Conference Room For information on course content and partial scholarships contact Naomi Davis 773-678-9541 naomidavis@blacksingreen.org 
A CLASS A REUNION A MUSICAL A MOVE-MEANT IF YOU OR ANYONE YOU KNOW ONCE LIVED IN WEST WOODLAWN TIF, (SEE MAP AT LEFT) THIS IS OUR CALL TO COME HOME. OUR REUNION WILL BE SATURDAY, AUGUST 27TH AT THE DUSABLE MUSEUM. STAY TUNED FOR INFO. GREEN-VILLAGE-ORGANIZING CLASS STARTS TODAY~!! "I'm lonesome for my precious children. They live so far away. Oh may they hear my calling, calling, and come back home some day." Blacks in Green™ makes that call now...let's return to "village life" - where every child belongs to every home, and every problem relies on a neighbor's helping hands. MOVE BACK HOME West Woodlawn has a special place in Chicago's Great Migration history. Join us as we apply BIG's 5th Principle of Green-Village-Building to help advance healing, bonding, and organizing in this once-thriving place. Inspired by Grannynomics™ - the values that ruled our households and guided our transactions when small was plenty - "Calling My Children Home" is our theme song of longing, written by a heart believing for a future time when children will come home, to love. Consider "migrating" back home. Here in the Age of Climate Crisis, a return to the old ways is considered critically important. Consider one vision for sparking neighbor- owned business: theater as an economic epicenter; a "museum without walls" as cultural shopping destination; and increased household income of residents and neighbor-owned businesses as the prime metrics of success. A century of race-based housing policy has shaped the economic wasteland of this area. Let's help implement a neighbor-driven system to reverse it~!! Photographs: (top left to bottom) Two of scores of famous West Woodlawners: Lorraine Hansberry, author of American Classic, "A Raisin in the Sun;" and Emmett Till, whose murder catalyzed America's Civil Rights Movement; the Hansberry home, a protagonist of Lorraine's play; typical West Woodlawn vacant lot; and the community Crown Jewel, the DuSable Museum of African American History, partner in the "61st Street museum-without-walls craft corridor and cultural shopping destination." Feel the vision. Visit the DuSable 37th Annual Arts & Crafts Festival, July 9th and 10th. click here for info Take The Summer Semester Class & Help "Write The Script" ORGANIZE YOUR WALKABLE VILLAGE HEAL...BOND...BUY~!! AND LIVE IN COMMUNITY AGAIN. History & Rationale "Organizing" presents and applies BIG's 5th Principle of Green-Village-Building as an opening salvo for our brand of urban economic development. We translate the emerging theories of "sustainable community" into villages that keep black community money circulating 8-12 times via neighbor-owned businesses before exiting, with the purpose of increasing household income along the way. Our next session is the last of a 3-semester series which began in the fall with "defining" your walkable village; proceeded in the spring to "planning" your walkable village; and culminates in the summer with "organizing" your walkable village. Thus, each semester is an independent module progressing from theory to practice. As a whole, they reflect the beginning of BIG's real-time, place-based, proof-of-concept: "only a culture-specific/whole-system solution can transform the whole-system problem common to black communities everywhere." Our measures for "quality of life" are practical, inter-related, and fundamental: self-esteem through self-help self-reliance through neighbor-owned businesses comfort through increased household income Consonant with the "slow" movement, we believe the wisest way to begin urban economic development is by slowing the bricks and mortar part, deepening the relationship process, deconstructing the traditional charrette, and mandating policy/practice that builds capacity of black communities to own and develop themselves, and creates right-now, career-connected jobs to match the realities of 30-50% unemployment in our mis-educated communities. Yes. We believe everyone must work. By beginning with play...by beginning with A PLAY. Our spring semester students photographed the fronts and backs of every building (1,498) and each vacant lot (860) in our West Woodlawn TIF, and produced a community event that linked deep culture and the green economy in a full house of inter-generational neighbors, environmentalists, and cross-town cousins. Ol' Time Mississippi Fish Fry + Hip Hop Storytelling Revival...& Radio Show With 4 hours of continuous entertainment culminating in a tap dancing blast, interspersed with sustainability partner "commercials," and supplemented by their tabling -- our "grannynomic devvelopment jam" began the exciting process of changing hearts and minds, and introducing an economic wasteland to the possibility of economic vibrance -- a craft colony/museum without borders in partnership with The DuSable Museum of African American History...with the vision of a combined Artisan/Transition Town skills-based "cultural shopping destination." Our summer semester students will collect 100 representative stories from the neighbors of West Woodlawn, supporting an emerging Historical Society, and laying the next phase of foundation. By coaching/facilitating West Woodlawn neighbors in producing Migration:The Musical - a community performance genre which they write, produce, and perform in about themselves - we begin the healing, bonding, organizing process so essential to community education, engagement, and inspiration; so fundamental to capacity-building. Thus our 5-year, multi-disciplinary research and development process has begun. Slow work...and too late to rush.
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BIG'S CORE IDEA AND 5-YEAR PILOT RECLAIMING OUR INNER CITY ROOTS
 Many of us remember when we walked to shop in our neighborhoods - to businesses owned by neighbors. The pharmacy, grocer, shoe repair, dry cleaner, printer, tax man, produce man, funeral parlor, portrait studio, corner store, and more -- all owned by neighbors whose self-interests kept our dollars circulating vigorously in our communities. Segregation made us "mixed-income" and skill made us "economic epicenters" -- but what children remember most is the love and freedom, and steady push of parents' expectations to achieve and "do for self." BIG: Blacks in Green believes that nothing trumps self-help; and that when precious tax dollars are invested in our communities, their ultimate value must also generate increased capacity to do for self - that its measures must be 1) increased household income and 2) increased neighbor-owned businesses. But after billions in government's inner city investment, Black communities are as blighted as ever. In this context we observe that help is not on the way, and that if it arrives, it's most likely come to help itself. We have "followed the money," and we know. Now a new approach is offered with BIG's 8 Principles of Green-Village-Building, and its precursor, BIG's 12 Propositions of Grannynomics. Together they offer a whole-system solution for the whole-system problem common to black communities everywhere. They insist on self-help and capacity-building of neighbors to own, develop, and manage their communities and businesses. They insist that everyone must work, everyone must be educated. Key to reclaiming this health/wealth is remembering our great legacy of land stewardship as "the original environmentalists;" and remembering the values that ruled our households and guided our transactions and when small was plenty. Unfortunately, remembering our stories often triggers shame, sorrow, trauma -- and so we silently let them lapse: the glory of our journey - our incomparable capacity to live and love against all odds...to survive centuries of boldly ratified terrorism...to reinvent our ancient technical and creative genius. Our ability to reclaim ourselves and our communities turns on our ability to tell our stories powerfully and let their healing-bonding-organizing elements wash our brains free from the stuck places and blind corners keeping us colonized.
Across America - without regard to class and almost without exception - we find Black communities colonized. This means "waiting for the truck to come" to deliver our daily bread, the staples we need to survive. This is as true in slums as in our upscale suburbs.
This condition - not exclusive to communities of color - is exacerbated by the fact that we live in neighborhoods where we do not own the businesses, the buildings they occupy, nor control the companies and jobs that drive or construct them. Thus, nowhere is going "back to the future" more important than in Black neighborhoods where our whole-system problems persist. Centuries of "Katrina Economics" - policies and practices that left us stalled and stranded - can be reversed if we remember we have strength in organized bundling. Our Underground Railroad transported us from one "tight little island" of safekeeping to the next - maroon towns and small patches, hung like nets through swamps, woods, and fields until we connected to places where we could decide for ourselves. We lived free because we told ourselves a freedom story...and because we were makers and menders of things...and because we helped ourselves by realizing we were slaves, resolving to be free, taking that first step, and then reaching beyond the bounds of race and class for allies also willing to give their all. We were organized into networks with the sole goal of freedom; and whether we lived or died, all who stayed the course made it to "the promised land." To remember this first migration -- the Underground Railroad -- is to challenge the perceived limits of our compassion, courage, and capacity to share, and to bear witness to the price paid for freedoms to which we still aspire. America's "Great Migration" began in the early 1900's and came in two waves over 60 years, depositing millions of our ancestors in cities northeast, midwest, and western. Through it we thrived as builders of homes, mechanics of engines, masters of medicine, farmers and bakers, weavers and tailors, quilters and millers, hunters and breeders, poets and laborers - circulating our wealth within our walkable villages. Here in the Age of Climate Crisis, we must restore this legacy of self-sufficiency. We must reinvent our village as the best of rural and urban reality. We must reclaim our inner city roots. Key to our "surthrival" is the knowledge that most scientists cite 2012 as our deadline for implementing systems that by 2050 will reduce extreme weather events and stabilize our greenhouse gas emissions to avoid civic meltdown. Many of the literal and figurative storms ahead are unavoidable, and we must plan for emergencies and adapt to lifestyles more like our freedom-seeking ancestors. Global warming driven by industrial greenhouse gas production is a worldwide demonstration of blight-making policy/practice we recognize in the microcosm of our communities. The wastelands generated by centralized wealth/resources/decision-making brings the same demise to the rulers as to the ruled. They say "nature bats last." Certainly she had her way with us in New Orleans. Yet we can be healed-bonded-organized...able to make and mend...to keep our wealth/skill local and supporting self-interest...preserving the stories of our places. Around the world, the case has been made for such interdependent local living economies as greenhouse has reduction strategies. Such sustainable community initiatives should be supported in and by Black neighborhoods. Let's make another Great Migration: come back home to self-reliance, the child of freedom and love. Pictured above: McCosh Elementary School Class, West Woodlawn, 1963
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| THE NEXT BIG IDEA FROM VAN JONES REBUILDING THE AMERICAN DREAM 
We grew up hearing about the American Dream. It's the dream of a country where, if you work hard and play by the rules, you can live with dignity, provide for your family, and give your kids a better life. A country where we strive for greatness - and take care of each other when times get hard. Right now the American Dream is under siege. Tens of millions of willing workers can't find jobs. Millions of homeowners have lost their homes to foreclosure and millions more are underwater. Instead of investing in our shared future, politicians are giving tax breaks to the rich and then slashing vital services families depend on. Rather than expanding protections for the middle class during these difficult economic times, they're trying to gut workers' rights. But a new movement is rising all across America to fight back. It was born among the teachers, students, firefighters and nurses of Wisconsin who took over their Capitol to stop to Governor Walker's power grab. Now it's spreading as millions of other Americans-inspired by the events in Madison, Wisconsin-stand up to say "No" to right-wing attacks on the middle class. Van Jones called this new wave of energy the "American Dream Movement." It's growing stronger by the day, and it's not going away until Americans can find jobs, afford to go to college, retire with dignity, and secure a future for their children and their communities. For an annotated transcript of Van's launch script, click here. To join the movement, click here. |
| BIG WEEK JOB OPENINGS GREEN JOBS ~ NEW THIS WEEK - Center For Neighborhood Technology - Senior Energy Auditor
- Environment Illinois - Fellow
Center For Neighborhood Technology - Senior Energy Auditor CNT Energy is a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to provide economic and environmental benefits to households, building owners and communities through energy efficiency and conservation. CNT Energy is experiencing rapid growth in three main areas: (1) Residential Real-Time Electricity Pricing and Smart Grid Development,
(2) Energy Efficiency in Residential and Commercial Buildings, and
(3) Community Energy Planning and Energy Information Center. CNT Energy is an affiliate of the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), a 31-year old nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the development and perpetuation of vibrant urban communities that are both environmentally and economically sustainable, both in the Chicago region and throughout the United States. Position
The Sr. Energy Auditor for CNT Energy will work primarily on the Energy Savers Program (http://www.cntenergy.org/buildings/energysavers/), providing technical assistance to affordable, multi-family building owners. The Sr. Energy Auditor will conduct energy audits, complete energy modeling of buildings and assist Energy Savers management to oversee all aspects of energy efficiency retrofit projects. The energy auditing includes analyzing existing properties to evaluate the current and potential energy usage of multi-family rental buildings via a variety of evaluation tools, including utility bill analysis, comprehensive on-site audits, energy modeling and baseline analysis.
The Sr. Energy Auditor will interface directly with multi-family rental building owners, contractors and property managers to support and direct their efforts to achieve significant improvement in building performance. The position is based in Chicago but will provide assistance to properties across Cook & Lake Counties and other areas. Accountability
The Energy Auditor reports directly to the Energy Efficiency Programs Manager of CNT Energy. The auditor will work closely with CNT Energy's Construction Manager as well as other staff. Responsibilities
· Conduct on-site energy audits of residential, commercial and other buildings
· Use of energy simulation software to estimate energy usage
· Work with project partners throughout energy retrofit process to develop work plans for retrofits. This includes the Construction Manager, contractors, and the client/building owner in
· Conduct building energy performance monitoring
· Assist Construction Manager in coordinating project inspections
· Provide technical consulting to project participants, i.e. property owners, property managers, developers and other project partners
· Write reports according to program guidelines
· Write specifications for energy conservation measures
· Communicate effectively with Owners, Contractors, CNT staff and other project partners
· Contribute to efforts related to outreach strategies and recruitment of property owners
· Communicate with contractors and oversee construction management as necessary
· Contribute to other CNT Energy Efforts as required Qualifications/Skills
· 5-10 years of related work experience in energy auditing, construction management, or building science
· Bachelors degree, or comparable experience, in engineering, environmental science or building science related disciplines is desired
· Experience with energy retrofits or construction field desired
· Experience with computer energy modeling
· Excellent written and verbal communication
· Strong management skills
· Strong analytical thinking and problem solving
· Ability to work well independently and in a team setting
· Local and regional travel is anticipated
· Valid Drivers License Anti-Discrimination Policy
The Center for Neighborhood Technology is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate against any employee or job applicant based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age disability, veteran status, or marital status. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, termination, promotion, transfer, layoff, leaves of absence, comp | | | |
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