Projects
IMCW GOOD WORKS Project Summaries
As of February 6, 2010
- BuddhaFest 2010
- African Vulnerable Children Project
- Cease Fire DC
- Mindful Hospice
- On Our Own of Fairfax County
- Prison Dharma Group
- RAINN - Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network
- Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
- Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship
BuddhaFest 2010 ( www.buddhafest.org)
BuddhaFest 2010 is a 4-day festival of Buddhist film, teachings and entertainment to be held Thursday, June 17 to Sunday, June 20 at the Katzen Arts Center at American University. It is being sponsored by American University's Office of the Chaplain and the Insight Meditation Community of Washington.
Eric Forbis and Gabriel Riera of IMCW are organizing the festival, along with the help of many other volunteers.
The festival’s goal is to engage and inspire non-Buddhists and practitioners alike by presenting films and teachings that take a fresh, contemporary approach to the profound principles of Buddhism. As relevant today as they were over two thousand years ago, the Buddha’s core teachings of self-awareness and compassion for all will be celebrated during the festival.
In partnership with other organizations around the DC area, BuddhaFest 2010 will offer its slate of programming as a way of encouraging a deeper appreciation of Buddhism from a cultural, intellectual and practical perspective. IMCW’s GOOD WORKS program is helping to support BuddhaFest 2010 as a way for IMCW members to work together to be of service in the community. Tara Brach of IMCW, as well as Sharon Salzberg and Betty Rogers, are serving on
the BuddhaFest 2010 Advisory Council.
What You Can Do
We are still in need of volunteers to help with planning and promoting BuddhaFest 2010, as well as volunteers to help during the 4 days of the festival.
If you would like to help in any way, please contact Eric Forbis at ericforbis@hotmail.com.
African Vulnerable Children Project
This program is helping the people of Kantolomba, Zambia, a desperately-impoverished slum in the 12th-poorest country. The program is helping to feed and educate children, establishing safe housing, improving public health, providing medical care, as well as helping to create jobs, job training and community banking.
The Africa Vulnerable Children Project was started and is administered by members of the Living Compassion Zen Monastery Center in Murphy, California.
What You Can Do
- Learn more about this life-changing, and life-saving, work at http://www.livingcompassion.org/africa/index.html
- Donate in any amount that you are able to at the website above
- Help us spread the word throughout the IMCW community.
- Help us plan local fundrasers.
To help in any way, please contact Eric Forbis at ericforbis@hotmail.com.
Cease Fire D.C. is a grassroots community service organization dedicated to reducing violence (particularly gun violence) in the D.C. metropolitan area through its ongoing Cease Fire campaign. A cessation of hostilities is a good first step towards a non-violent resolution of social conflicts.
This project, Cease Fire D.C., is designed to promote peace in the city by placing an emphasis on a "cease fire summer season." The summer is typically a period of high crime in the District (as it is in many large cities). We will be canvassing the Adams Morgan neighborhood to get ideas on what residents think is necessary to bring down the violence, and bring about a long-term peace to the area -- and to the city.
What You Can Do
We are seeking volunteers to canvas the Adams Morgan community by conducting a survey on how to bring peace to the streets of Washington D.C. The volunteers will meet prior to the survey to develop the questionnaire, and then after the survey to discuss the experience -- and to decide what to do with the survey results. Cease Fire D.C. is organized as a labor co-operative that seeks a minimum of 9 hours of work/study per month from its workers. We also seek maximum input from those who work in the program.
Contact Marc Humphries - marchump@yahoo.com
Hospice care serves people who are near the end of life, as well as their families. Volunteers who spend time with these persons and their loved ones are essential ingredients in successful hospice care. Some members of IMCW have already been trained, and now volunteer for local non-profit hospices. Others are interested in obtaining training, or would like to learn more about becoming a hospice volunteer.
What You Can Do
We propose to bring these individuals together in several ways:
- establish a resource list of IMCW members who are already hospice volunteers;
- collect names of people who wish to be trained to be hospice volunteers;
- contact other local hospice organizations for additional volunteer training opportunities in the future;
- form a loose sangha of past, current, and future hospice volunteers for mutual support and periodic KM-like meetings.
Contact June Peters at 240-506-5533 or petersju2003@yahoo.com with questions.
On Our Own of Fairfax County is a community drop-in center along the Route One corridor in Alexandria. We assist people who are living with serious mental illnesses -- including those who are homeless, and those who may also have past trauma, substance-use disorders, and other disabilities. Our center is unique among community service organizations in that it was organized by, and is staffed and governed by, people who themselves are, or have been, recipients of services.
Our mission is for members to participate in creating a safe, healthy, welcoming community where individuals whose lives have been significantly impacted by psychiatric disorders may show mutual care by promoting self-help, peer support, socialization, advocacy, education, spirituality, economic development, personal growth and creativity.
What You Can Do
Join a Volunteer Team to Establish an Oasis Mindfulness Group: The group will be co-led by a mental health consumer who was a co-founder of the drop-in center, and who has previously attended mindfulness groups and engages in a mindfulness practice. Volunteers are needed to participate in a weekly meditation/mindfulness group. The format of the group would be a short meditation/mindfulness exercise, followed by a discussion of the exercise and suggestions for practice during the week. A volunteer team of individuals is needed to share in performing the following duties:
- Help the co-leader identify resources to be used by the group.
- Take turns co-leading the group.
- Share with the group personal experiences of mindfulness/meditation practice and encourage those with less experience to increase their practice.
- Provide a presence that is calm, gentle, non-judgmental and compassionate.
- Be willing to mentor less experienced group participants in mindfulness practice.
- Commit to attending 2 evening groups per month for a total of 3 hours
Contact person: Diane Engster at 703-598-5668 or 703-360-1992.
We are forming a mindfulness group to help provide local prisoners with additional opportunities to experience personal transformation. Please talk to us about the many ways available for you to help.
Here is a personal testimonial from a prisoner in Tennessee:
"I wish to express my appreciation for programs like yours, because I’m beginning to understand the different states of mind, and the type of mind that led me inside of here. And thanks to programs like this I’m very hopeful I can break the habits that lead to suffering and one day obtain the peace of mind of the Compassionate Buddha to help others in my current position."
— Lamar Jefferson, NECC, Mountain City, TN
What You Can Do
- Join our organizing committee to help plan IMCW’s Prison Dharma Group
- Help to teach the basics of meditation in a correctional facility
- Help to lead meditation sessions in a correctional facility
- Correspond by mail with a prisoner
- Donate new or gently-used meditation or dharma books that will be given to prisoners and prison libraries
- Donate money that will be used to purchase books
Contact Sara Tarr to help in any way - stillpresent@yahoo.com
RAINN - Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network is the nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1.800.656.HOPE) and the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline at rainn.org. It publicizes the hotline's free, confidential services; educates the public about sexual assault; and leads national efforts to prevent sexual assault and improve services for victims.
What You Can Do
RAINN needs D.C. area volunteers to staff the Online Hotline.
RAINN’s operating budget is down by over 50% from where it was last year, and we are in need of financial support from individual donors. More than 84 cents of every dollar raised goes directly to sexual assault programs.
Contact Kathryn Brown at Kbrown5001@yahoo.com
Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic
Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic provides audio textbooks, digital playback equipment and training for individuals with visual, learning, or physical disabilities that prevent them from reading print. Nearly 3,500 students in the Washington metropolitan area use RFB&D recorded texts to gain access to education and employment opportunities
What You Can Do
RFB&D (http://www.rfbd.org/dc) asks for a commitment of 2 hours per week for one year. Daytime, evening, and Saturday morning hours are available at the DC office on Wisconsin Avenue in Friendship Heights. Weekday hours are available to NIH employees at the satellite studio on campus.
Financial contributions are *always* appreciated, too :-)
Contact Melissa Meier - mjmeier@me.com
Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship
Climate Change, Mindful Consumption, Food and Peace.
Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship is an organization that has recently begun a new focus, to bring more awareness to the issue of climate change. Climate change and world peace are two issues that are very intricately linked, since the availability of resources is the cause of so much violence in our world. Since food and eating are such large causes of carbon emissions (which lead to climate change), WBPF has chosen to focus on bringing more mindfulness to food issues.
What You Can Do
WBPF is in the midst of organization, and is ramping up programs. We are looking for volunteers to help brainstorm ideas on how to bring more mindful consumption techniques to the lives of the IMCW sangha, the general Buddhist community, and the larger community as a whole.
Come to our next meeting! We will discuss organizing and actions to take to bring mindful consumption to our communities.
See the WBPF website at http://wbpf.blogspot.com/
Contact Geoff Maxson at 301-270-1877 or geoffmaxson@verizon.net with questions
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