everyday gandhis is a non-profit organization registered in Liberia and the United States, with offices in Monrovia and Voinjama, Liberia and in Santa Barbara, California.
We seek to educate and inspire the public, supporting peace through sharing stories and experiences that illustrate fresh thinking, respect for traditional culture, restoration of nature, innovative media, and the importance of community storytelling.
1. We hold councils in US and West Africa to share stories, dreams, divinations, projects and challenges.
2. We create documentary films, still photographs, written media, web media, and cultural performances.
3. We offer training institutes in West Africa in peace building, reconciliation, dreaming, traditional healing, video and still photography.
4. We participate in workshops, presentations, and community events in the US and West Africa.
5. We meet in regular consultations with Liberian government officials, West African and global colleagues in peace building, environmental restoration, Permaculture, indigenous technology, theater, media and humanitarian aid.
HISTORY
SINCE 2004, we have been working in Liberia with traditional communities and former fighters, beginning by helping to organize Lofa County’s (and perhaps Liberia’s) first post war traditional Mourning Feast, inspired by an interconnected web of dreams that came simultaneously to people in Voinjama and to us in the United States. Since that time we have supported dozens of mourning feasts and healing ceremonies, supporting the community in reconciling with each other, the dead and the natural world.
Our Philosophy
OUR ROLE
The peacebuilder, as we understand it, is the inside-outsider who, by tending to that role, catalyzes the wisdom of an individual or community to restore its intrinsically sustainable authentic nature.
OUR PRACTICE
To recognize ourselves as the ancestors of the future
To entrust ourselves with the task of ensuring a habitable future for all beings
To dance with joy and gratitude between periphery and center; community and solitude; context and specifics; deep time and the present moment; motion and stillness
To be rigorous in meeting challenges and possibilities
To hold ourselves and each other accountable for being in alignment with these principles
To remember that healing and peacemaking are one and the same
OUR TOOLS
Recognizing, tracking and cultivating constant awareness of the fields of interlocking stories
Being in dialogue with the natural world
Appreciating the wisdom of the breakdown
Seeking and trusting guidance from dreams, divinations and synchronicities
Practicing the ways of council
Experiencing unexpected encounters as signposts and sources of nourishment
Living in reciprocity with Earth’s intelligence such that our way of being is the offering we make in response
OUR PRAYER
With deep gratitude, everyday gandhis® offers stories of peacebuilding in the words of those who have known war and violence. Through dreams and indigenous traditions, we honor the living, the ancestors and all of Creation. May the experience of receiving these stories be as healing as the process of telling them and being heard. May they awaken and sustain the peacemaker within us all. May words and images of peace become the new reality of our time and times to come.
With deep gratitude, everyday gandhis offers stories of peacebuilding in the words of those who have known war and violence. Through dreams and indigenous traditions, we honor the living, the ancestors and all of Creation. May the experience of receiving these stories be as healing as the process of telling them and being heard. May they awaken and sustain the peacemaker within us all. May words and images of peace become the new reality of our time and times to come.
US STAFF
i. Cynthia Travis, Founder & President
ii. Ian Amitin, Administrative Director
iii. Ana Brush, Media Coordinator
Liberia STAFF
i. William Jacobs, everyday gandhis Liberia Coordinator
ii. Christian Bethelson, Youth Coordinator
iii. Lassana Kamara, Field Supervisor and Community Reconciliation
