Welcome to the official blog of People for the 23rd Century.

We would like this blog to be a place where friends, colleagues, family, and everyone in between can keep in touch with our groups progress as we learn about each other and begin to tackle the issues of community that we struggle with everyday.

First, so you can get to know us a little better, is our Mission Statement:

We are a 14 people from various geographical regions, of different ages, cultural backgrounds, religions, and occupations who have determined to "journey" together. We have realized that we are anxious about the ingrained and systematic patterns of irresponsibility, injustice, fear and apathy that is destroying our environment, our financial support systems, and our communities. We have resolved to take action and to empower ourselves to unleash our local and extended communitys' power to create both personal and systemic change.

Because these patterns of behavior are so ingrained, we realize the need to “meet” those whose lives are unfamiliar to our own and to allow what we “meet” to change us. As ‘westerners’ we have much to learn from the struggles and the riches of the people of El Salvador, a country devastated by war and poverty and yet hosting pockets of extraordinary perspective and hope.

So, from June 25-July 6th, 2009, we will be traveling to El Salvador to immerse ourselves in the creative and inspired work of Marta Benavides (see sidebar link for a video on Marta's work).

While in ES, we will learn practical skills and grassroots techniques for community organizing at the local, national and international levels and we will together wrestle some of the fundamental questions confronting our generations so that we can hone our direction towards personal and communal sustainability.

• What is “our” community; how do we fit into it?

• How might we be more accountable with our responsibility to compassionate and engaged community involvement? How do we support each other in steps forward?

• What best practices are there to help us towards more sustainable lifestyles in both our human and natural communities?

• With a growing anxiety around limited financial resources, how might we work to improve the world around us, build community and explore communal sustainability where we prioritize communal sustainability over individual survival?

• How might we use the arts (10 of the persons on this trip are extraordinary artists) to strengthen our communal life?

• How might we most-fully dialogue with the diversities of religion, faith, philosophies, ideologies and their practices that exist in our communities?

As we return home, we expect taht we will be better prepared to promote the creation of good community, through commitment to practices of ‘presence’, empowerment, sustainability, activism and organizational initiatives for justice. We are committed to continuing this engagement with ourselves and our communities and holding one another accountable to personal and community empowerment for the sake of ourselves and our planet.