Zach Bell and Ron Towns are co-founders and co-directors of Camp Common Ground. a summer camp that brings racially and economically diverse middle schoolers together to teach them about leadership, social-emotional, and cultural competencies, and how to develop meaningful relationships with each other. Bell & Towns discuss their work and how kids are taking up the effort to build connection across difference.
Category Archives: Podcast
Kim Roth Howe Searches for Purple in a Red/Blue Time
“You may not find reciprocity as you attempt to have conversations” across difference, said Kim Roth Howe, founding principal of Co-Creative Labs and TED Talk speaker of Searching for Purple in a Red and Blue Time. “Even if you do everything exactly right, and you come with the most open heart and most gracious perspective…, …
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Claudia Cohen on Everyday Dignity
Acts of dehumanization and humiliation are well-documented tools of war and submission. But the flip side – the impact of offering someone dignity, acknowledging their humanity – is less studied. “It occurs to me that if you can damage the dignity of someone in a small or a very large way, well then aren’t we …
Stuart Chittenden, SquishTalks & The Power of Empathetic Conversation
Stuart Chittenden is a lawyer by training, but he began to see the power of empathetic conversation on relationships and even his own outlook on life. He now focuses on building relationships helping people tell their stories and truly hear the stories of others as founder of Squishtalks.
Islamic Networks Group (ING) & Know Your Neighbor
This is Civity Radio talks with Kate Chance and Ameena Jandali with the Islamic Networks Group (ING). ING works around the country on education geared toward cultural literacy and mutual respect, as well as efforts to counter incidents of bigotry through building relationships and engaging communities. ING has also created the Know Your Neighbor Campaign, of which Civity is a partner.
One America’s Andrew Hanauer on the Power of Doing Something
“We are so quick to assume that people from the other side of the spectrum, whatever that is, are motivated by negative things,” said Andrew Hanauer, director of One America, on This Is Civity Podcast. “This voice needs to be out there in the public calling for respect and inclusion, calling for people to not …
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Greg Baldwin, VolunteerMatch
Greg Baldwin, president of VolunteerMatch joins This is Civity Radio to discuss how a Civity Brush on BART profoundly impacted him and people around him, eventually ending up on the social media page of KTVU’s Frank Somerville, who dedicates his feed to impactful storytelling. Baldwin now encourages people to set aside their instinct to persuade, …
Jacob Hess, Defining Words from All Sides
“Our belief is that civility doesn’t have to taste like broccoli,” said Jacob Hess, member of Living Room Conversations and Director of the Utah chapter of The Village Square. “It doesn’t have to be this heavy civic duty that people do just because they’re supposed to. We can actually have some fun with it.” Hess …
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Marty Swaim Challenges Racism Through Conversation
“We don’t basically talk about race,” says Marty Swaim, co-founder of Challenge Racism. “It’s the kind of thing where when the subject of race comes up, people leave the meeting. They leave the room. They shut down.” Swaim and Civity Research Director Palma Strand discussed the importance of staying in the room on This is …
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Paul VanDeCarr: Who Are You?
Paul VanDeCarr is Managing Director and Co-Founder of Working Narratives. He has spent much of his career using storytelling to build relationships, make connections, build understanding, and communicate ideas. Paul recently started a podcast called Who Are You in which he reaches across some sort of divide to find commonality with someone who may otherwise be considered …