Peace Recruiters Converge In The ATL

The Past Wednesday Night AFSC from around the country met at 60 walton street to kick off our national Youth & Militarism task force meeting. Our local counter recruitment group, Student Career Alternatives Program hosted the meeting, providing a pretty amazing spread of delicious food.

After sharing food and getting to know each other we transitioned into a show and tell, with pictures and videos, for organizers around the country. It was pretty exciting and inspiring to see what was working for folks in different communities. We saw planty of clear examples of tangible victories, large and small, around the country. Portland, the Bay Area, LA, New Orleans, Chiago, and of course Atlanta(presented by SCAP's own Josie Figueroa) highlighted their efforts to bring real non-military options to youth and challenge the systems of violence and oppression that control our bodies, minds, and communities.

After the show and tell session we went right into a group discussion about challenges and potential collab ideas. There was much discussion about the department of defenses's role in the redrafting of the Dream Act. It was a really a blessing to be in a space with folks from all over that are doing some of the most challenging youth organizing work in the country.

Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Below is one of the video submission from AFSC's, "One Trillion Dollars For Peace" youth video art contest that came out of a youth Group that Pablo Paredes works with in the Bay area. It's a great example of how young folks are making some of the connections between systems of vioence and oppression that control our minds, bodies, and communities.

Defending Public Education In Statesboro!

Last year over four billion dollars was cut from Georgia k-12 public education, and students attending publicly funded universities saw their fees increase by 17%. The long term effects of these cut, if they remain, on the future of education in our state seem unmeasurable. We already know that some school districts are being forced to ration calories at the lunch line, institute four day school weeks, and of course cut teachers and school workers. It's hard to imagine things getting much worse...but they can, and they might.

This upcoming legislative session could see even more budget cuts for k-12, and more tuition and fee hikes for college students. That's why are work to build a movement to defend public education is literally a fight for the future, that's right our future is on the line here; not just the future of every current student but every future student.

This past week kicked of the first of several dozen trips we are organizing around the state in our effort to build a campaign to defend education. We had two organizers from Georgia Students For Higher Education join me on the road to Statesboro Georgia, home of splash in the boro, Georgia Southern University, and the best Howard Johnson in the Country. We had the pleasure of meeting with Bobbi Jo Rogers, Jeremy Foreman, and Dr. Rosemarie Stallworth. They couldn't have been a better trio. Jeremy is and extremely hands on staff with the hands on network, he also just seems to know every single soul in the boro, no joke. Bobbi Joe is an education major at Georgia Southern, and Dr. Stallworth has very to Georgia Southern. It seems that, during our meeting, we established some pretty clear challenges and next steps to begin organizing in the boro and ways to plug into te broader statewide network.

Big Ups to Sofia Lipko and Hira Mahmood for rolling out there and helping to make this meeting be a success!

If you're interested in bringing us out your way just let us know!


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Another Atlanta Is Possible?

During our 8th week in our ongoing Be The Change curriculum at Horizons school students began our two hour session by reporting back on all the progress they had made in the last week. They had fundraisers planned(big ups Monica!), graphics designed, music written, facebooks groups started, and more! We were impressed to say the least.

After report backs we again split up into working groups and spent the rest of our time learning how to wheat-paste, create stencils, spray paint, structure a song, build strategy, create and edit video footage, plan fundraisers, and create digital photos.

We invited all the students to come out to Student Career Alternative Programs, "Our Dreams Will Not Be Recruited" concert planned for Sunday(11/21). Student seemed excited about the concert, some even planned to carpool.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee

Atlanta, Prepare Yourself!!

Our pilot program, "Be The Change Curriculum" just keeps getting more and more interesting. This week we had the pleasure of pairing young Atlanta artists and community organizers with one of seven high school student groups.

Our goal was to help each student group create a stronger analysis of the issue they had chosen to address, sharpen their focus, explore community resources, develop clear next steps, and individual accountability.

We pretty much lucked out and roped in an amazing crew of young dynamic organizers. We had WonderRoot Community Art Center Co-founder Chris Appleton, WonderRoot program manager Kwajelyn Jackson, Sierra Club field organizer Erin Glynn, Student Career Alternatives Program organizer Josie Figueroa, LGBTQ advocate Christina Vega, Living Walls organizer and street artist Monica Campana, and myself each took on a group for 90 minutes before coming back together to and let each student group present their next steps.

We don't want to let all the details out about what each group is planning organizing in the coming months but I will say that everyone present was pretty excited about the campaigns that each group is getting closer to launching.

Atlanta, prepare yourself for an unstopable force.

Monica, Chris, Kwajelyn, Josie, Christina, and Erin
Thanks You,Thank You, Thank You!!! Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to spend with Horizons students. You all made a strong impression and your impact on the students campaign work was felt:)




Tim Franzen
America Friends Service Committee

Atlanta Youth Grasp Organizing Tools

AFSC's pilot curriculum is in it's seventh week at Horizon's school and so far the experiment is going very well. This past week we meet with the whole student body and reviewed ways in which social justice organizations have used different art mediums have to create dialogue in the Atlanta community in the last month or so.

We also had Caitlin Barrow spend a few moments sharing her experience organizing against the Iraq war in Glynn County Georgia when she was in high school. Caitlin talked about what inspired her to get active,the challenges of organizing in rural Georgia, and the impact her high school activism has had on her life.

We spent the rest of the morning split up into working groups that the students helped to form around issues that they wanted to address in their communities. There were groups devoted to addressing education budget cuts, skateboarders rights, violence in the community, gay marriage, and the price of fossil fuels on our globe. Me, Caitlin, and Josie Figueroa went from group to group to help facilitate the process of campaign development.

Each group presented their ideas after we re-grouped and I have to say that I'm pretty excited what come of all this! Next week we'll be pairing each group with a young Atlanta organizer to help each group get a stronger focus, time-line, and a solid idea about need and resources available.


Tim Franzen
American Friends Service Committee