Inspiring: Healing Our Relationships Media Articles
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“BACA” stands for Bikers Against Child Abuse. BACA is an organization, or corporation, not to be confused with a motorcycle club, whose impact statement reads, “No child deserves to live in fear!” BACA is much more than a group that gets together to ride motorcycles. BACA members’ sole purpose is to do all they can to create a safer environment for abused children, according to Tyson “The Kidd” Hamilton, BACA’s Utah State President. BACA members are ready at any time and any place to support children who have been abused. Members work with local law enforcement and other officials to protect children from further abuse. They consider children to be a part of their organization. They form friendships with the children to let them know they have someone in their corner, even if it’s just a few bikers. The children they empower get to choose their own road name when they receive a vest with a kids’ patch on the back that states “empowered.” Members of BACA will attend court, visit families where they feel safe, and respond to the child’s needs when they are in fear. Although BACA members don’t condone violence or physical force, they are always prepared to protect abused children from further abuse. “We go to court with children, because when they are testifying, they’re scared,” Hamilton explained. “We give kids support at their homes 365 days a year, 24/7. If they call us at 2 a.m. and they’re scared, we are going to respond. We are going to help that child.”
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Revving their engines, the Bikers Against Child Abuse love to ride, and they love to make a difference by helping children who have been abused. It is about giving them back some of the power balance that has been stolen from them, giving them back some of the childhood that has been stolen from them,” says Bikers Against Child Abuse‘s Tom Goudreau, whose road name is ‘Motown’. The Bikers Bikers Against Child Abuse — BACA for short — has chapters all over North America and around the world. Children they help are welcomed in a special ceremony and they can reach out for help whenever they need it. “They get a road name like we have, and two primaries who will be responsible, 24/7, for that child whenever they need it,” Motown says. “We’ll be there at three o’clock in the morning, if necessary.” It’s something Motown wishes he had had as a child after being abused by a family member. “A lot of us are survivors,” he says. “The number one thing that people say to us around the world is, I wish you were there when I was a kid. That’s usually with a tear in their eye. Child abuse is epidemic. We need to face the facts. This happens everywhere. That’s why we’re in 19 countries around the world because child abuse is everywhere.” “It’s tough when you see a small child who’s wounded, needs help, but when you see them, change from that small child to somebody who’s empowered, it’s the best feeling in the world,” [a member] adds.
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Former NASA astronaut Ron Garan ... described the striking beauty and stark reality he witnessed from space. “When I looked out the window of the International Space Station, I saw ... dancing curtains of auroras that seemed so close it was as if we could reach out and touch them,” he exclaimed. He also noticed something concerning. “I saw the unbelievable thinness of our planet's atmosphere,” the astronaut remarked. That “paper-thin” atmosphere is all that stands between humanity and disaster. Garan was troubled by how easily this fact is overshadowed by economic priorities. “I saw an iridescent biosphere teeming with life. I didn't see the economy. But since our human-made systems treat everything, including the very life-support systems of our planet, as the wholly owned subsidiary of the global economy, it's obvious from the vantage point of space that we're living a lie,” he said. He shared the concept of the “overview effect,” something many astronauts feel after they visit space. “It describes the shift that astronauts have when they see the planet hanging in the blackness of space. There's this light bulb that pops up where they realize how interconnected and interdependent we all are,” the astronaut explained. "When we can evolve beyond a two-dimensional us versus them mindset, and embrace the true multi-dimensional reality of the universe that we live in, that's when we're going to no longer be floating in darkness. That's our true calling.”
Note: Watch a powerful video where Ron Garan shares the profound revelations he experienced in space. Read about astronaut Edgar Mitchell's mystical experience in space as the sixth person to walk on the moon. Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.
A wave of local democracy is sweeping across Europe. On the streets of Hull ... democracy is coming to life through people’s assemblies. Assemblies are public meetings where local people get together to discuss and decide on a specific issue, without political interference or hidden agendas. These assemblies can help us fundamentally rethink how we make decisions in our society, and create strong, active communities in the process. To survive ecological breakdown and the collapse of our failing economy, we need both, urgently. The culture war has gained a lot of ground. Overcoming these divisions is one of our biggest, most pressing challenges. Through assemblies, it’s possible to form self-organising communities where we lift each other out of the conditions that these ideologies prey on. Where we are forced to work alongside people we disagree with or even dislike, and organise positive initiatives that feed us, lower our energy bills, give us purpose and contribute to a stronger community spirit. Our assembly ground rules ask us to look for what we have in common, and there is a wealth of agreement to be found if you care to look for it. Cooperation Hull is holding Neighbourhood Assemblies across the city, and in each one we are learning what happens when a room full of strangers upend social norms to break bread, hold hands (an ice-breaker) and voice their honest opinions on the most important questions of our time. Soon we will launch the first citywide assembly: hundreds of people weighing in on a big issue, then attempting to make practical changes with the help of local organisations – and there are groups like us popping up from Cornwall to Glasgow, and Italy and Germany, too. The potential of assemblies is nothing short of revolutionary. It is the potential to change everything.
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Since religious riots tore across the central Nigerian city of Jos two decades ago, its Muslim and Christian residents have largely kept apart. They have their own neighborhoods. They vote for different political parties. But the cost-of-living crisis that has swept Nigeria over the past year has blurred some of those boundaries. “If there is hunger in the land, the hunger that the Christian is feeling is not different from the hunger the Muslim is feeling,” observes Tony Young Godswill, national secretary of the Initiative for a Better and Brighter Nigeria, a pro-democracy group. When nationwide anti-government protests broke out in early August, hungry, angry Jos residents from all backgrounds poured into the streets. When Muslim demonstrators knelt to pray on a busy road one Friday afternoon, hundreds of Christian marchers spontaneously formed a tight, protective circle around them. Nigeria’s protests began in response to the soaring costs of food and transport over the past year and a half, which have more than doubled in some cases. Protesters blame the economic stabilization policies of President Bola Tinubu, which have included removing a heavy subsidy on petrol and devaluing the naira, Nigeria’s currency. In Abuja, the capital, Ibrahim Abdullahi was among those who marched. As a Muslim, he says he previously thought it was inappropriate for him to protest against a fellow Muslim like Mr. Tinubu. Now, he held a placard that read “We regret Tinubu.”
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Dr. Amit Goswami [is the] founder of the Center for Quantum Activism and former professor at the University of Oregon. the quantum revolution, which started at the beginning of the last century, has put us in the position of an unfinished revolution, otherwise known as a kind of suspended paradigm shift where the world is shifting from a situation of materialist reductionism, as it’s called, where everything is regarded as based on material particles, to a world where everything is based on energy cannot be understood apart from consciousness. And that’s important for us because nonviolence does not operate materially. Nonviolence operates spiritually in the domain of consciousness. "Matter is just a possibility in consciousness," [said Gaswami]. "So, consciousness chooses out of the matter waves the actual events that we experience. In the process, consciousness identifies with our brain, the observer’s brain. We can talk about nonviolence in a very scientific way. If we are all originating from the same source, if we are ultimately the same consciousness that works through us, then it is complete ignorance to be violent to each other. So, the issue of nonviolence is basically a challenge of transformation. How do we transform using creativity, using the archetype of goodness, bring that into the equation of power, and learn to be nonviolent with each other?" There’s a lot of mental violence going on. But the point is that the way we approach it as violence begets more violence. So, it never stops. The answer, of course, is that nonviolence has to grow from inside of us. It has to be an intuition that often happens not just once or twice during the day, but becomes a conviction, a faith that I cannot be violent to my fellow human.
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Since 2014, [French choreographer and dancer Alice Chauchat] has been conducting choreographic research on human togetherness amid all our differences. The result are several choreographic scores that activate paradoxical relationships: distant intimacy, attentive autonomy, impersonal engagement, pleasure and unknown play. Chauchat’s work takes place in dance studios, in exhibition spaces, on stages ... and increasingly dance gatherings in public spaces in Copenhagen, Barcelona, and of course Berlin, sprawled across the neighborhoods around where she lives. Strangers invite each other to dance as a practice of being with oneself and being with one another “without thinking about dance as self-expression, but instead thinking of dancing as relating.” I ask Chauchat what dancing means to her. “Dancing is a space where we can practice life. Because dancing is observing and being active at the same time. You perceive a situation, and you take part of it. I chose to see dancing as a form of relating. So for me it is never just dancing but always dancing with.” She sees dance as a way to offer something to someone, as a form of productive confusion, as a structure of unexamined trust. The dance gatherings, she says, give people a frame and therefore a safe space and opportunity to experience what dance can do: “You are not exposed to being a great dancer or a bad dancer. You are busy with something that relieves emotional pressure.”
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Akeela Shaikh is a natural carer. But the care jobs she loved so much started to tax her physically. She tried antidepressants, then counselling although neither worked for her. But then a nurse gave Shaikh a different kind of medicine: "She gave me a card that read 'social prescribing'." The card led to a phone call with Joanne Gavin, at the time a link worker with Bolton Community and Voluntary Services. Instead of asking "what's the matter with you", link workers ask patients "what matters to you" and find suitable community activities that fit their answer. It was clear what mattered to Shaikh was really another chance to take care of someone. Gavin intuited this. And when she asked Shaikh what she thought might help her feel better, she honoured her answer: "a job". Gavin prescribed the perfect gig for Shaikh: a shift at the office of Lagan's Foundation, a non-profit providing caregiving to children with complex needs. After Gavin intervened, Shaikh says she started feeling more like herself. "It was a way for Akeela to still be involved with the care inside, without the heavy lifting." The power of social prescribing – helping patients to improve their health and wellbeing by connecting them to community resources and activities – is increasingly backed by scientific studies. Prescriptions can cover everything from art classes and cycling groups to food and heating bills. One particularly surprising 2019 study of nearly 7,000 older Americans found that life purpose was significantly inversely linked with all-cause mortality. In other words, having a high sense of life-purpose could help you live longer than those who lack one. "My approach is to listen to someone's story and look at not just what's going on now but what they were like before they started to feel depressed or anxious," says Gavin.
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Dr. Kate Mulligan is the Senior Director of the Canadian Institute for Social Prescribing (CISP), a new national hub created to support health care providers and social services professionals to connect people to non-clinical supports and community resources. Mulligan ... led one of Canada’s first social prescribing projects. "They have a conversation with someone with expertise [like a doctor] to determine a plan, and get support to follow through on something non-clinical that benefits their health. It should be happening systematically, as a regular part of our health system," [said Mulligan]. Someone experiencing food insecurity or an illness like diabetes can be prescribed fresh foods. That could mean a voucher for your local farmers’ market, a food box delivery to your home or a credit card that you can spend at the regular grocery store. Social prescribing also means making sure the provided food is culturally appropriate ... thinking about possible connections to include and benefit local farmers. A small community largely inhabited by retirees — lots of people ending up living alone without a strong support network — implemented social prescribing. An older man was diagnosed with depression after his wife died. He kept going for primary care, but really what he was experiencing was unsupported grief. Through social prescribing, he was connected with a fishing rod and a fishing buddy. This is like a $20 intervention. Within a fairly short time, he got off his medication and reconnected with other services too — built friendships, got connected to other community offerings. The health centre started developing their own services, like grief support cooking classes for older grieving widows.
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When you are a child who has been abused by people who are supposed to protect you, how do you feel safe? That question is the heart of Bikers Against Child Abuse International (B.A.C.A.), an organization dedicated to creating "a safer environment for abused children." With specific training and extensive security checks, the frequently big and burly members of B.A.C.A. serve as protectors of chid abuse survivors. They take a photograph with the child, which the child keeps to remind them that they have family to call on. They serve as escorts when kids feel frightened to go somewhere. They show up at court hearings to help kids feel less intimidated. And check out the B.A.C.A creed to see how dedicated these folks are to this work: "I am a Member of Bikers Against Child Abuse. The die has been cast. The decision has been made. I have stepped over the line. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past has prepared me, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals. I no longer need pre-eminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, and showed up for all wounded children."
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A social prescription is officially defined as a nonmedical resource or activity that aims to improve a person’s health and strengthen their community connections. Don’t let the “social” bit fool you: These are not small-talky, introvert hellscapes where docs sprinkle friendship fairy dust and motley crews of strangers suddenly become best buds. And they’re not prescribed only for social isolation, either. Social prescriptions can cover everything from orchestra practice to fresh vegetables and can help treat everything from depression to poverty. Instead of replacing other kinds of medicine, social prescriptions complement them, offering healing that pills and procedures can’t offer alone. Instead of just treating symptoms of sickness, social prescriptions reconnect us to our sources of wellness. And instead of just addressing “What’s the matter with you?”, social prescriptions address “What matters to you?” History is filled with examples of “social prescribing” from all around the globe. Indigenous groups have long linked an individual’s health to the health of their interconnected relationships— both with their neighbors, and the natural world. African villages have long used community rituals to help heal and prevent stress and pain. Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurveda in India have long emphasized the relationship between a person’s body and their surrounding environment. If we want to change our health, we have to change our environment, too.
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In A Band of Brothers, we believe that, when a man is willing to hold himself accountable and be supported by his community, magic can happen. And if you ask me what healthy masculinity looks like, it’s that. A man who has been arrogant, ignorant, selfish, rageful ... in short, who has made mistakes (and show me a human who hasn’t), having the courage to step into the circle and say: ‘I need help’. And other men holding him accountable without ever closing their hearts to him. I have compassion for all the men I meet who are still so focused on their own wounds that they cannot lift their heads to see the wounds of others. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK, which is the acute end of a much wider men’s mental health crisis. The young men who come to us are often torn between competing pressures: an old story about needing to be tough, to make money, to dominate, and a newer one about needing to be gentle, to value more than money, to stop dominating, to renounce the old values. Compassion and accountability – you need both. And the compassion comes first. I am still struck by the words of the young man who said: “No-one had ever actually asked me why I was angry.” He had also never been in a space where he was taught the difference between healthy anger, which is a natural and vital human emotion, and unhealthy anger, which leads to violence against yourself or others.
Note: This article was written by Conroy Harris, founder of A Band of Brothers. Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.
The Offline Club, which began life in Amsterdam, offers an oasis of calm and respite from the incessant digital hustle of life lived through the black glass of a smartphone. It nurtures moments of quiet introspection over vapid doomscrolling, and encourages spontaneous conversations with strangers instead of endless keyboard arguments. The concept grew organically from the ‘offline getaway’ retreats [co-founder Ilya] Kneppelhout set up with pals Valentijn Klok and Jordy van Bennekom. The trio opened their first phone-free hangout in Amsterdam’s Cafe Brecht in February this year, and to their astonishment drew 125,000 new Instagram followers in the space of a month. Customers alternate between time to themselves and time to connect. “People don’t just pay to get rid of their phones – they’re also paying to meet others,” says Kneppelhout. “We live in quite an isolated world where we’re ever more connected online, but in the physical world, it’s hard to meet people. This is a real experience: where else are you going to be in a cafe with 30 others, and read a book or draw? It’s quite unique.” His hope is that customers will take away lasting habits from their cafe visits. “Big tech companies and the biggest social media companies are really playing with our minds, and with our time and our attention,” he says. “I think that’s bad: a counter movement is really necessary, and I think it’s happening.”
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Once a week the citizens of Bogotá take back the streets of their city. Every Sunday, between 7am and 2pm, many of the biggest roads are shut to cars and left open to bikes, skates and feet. “Ciclovía is really cool because there is a lot more space for us,” says seven-year-old Oliver Rojas, who is out cycling with his parents and is baffled to hear that this innovative scheme does not exist in the rest of the world. The weekly event was born out of a one-day protest in 1974 against cars taking over the world’s streets. It now covers 127 km (79 miles) of streets in the city and, on average, 1.5 million Bogotanos use the Ciclovía every Sunday. It has spread to most other Colombian cities and has been copied by mayors across the world, from Buenos Aires to Bengaluru, who hope the initiative can help get people in shape, improve mental health, reduce car usage and help fight climate change in the way that it has in Colombia. Part of the attraction is the fun and the family-friendly atmosphere. Bogotá’s cycleways are punctuated with aerobics classes, people selling fresh juices, and the sound of salsa. On a regular weekday, the level of PM 2.5 particles on the main road through Bogotá ... is dangerously high at 65 µg/m3. During Ciclovía, however, that number falls to 5 µg/m3 on the same stretch of road – 13 times less and in line with the WHO’s recommendations for the tiny, harmful particles. Noise levels are seven times lower.
Note: Read about the successful story of a US community that banned cars.
Ms. Gatto is Green-Wood [Cemetery's] resident death educator. She coordinates programs that include financial end-of-life planning seminars and the Mortality & Me book club. For much of human history, the issues of death and dying have been predominantly handled though religion and rites of organized faith. But as the United States became more secular, the loss of customs left a void. “Many people are raised with different ideas about fear connected to death. People end up carrying this stuff with them throughout their whole lives ... It’s creating these more positive outlets for processing these kinds of feelings with community. I get to see what people are yearning for, and then create events and programs around it – and make it, dare I say, a little fun, right?” [Gatto] says. The goal of today’s death education, says Anita Hannig, an anthropologist and author who studies death, is to find ways to address mortality without taking on the baggage that often accompanies it. “We’re trying to create a safe container for us to have those conversations and not be labeled as morbid, suicidal, or weird and obsessed with death,” she says. Some people’s first encounter might be a death cafe. The unstructuredness of death cafes means participants can steer the conversation to larger topics, like questions of an afterlife, legacy, or a bucket list. But they can also find it helpful to dig into more functional topics, like funeral planning, wills, and burial methods. These gatherings numbering in the thousands have taken place across 90 countries. The rules of death cafes are simple: They are respectful and confidential. They shouldn’t have any particular agenda. They shouldn’t be held with the intention of leading participants to any particular conclusion. And they should, ideally, involve cake.
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Seeds of Peace has, for over 30 years, been bringing young people together across lines of difference from the United States and more than 25 other countries. Over 8,000 of these young leaders have now spent part of a summer at the Seeds of Peace Camp, engaging face-to-face in the hard work of dialogue. Connection is an antidote to division and violence. Instead of avoiding or attacking those you disagree with, seek out opportunities to go deeper. Enter conversations with genuine curiosity and practice ways to regulate your body and emotions in order to stay open to listening, even when met with opinions with which you fiercely disagree. Polarization typically results in pressure to take sides: to be ‘pro’ one group necessitates being ‘anti’ the other. The goal of dialogue isn’t to validate all sides but to increase our capacity to hold multiple truths and redefine the ‘sides’ altogether. Any path forward will require us to first imagine beyond our current realities. Seeds of Peace creates spaces like our camp that allow us to imagine and practice a version of the future that has yet to be born into existence. Doing so is messy and often challenging, but it also expands our ideas for what’s possible and inspires people to work towards realizing it in their communities. As our alumni declared upon returning home after experiencing living together, “We refuse to accept what is when we know what can be.” “The wish to not have to deal with the other is an illusion,” wrote one of our alumni in the Middle East recently. “And I hope this realization becomes a source of strength rather than weakness. That inevitably, we have to find a way to make this work for all of us. Otherwise, it will work for none of us.”
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Forgiveness is a principle promoted by just about every faith tradition. Even neuroscientists agree on its mental and physical benefits — from lowered risk of heart attacks to improved sleep. Twenty years ago, UK-based journalist Marina Cantacuzino launched the Forgiveness Project, a collection of stories from survivors and victims of crime and conflict, as well as perpetrators who reshaped their aggression into a force for peace. Cantacuzino documented real-life stories of seemingly supernatural examples of forgiveness. A Canadian woman who forgave her husband's killer. An Israeli filmmaker wounded in a terrorist attack. A Minneapolis mother who grew to love the person who murdered her only child. But even Cantacuzino admits it can seem difficult to relate to those who forgive the seemingly unforgivable. Are they morally superior? Extremely religious? Some are, but they are more likely to share the traits of curiosity, empathy and a flexible viewpoint. It feels like those characteristics are harder to come by today. The cacophony of "if you're not with us, you're against us" has divided families and entire communities. One's ability to recognize the pain on both sides of the Israel-Hamas war can evoke outrage, for example. But Cantacuzino continues to support discussions that bring together Israeli and Palestinian victims of the conflict, stories that require people to embrace complexity and contradiction while honoring the "sanctity of every human life ... Stories stick, whereas facts fade," she says. The Forgiveness Project's exhibit has now journeyed to 17 countries, including Kenya, Australia and Israel.
Note: Explore Cantacuzino's latest inspiring book, Forgiveness: An Exploration, which delves into the politics, mechanics and psychology of forgiveness. Explore more positive stories that reveal the power of healing social division and polarization.
Since the late 1970s, psychologists have measured empathy by asking millions of people how much they agreed with statements such as “I feel tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.” In 2011, a landmark study led by researcher Sara Konrath examined the trends in those surveys. The analysis revealed that American empathy had plummeted: The average US college student in 2009 reported feeling less empathic than 75 percent of students three decades earlier. A few months ago, [Konrath] and her colleagues published an update to their work: They found that empathy among young Americans is rebounding, reaching levels indistinguishable from the highs of the 1970s. Our biased minds tempt us to see the worst in people. The empathy decline reported 13 years ago fit that narrative and went viral. This decline is almost certainly an illusion. In other surveys, people reported on kindness and morality as they actually experience it — for instance, how they were treated by strangers, coworkers, and friends. Answers to these questions remained steady over the years. As with the decline, we might grasp for explanations for this rise. One possibility is collective suffering. Hard times can bring people together. In her beautiful book, A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit chronicles disasters including San Francisco’s 1906 and 1989 earthquakes, Hurricane Katrina, and 9/11. In the wake of these catastrophes, kindness ticked up, strangers stepping over lines of race and class to help one another.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
A practice called social prescribing is being explored in the United States, after being adopted in more than 20 other countries. Social prescriptions generally aim to improve health and well-being by connecting people with nonclinical activities that address underlying problems, such as isolation, social stress and lack of nutritious food, which have been shown to play a crucial role in influencing who stays well and for how long. For Ms. Washington, who is among thousands of patients who have received social prescriptions from the nonprofit Open Source Wellness, the experience was transformative. She found a less stressful job, began eating more healthfully and ... was able to stop taking blood pressure medication. At the Cleveland Clinic, doctors are prescribing nature walks, volunteering and ballroom dancing. In Newark, an insurance provider has teamed up with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center to offer patients glassblowing workshops, concerts and museum exhibitions. A nonprofit in Utah is connecting mental health patients with community gardens and helping them participate in other activities that bring them a sense of meaning. Universities have started referring students to arts and cultural activities like comedy shows and concerts. Research on social prescribing suggests that it can improve mental health and quality of life and that it might reduce doctor visits and hospital admissions.
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They say it takes a village to raise a child. Centered on that concept of communal flourishing, a dementia care village in England has incorporated a day nursery for small children—bringing together young and old for learning and sharing. Stimulation, learning, and fun—these are all activities that are known to delay the progression of dementia, and what better way to add these critical elements of life to a daily regimen than to let a flock of preschoolers do it? Belong is a nonprofit operator of senior homes, specializing in dementia care. This is the first to integrate children. The pioneering facility supports older people to live their lives independently, with access to several shops and services on site. The UK charity Ready Generations partnered with Belong to run the village’s day nursery. Children feature in the daily life of residents and tenants, enjoying experiences together including shared mealtimes, stories, arts and crafts, and exercise. Centered around a vibrant hub of amenities, including a bistro, hair salon, and specialist exercise studio, the site is open to the public, creating a bustling environment with customers from the local community. Similar projects have been pioneered in America as well. The Intergenerational Learning Center at Mount St. Vincent nursing home in Seattle opened its doors to the oldest—and the youngest—in 2015. The 400 adults in that assisted-living center join the kids in daily activities from music and dancing to storytelling and just plain visiting.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive inspiring news articles archive focused on solutions and bridging divides.
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