2015: More beautiful(s) than ever!
Andrew Boyd, Gan Golan, and Naomi Klein at the Climate Ribbon art-ritual after the People’s Climate March, NYC, September 21, 2014.
Hello Beautiful Troublemakers,
As my friend Max Haiven said this week, “Last year, we refused to keep losing. This year, we teach ourselves to win.”
And Beautiful Trouble is right in sync with the movements teaching themselves to win. In 2014 we re-invented ourselves — into something more ambitious, more diverse, and perhaps a bit extraordinary — three Beautiful(s) in one. 2015 is going to be 300% more Beautiful!
Our Expanding Beautiful Universe
The Pocket Edition of Beautiful Trouble is now available in Portuguese, Spanish, German, and Canadian, eh? (And look for Turkish, French, Russian, and Arabic editions soon!)
In 2014, we published 15 new chapters to our online activist toolbox. From principle “Recapture the Flag” to case study “Pimp My… Carroça!,” take a minute to check out these beautiful examples of creative activism.
We launched (and are hard at work on) Beautiful Solutions: In partnership with Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything, we’re building an interactive online gallery for sharing the stories, solutions and big ideas from the new economy and social justice movements that are critical to address the challenges we all face from climate change. Check it out and add your piece as we collaboratively map out transitional and post-capitalist solutions to the climate crisis.
We also began work on Beautiful Rising: Starting in 2015, Beautiful Trouble and ActionAid Denmark are teaming up with activists, movements and organizations across the Global South to assemble a toolkit of creative activism that will showcase the innovative tactics and strategies of southern social movements. If you have activist connections in Burma, Uganda, the Middle East/Jordan, Zimbabwe, and (maybe) El Salvador… let us know, we’d love to reach out to them. Also, please tell us about any spectacular examples of creative activism you know of from the Global South that should be included in the toolkit!
New Beautiful Happenings
We have a new Training Coordinator: the amazing Nadine Bloch! And we’re grateful that our equally amazing Training Coordinator Emeritus Rae Abileah isn’t completely moving on, and will continue to lend her skills to the cause.
In partnership with 350.org, GCCA, and Avaaz, we pulled off BT’s First European Training in Budapest in September, 2014 with youth climate leaders from a dozen countries across Eastern and Central Europe.
We’ve launched #Troublr! in beta — a Tumblr that will aggregate the latest from the Beautiful Universe. Just tag any creative activism-related tweet #troublr and it’ll be pulled in!
Share the love
Help us supply low-budget activists across the globe with a free copy of Beautiful Trouble (follow the link and click “gift edition”.) We’ll take these copies with us in our global workshops, as well as use them to stock worker centers and prison libraries, to ensure they reach people who can use a little trouble in their life but otherwise couldn’t access the book.
Thank you!
We couldn’t do what we do without you. Thank you from the bottom of our trouble-loving hearts.
On behalf of the entire Beautiful Trouble Team, happy new year!
Dave O. Mitchell, Editorial Director
