Venezuela from the barracks.

Today I spoke with a woman about her issues with her job. She works for an organizations whose past accomplishment have completly overshadowed their current work. She was looking for something with more action less rhetoric it seemed. Another woman I spoke with was all about helping the worker move to a place of direct action. She gave examples of a community of folks that put pressure on the mayor to extend Sec 8 to give them more of a chance to become self sufficient. I asked her what did she give them to sustain then if the action did not work. She stated simply that it was getting the to believe they could not fail.
I work for a place where everything I do comes from a reactive place. The crisis prompts the solution. After three years this has left me unsatified. This work is supposed to be empowerment but is that what it is? I teach people to react and strategize within a system set up to tear them up. A system that would rather they didn´t trouble it with their needs although it had a heavy hand in creating them. While the people that I have spoken to have inspired me in many ways there is that leave me frustrated. I have also learned about being stuck. The ways a person so caught in the reactive state that they never move forward. The sadness of it. How being victimized has become so ingrained that it is the cycle that wears down their souls. The think tht there is nothing else, no other possibilities available. Choice is so important. Recognizing that there is a choice is the hardest thing a person can do. Acting on the choice is second hardest.
I came here to learn as much as I could about building coalitions to bring about social change. I will be more aware when I leave this place. I will learn how to combat the wages of the capitalist, white supremist sexist society. The kind of people who do this are very important because without this kind of work I would be hard pressed to be sucessful. The work that I want to do involves using my creativity in cinematography. At it highest level in this field is the commercial aspect. The hands on experience that I would be most likely to receive would be in documentary. The kind of experience that would feed me the most because not only would I practice the the craft but I would tell important stories. The commercial has no use for work that is in addition to being artistically beautiful work that is a critic of the world it examines. Or is that another pessimistic cop out. The biggest block to tear down are my own issues with powerlessness. The master tools have built sturdy house. I must get passed this within myself to tear it down. It is what I hope to accomplish here and now. I want to unlock that part of myself.