Create the Power: Support Int'l Grassroots Organizing

We live in turbulent and challenging times where every day the media (both traditional and social) highlights the traps of poverty, war, environmental destruction, loneliness, and despair that we’re all entangled in. The media will cover nationwide protests, be they in France or Bangladesh, but they won’t turn their attention to the incredible creativity happening at the grassroots, where ordinary people all across the globe are coming together to build social experiments: experiments in survival, in peace and reconciliation, in mutual aid, in community building, in learning/teaching and development.

Since 2001, the East Side Institute has produced Performing the World (PTW), where these experiments are featured. PTW will take place virtually from September 26 -29, 2024. This year’s theme is “Create the Power.” It will be a global gathering of organizations who are doing just that—creating power. From the​ work of the Mathare Social Justice Centers who are creating a network of survival and resistance in the horrid slums of Nairobi (home to 500,000 people), to the Parents Circle (Jewish and Palestinian parents who have lost children to the war) coming together to use theatre to build bridges between Palestinians and Israelis, and the Playing for Change Foundation, the NGO built by the people who produced videos that have garnered billions of views, have built 80 music schools across 25 countries engaging marginalized youth in diverse communities. See a full lineup of this year’s presentations here.