Articles | JUST CAUSE (beta)

Telling Stories, Saving Lives, Building Community: Are The Arts The Answer?

Kianna Hampton, 10, waits outside for Pedro Reyes to show up. Not necessarily an unusual scene on city streets across the country. But Kianna isn’t waiting for a ride, or a tutor, or something more pernicious in the projects she calls home. Kianna is waiting for art. She’s waiting for her chance to be a film producer, it’s what she does after school.

You see, armed with laptops, Reyes is an Afterschool Resident Artist at Streetside Stories in San Francisco. So he has set up an editing suite for movie-makers in Kianna’s apartment complex, and kids like Kianna can spend those after school hours using art to tell the stories of their lives.
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Scoring For Children Living With Domestic Abuse: The Joe Torre SAFE AT HOME Foundation

When people think of Joe Torre, they picture a stoic manager who led the New York Yankees through 12 straight playoff seasons and to four World Series victories. As it turns out, quietly watching from the sidelines of tense situations may be a habit learned as a child.
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Arsenic Mitigation in West Bengal, India: Much More Than Water

In rural West Bengal, India, life is tenuous for millions of people. Desperate poverty, hunger, and disease are a daily reality. To make matters worse, their water is killing them.
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Street Children Find Hope at El Shaddai

Sylvestre Nzitukuze was a good soldier. He served in the Rwandan National Defense Forces until an inescapable vision tore him away to a new life. "I don't know where or how it came, but I knew I had to leave the army and help the street kids," he exclaims.
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Water For People

A Natural Solution

Catching Rain in Visivan Village, Guatemala

By David Stevenson
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There is Really No Such Thing as Independent Film

There is really no such thing as independent film. Just a thought, but what a thought.
This thought is a bit puzzling, coming from a man who is touring the country personally promoting two films that he spent his own money to make, telling stories that no big studio would risk telling, in a way that few audience members can handle being told.
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Conquest of the Word Masters: 826 Valencia Expands its Empire from Coast to Coast

by Ann Simms

Mac Barnett is turning a shampoo bottle over in his hands. The liquid inside is viscous, the color of blood. “We haven’t gotten all the kinks out yet. But we’re close,” he says, grinning mischievously.

“Rasputin Baby Shampoo” is one ofthe 300 products that Barnett and his colleagues are developing for the Echo Park Time Travel Mart. (“El Dorado Solid Gold Scrubber Pads” and “Mammoth Chunks” soup are two more of the works-in-progress.) This store, once opened, will be the retail counterpoint to 826 LA, an educational wonderland for kids that’s been up and buzzing since March of 2005.
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The Edible Schoolyard: Alice Waters' Chez Panisse Foundation

by Ann Simms

In the summer of 1969, Alice Waters and a friend were traveling across the plains of central Anatolia in a tiny, beat-up Morris Minor. Waters had just completed her coursework at the Montessori Institute in London, where she was preparing to become a high school teacher. This trip to Turkey, along with the next year she would spend restaurant hopping in France, was to be her last hurrah before launching a lifelong career in education.
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The Level Playing Field Institute is a Shining Model for How to Maximize Opportunities for Deserving Students

We're dedicated to finding ways to smooth the path for motivated and bright students so that they will be able to participate fully in an increasingly competitive global economy, one where a college degree and critical thinking skills are essential for success.

Cedric Brown
Former LPFI Director of Higher Education Programs
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