Institute for Community Leadership
The Institute for Community Leadership was born within the
struggles of the farmworkers and Tribal Nations of the State
of Washington during the epoch of the freedom struggles in
the Southern Hemisphere countries around the world. It was a
time of regaining balance from the loss of many leaders by assassination of
the 1960s and early ’70s. It was a time of changing roles and relying more on
the power of money than the power of human tenderness and grit.
The Institute serves families, schools, and community organizations.
It seeks to assist individuals and organizations in creating a vision of a more
just nation and world and developing and sustaining within themselves the
strength, hope, leadership, relationships, and organizational integrity to
bring about that vision.
Individuals study the role of ethics and values in all aspects of living—
in family, organizations, and in community organizing. Institute curriculum
relies on poetry, philosophy, and the practical science of nonviolence.
While the Institute maintains projects and partnerships throughout
the state of Washington, it focuses on the villages, towns, and cities along
the shores of the Southern Salish Sea (Puget Sound).
Students, teachers, and community members study the life of the salmon
and the cycle of life by working to care for the fish habitat along the streams,
rivers, and lakes that flow into the Southern Salish Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
The Institute’s headquarters, the Jack O’Dell Education Center, provides
students, families, educators, and public service workers with classes in social
and political development as well as classes in natural sciences. These areas
of struggle intersect in the movement for environmental justice. Individuals
are involved in civic engagement projects off campus, and, on campus, they
organize and care for community vegetable gardens and berry fields, and a
salmon-bearing stream. There is no line between the struggles for civil and
human rights and the struggle to save humanity’s home.
The Bear, the Killer Whale, the Sunbird, and students converse on a summer
day at the Jack O’Dell Education Center in King County, Washington.
Institute for Community Leadership
Board Members
Alejandro
Fernandez
David Gaines Dr. Patricia
Jones
Maira Pérez
Velázquez
Dr. Roy Wilson
FROM A KITCHEN IN THE WORLD HOUSE 7