05/25/2016
As a young girl, hunger was a constant in Rose’s life - it gnawed at her relentlessly, an emptiness that drained her strength. In Northern Uganda, the mango tree where she went to pick fruit was hope, something to distract and nourish her 5-year-old body. Then, suddenly, another child walked astray...
05/12/2016
Regardless of how much time and space I put in between myself and the Security Housing Unit (SHU) in Pelican Bay State Prison, the effects of isolation will always linger . My spirit resists, resiliently, the social pathologies known to “ develop in prisoners who struggle to adapt to the rigors ”...
03/28/2016
The absence of color angered me. On the plastic desk, my book selfishly claimed all the space, stretching out with graceless inefficiency to lop off the edge and hang in the two-foot abyss above my lap. The immense white page depicted a fruit bowl of muted greys and indistinguishable blacks, an...
02/16/2016
When I was a child, I would go to peace vigils with my grandparents. I remember boasting signs that ranged from “Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home” to “No Blood for Oil.” Some of the people who would demonstrate were family members of veterans or veterans themselves. Many years later, when I was...
02/09/2016
The thrum of conversation around me faded to silence precisely at 10 a.m. José Luis Cancela, Uruguay’s vice-minister for external relations, gaveled the United Nations Security Council into session and began the meeting. Around me, other observers in the gallery inserted their earpieces to listen...
01/19/2016
Founded by Dr. Donald Roden of Rutgers University – New Brunswick, the MountainviewProgram (MVP) initially started as a volunteer GED tutoring group for incarcerated youth at the Mountainview Youth Correctional Facility in Annandale, New Jersey. In 2013 the MVP program was incorporated into a...
11/06/2015
A month after moving to the east coast to begin serving my fellowship, I’ve hit the ground running. In this short time I returned to the University of California, Berkeley to attend the 30th anniversary of the John W. Gardner Fellowship. I was invited to the White House by President and Mrs. Obama...
10/29/2015
“One of the reasons people stop learning is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.” – John Gardner This has been an exciting couple of weeks in some of the communities that are John Gardner’s legacy. On October 17th, we celebrated the 30th Anniversary of the John Gardner Fellowship...
10/06/2015
As I reflect upon my previous life where I was confined for up to twenty-two and a half hours per day to an 8-by-10 foot prison cell in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California, I recall that I would often get lost in my thoughts, hopelessly dreaming...
09/28/2015
Gazing intently at the sign does not yield clarity. The illuminated white letters remain tantalizingly obscure against their black background. This would not typically frustrate me. After all, since I am legally blind, I encounter the situation, and others like it, daily. At restaurants, movie...