Made to be a Champion

A Lifetime Of Service

RJ MercedeToday’s guest post comes RJ Mercede, a three-term AmeriCorps Alum, current Program  Manager at Public Allies Connecticut, and member of the leadership team for AmeriCorps Alums Connecticut.

How was I “Made in AmeriCorps” you ask?  If you count over 5,600 hours of service during three service terms in four different states, I sure hope it made an impact on me! Whether it was pulling blackberry vines in Oregon, constructing Habitat for Humanity homes in Louisiana or starting a community garden in New Haven, Connecticut, each piece of my AmeriCorps puzzle in its own way made me to be a more confident, collaborative and civic-minded leader.

As my time was ending with my third and final AmeriCorps term (obligatory shout-out to Public Allies Connecticut!), I knew that I wanted to continue “getting things done” so after I attended a service event cleaning up a…

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Gaza Kitchen in NYC: Midweek Report

The Gaza Kitchen

The mid-section of Maggie and Laila‘s time in New York took them to four gigs. These were at All Souls Unitarian Church on the Upper East Side, NYU’s acclaimed Food Studies Center, a private event hosted by the Institute for Middle East Understanding at Manhattan’s swanky Ilili restaurant– and to a guest-cooking demo in the kitchens of Saveur magazine! (For details, read on.) The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey continues to impress at every event, making waves in the NYC social scene and leaving a buzz of interest in their wake. You’ve already heard the bare bones of the first two events, but stick around… Like The Gaza Kitchen‘s moving stories about food, life, and family in the Gaza Strip, the most powerful and compelling parts of any good story are in the details.

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Are Pork-fed “Porkfish” Kosher and Halal? | Green Prophet

Wild salmon won’t be tucking in to a pork roast, but their farmed cousins will soon be dining on ground up pig parts.  A variety of animal byproducts are processed into an animal protein powder, also called meat meal, which is now approved as an additive to fish food.  Byproducts include pork-sourced cartilage (from ears, tails), hooves and organs, and it’s not particularly clear that those parts come from perfectly healthy piggies either.

via Are Pork-fed “Porkfish” Kosher and Halal? | Green Prophet.

An excellent and thoughtful examination of a situation fraught with blame but little self-analysis and reflection.

Nervana

Samira photo2

(Photo Al-Jazeera English)

Initially published in  Tahrir Squared

Samira Ibrahim: a tragic tale of courage and bigotry. As a young Egyptian activist, she stood up against sexual exploitation and the virginity tests in Egypt carried out by army personnel under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF). As such, many eyebrows were raised when Samuel Tadros, research fellow at the conservative think-tank, the Hudson Institute, published an article on Ibrahim’s anti-American and anti-Semitic comments, leading to her name being dropped from consideration for the U.S. State Department’s International Women of Courage award. After returning back to Egypt, empty handed, Ibrahim said in an interview to an Egyptian TV channel: “I admit my fault: I should not have accepted the award in the first place.”

In another twist, the New York Times’ Robert Mackey, who also reported on the story, latertweeted Tadros, enquiring…

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Great journey and photos

Leelouz Café

A hiking trip in the mountains of Lebanon is one of the best outing one can do on a beautiful Sunday (except having lunch with parents or in laws! :))…At 8 am last Sunday, we gathered at the parking facing the National Museum, to take the bus trip organized by Footprint. 75 persons were as eager as us to explore the much needed nature of Lebanon. Surprisingly we were not the only ones with children, a couple from Holland had brought their adorable two little blond girls with them, both under the age of 5! Amazingly they walked all the way during the easy level hike, which was a 5km stroll along the river of Barouk in the Chouf mountains.

A lovely green area, with amazing scenes…

enjoy…

For more info on organised tours by Footprintsclub, click here, and if you are interested in knowing more about the chouf…

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The Gaza Kitchen

The first half of Laila and Maggie‘s time in New York has been busy. They (and their entourage) have been zipping from event to event to present key aspects of The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey to a wide range of different audiences. And New York City is loving them!

Starting off the tour on Sunday, the authors visited Brooklyn’s renowned Book Court:

On Day Two, the East Village restaurant Porsena hosted an absolutely fabulous dinner event: Chef/owner Sara Jenkins and her team cooked a menu for all patrons that was exclusively from Gaza Kitchen recipes! There were four courses including eight dishes, and it was delicious from start to finish. That night it was proved beyond a doubt that Laila and Maggie have written a cookbook that is accessible around the world: even in the heart of NYC, we got a little taste of Gazan…

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