Priority Deadline: December 21, 2020
Final Deadline: January 8, 2020
APPLY TODAY!It is with great excitement that we invite you to apply for the Pacific Northwest Virtual Jam – a gathering of about 30 dynamic and diverse changemakers for deep learning, systemic inquiry, and community building.
This Jam will take place over the course of seven days, spanning January 26th through February 1st. We will meet for one 2-hour session each day from 11 am to 1pm PST. Each day there is also an optional hangout form 1-1:30 pm — which we strongly encourage you to make time for. The dates for these sessions will be January 26th, 27th, 29th, 30th, and February 1st, though please note that leaving spacious time in your schedule for the week will make the Jam much more enjoyable. January 28th and 31st will be reserved for rest, additional spontaneous interactions, reflection, integration, and self-care.
Why the PNW Jam now?
So much is alive, in flux, and in need of attention in this moment. In the face of incredible injustice, pain, rage, numbness, and grief, we are also seeing incredible leadership and transformations occurring across the PNW and beyond. As the coronavirus pandemic painfully lays bare our society’s inequities, mutual aid networks are stepping up to redistribute critical resources. As law enforcement perpetuates long-standing racist agendas, movements for racial justice continue advocating for abolitionist futures. And as wildfires upended livelihoods and damaged this region’s landscape, communities came together to alleviate each other’s burdens. With these crises, we are witnessing the unsustainability of our current world and imagining what a new world could be. We are also feeling a collective need for healing through community and connection, especially as we move forward from a divisive and polarizing presidency and election year. The purpose of this Jam is to slow down together in order to meet the urgent challenges of our world in interdependent, grounded, intentional, and strategic ways.
We are hosting the Jam in order to:
- Build the kind of community of practice we need to sustain ourselves in the beautiful and heart-bending work of making change.
- Give time and attention to nourishing our stories and collaborative ways of leading and being that are emerging in our lives and work.
- Support each of us in cultivating the courage and resilience to take purposeful, clear, and conscious action in response to violence and injustice.
- Find the heart wisdom we need to unearth old stories that must be shed – in ourselves and our communities.
The Jam is not a retreat from the world; instead it’s an opportunity to face it in ourselves and with each other. It calls us to show up for exactly what is alive: in ourselves, in our relationships, in our communities, and in our world. We jam to meet the world as it is, and we jam to help get closer to the world we want to see.
What is a Jam?
In music, a jam is a creative, live gathering of musicians who together spontaneously create a new sound, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. When musicians get together to “jam,” they get to share their unique skills and knowledge, as well as learn from other musicians. They get to hear and experience other styles of music while expanding their own horizons. When musicians improvise, they create music that no one has ever heard before.
YES! Jams are places where diverse leaders and visionaries bring together their passions, openness, and unique perspectives. Through facilitated activities and in spontaneous connection, we weave layers of experience, wisdom, heart, and spirit to create some real magic. The Jam asks that all the participants are present and ready to listen deeply to each other. This allows us to explore transformation on the personal, interpersonal, and systemic levels.
The Pacific Northwest Changemakers Jam is guided and supported by a team of facilitators, and it is co-created because the content of the Jam comes directly from participants’ responses to questions in the application. It will grow and shift based on what emerges from the group during our time together. We hold the ample time outside of sessions with equal importance: personal reflection, being with nature, creative fun, slowness, and bringing the Jam to the rest of your life and work.
The PNW Jam hopes to be a space to explore questions such as:
- What are your many connections to the PNW as a region and how have they evolved? How have these connections impacted your identities, your relationships, your communities, your work?
- How have your experiences of power and privilege in this region impacted you and the visions, questions, hopes, and fears you hold for the future?
- What questions are alive for you in your life right now? For your community? For this region and beyond?
- What are the core points of healing and transformation for you? For your community? For this region and beyond?
- How do we build a grounded foundation in the face of homelessness, displacement and the restlessness some of us feel as transplants?
- How do we co-create cultures where we are in right relationship to the land and the native peoples of the PNW?
- How can our connections form the foundation for powerful, collective movement toward healing and transformative justice?
What are your questions? Bring them to the Jam!
The Jam is not a conference, seminar, or a typical meeting — it’s something unique. There is dedicated time to think and feel deeply about social change in our world, in our communities, and in ourselves. There are transformative conversations and there is a lot of fun, art, and creativity. There is group explorations, and co-creations, as well as solo time and internal reflection. Every Jam is an open space where the gifts and needs of the people who show up can emerge.
YES! Jams have been happening since 1999. YES! collaborates with other like-hearted peers around the world to co-create Jams where diverse visionaries and social changemakers combine their inspirations and skills to create something greater than the sum of their parts. To date, more than 180 Jams have been held on six continents, bringing together young and intergenerational leaders from more than 85 nations.
Who should attend the PNW Jam?
You! We welcome anyone who is excited to co-create a community that celebrates our unique experiences.
If you’re wondering if you’re “qualified enough” to be a part of something like this, or if you “know enough,” “do enough” or are “good enough”… take a deep breath and trust that you are. Our group of organizers have a wide variety of backgrounds and life pursuits, and showing up with vulnerability throughout the planning process has allowed us to create closer connections across those differences. We would love to bring you into that dynamic and learn from your individual wisdom of this region. We deeply value diversity across race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and ability. And whether you’re a member of the PNW’s indigenous communities, a restless transplant, a longstanding and embedded resident, and/or somewhere in-between, we would be grateful for your presence.
Priority Deadline: December 21, 2020
Final Deadline: January 8, 2020
APPLY TODAY!What will happen if I go to the PNW Jam?
Jams are as unique as the people that take part, so it’s hard to say exactly what you’ll leave with. It’s much more useful to acknowledge that you will simply grow.
During a Jam, participants stretch and flex in and out of their comfort zones while learning and co-creating new ways of relating. Each day together we honor our individual experience as a form of collective regeneration. We explore how we can help each other step more fully into our own selves so we can show up more authentically in our work, community, and relationships.
Joy and struggle and everything in between are often a part of peoples’ Jam experiences. Like a musical jam, sometimes things are in flow, and sometimes they are a little out of tune. As individuals and as a community, we keep working our way to listening and synergizing as much as we can.
While many aren’t quite ready to say goodbye when it’s over, it’s not uncommon for Jammers to leave more ready to tackle whatever obstacle they were grappling with before. This readiness is a by-product of previous days spent sharing community, forming new friendships, and building a network of support that crosses state lines and international borders.
If you come to the PNW Jam, you could discover a deeper capacity to bridge the divisions you encounter on your walk through this world.
Who is putting this Jam on?
Shari Shepard has called Washington home for the last 3 years after leaving and returning twice to explore different paths. There is something about the Northwest that keeps calling her back. Shari’s love of immersive travel has led her all over the United States from Hawaii to Massachuessetts to New Orleans and back again. Living in different communities all over the country opened her eyes to the diverse experiences that make up North American identity while highlighting the common threads in our life stories. That, coupled with her introduction to the Jamily in 2014, helped her discover a passion for building community and creating sacred space. Shari continues to look for ways to grow as a facilitator and community-builder and is overjoyed to engage in that work with Yes! At the Pacific Northwest Changemakers Jam.
Elias Serras is an organizational consultant, event producer, and facilitator who is passionate about systemic transformation. He works with a variety of communities and practices that are grounded in creative resilience, intercultural collaboration, and ecological wisdom. Having spent much of the past decade living and learning in Ecovillages around the world, he is always seeking ways to apply lessons learned on the fringes to more mainstream and urban contexts. He has also followed interests and done work in the realms of Men’s Work, Rites of Passage, Mindfulness and Humanistic Psychology. Originally from upstate New York, he has lived in many places picking up stories and perspectives. He currently is working with YES! to develop community learning and partnership initiatives and for NewStories as an associate. During free time Elias can be found getting lost in the woods, jamming out on the piano, or reading a book in his hammock. He has called WA home for about 6 years, is a graduate from Evergreen State College, and lives on a small island near Seattle. Elias has found a deep love for the trees, mountains, rivers and people of this region.
Anuj Shah has been working and living in Portland, Oregon for the past 3 years. He’s immensely grateful for entering the Jamily in 2017, as the community has solidified his belief in the power of relationships to liberate minds, expand hearts, stir change, and motivate action. In his free time, engages in peer counseling, plays the tabla, and reads about tech and society. He was born and raised in Western Massachusetts, and while he misses home and family, he has a profound appreciation for the PNW’s beautiful landscape and caring people.
Carson Keene is a long time educator and student who has been living in Portland, OR for the last 11 years. As a camp counselor, wilderness educator, NOLS faculty, and public school teacher they have solidified and strengthened their desire to be in community with folks and formed a deep connection to many places. They grew up in Texas, Michigan, and Ohio, went to college in Vermont, lived and worked wilderness in Utah, and have taught at two public schools in Portland, including an environmental school. Moving frequently as a child taught CK how to make new friends, and also, how to experience identity and place dissonance, creating significant anxiety and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Dogs, good books, natural bodies of water, sun, laughter, and learning feed Carson’s soul. Carson is in graduate school at Lewis and Clark College studying addictions counseling, another passion of theirs, believing in the innate goodness and resiliency of humans, and the transformative power of supportive community.
Jovan Julien currently makes home in Atlanta, GA. Before beginning in their role as Alignment and Storytelling Integrator at YES!, Jovan played a variety of roles at Project South: The Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, and as a middle school educator. They continue to be involved in a variety of projects in their familial homeland of Haiti and are pursuing an advanced degree in Operations Research. Currently Jovan’s academic pursuits are focused on sustainability through democratic decision making processes. Passionate about photography and storytelling, they continue to pursue innovative ways to marry math with their lens. Jovan has nurtured a fascination with the history of the Pacific Northwest and its connection to the Southern history with visits and friendships.
Shilpa Jain is currently rooting herself in Berkeley, California, where she serves as the Executive Director of YES!. Prior to taking on this role, Shilpa spent two years working as the Education and Outreach Coordinator of Other Worlds and ten years as a learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, based in Udaipur, India. Shilpa has researched, written numerous books and articles, facilitated workshops and hosted gatherings on topics ranging from globalization, creative expressions, ecology, democratic living, innovative learning and unlearning. She had been the main coordinator of the Swapathgami (Walkouts-Walkons) Network for five years. She is passionate about dance and music, organic and natural farming, upcycling and zero waste living, asking appreciative questions and being in community. All of her work seeks to uncover ways for people to free themselves from dominating, soul-crushing institutions and to live in greater alignment with their hearts and deepest values, their local communities, and with nature. Shilpa has been an occasional visitor to the Pacific Northwest and is in awe of the incredible nature and lovely humans there.
LOGISTICS & COSTS OF ATTENDING
This Jam will take place over the course of seven days, spanning January 26th through February 1st. We will meet for one 2-hour session each day from 11 am to 1pm PST on January 26th, 27th, 29th, 30th, and February 1st. We will also have an extra half hour (1-1:30pm PST) to play games, have more conversations, and hang out! January 28th and 31st will be reserved for reflection, integration, self-care, and spontaneous connections as you wish. We strongly encourage you to leave as much space in your schedule as possible to really enjoy the Jam. All group sessions will take place on Zoom, and the organizers will send specific meeting information to attendees well in advance of our meeting.
The tuition for the PNW Virtual Jam is offered on a sliding scale of $50-300. We are working hard to make this event accessible to all people, regardless of ability to pay. If you have less access to money, feel free to pay at the low end of the scale and if you have more access to money or resources and/or you have the financial backing of an organization or institution we invite you into class solidarity, to consider paying more so that someone else can pay less.
If you pay more than the at-cost amount for tuition, that extra amount is tax-deductible. If we have a higher than expected request for financial aid, or fewer than expected full tuition participants, we will provide a waiting list and offer additional aid as funds become available.
A number of partial scholarships are available upon request on an as-needed basis. We work with each participant to set up the specific combo of scholarship, work trade and monetary payment that works for them. YES! also offers a monthly payment option and will work with you to figure out a payment schedule that is best for you. Additional donations above the event price are welcome and help us to provide scholarships to enable the diversity upon which this event thrives (they are also tax-deductible). We never want money to be a barrier in participating in a Jam, so we will do everything we can to make it work for you to attend.
Priority Deadline: December 21, 2020
Final Deadline: January 8, 2020
APPLY TODAY!
Come Jam with us!
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to write us at PacificNorthwestJam@gmail.com. We’d love to hear from you!
Anuj, Carson, Elias, Jovan, Shari and Shilpa