May 2021 YES! Midyear Report
We here at YES! are sending love, support, and prayers to our family and friends spread all over the world. We hope that you and those whom you carry in your heart are safe and well. Please know we are here to support in whatever ways we can.
This time last year, we were Rooted and Rising during the unprecedented start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As we celebrate our 31st anniversary, we have been focused on 31 Flavors of YES! to continue to strengthen and connect our our beloved communities around the world.
Please find below our midyear report sharing the events and happenings over the first half of our program year.
YES! Leadership Jams
2020-21 Completed Programs To Date
One of our primary flavors has been our ‘Leadership Jams’. Since October, we have had the distinct privilege to support 10 Jams with 267 participants! Each of these Jams was hosted online. Many more teams are organizing online Jams and programs this year as well. Below you can get a taste of the some of the what’s happened and what’s to come.
North America Leadership Alumni Jam, September 29 to October 6, 2020
YES!’s longest-running program, which has helped to birth so many Jams around the country and has been happening for the last 21 years, in one form or another. 24 past North America Leadership Jam and Leveraging Privilege for Social Change Jam alumni joined in a deep Zoomy dive to co-create shared vision, find common points of collaboration, heal historic divides, and explore the self.
India Education Transformation Jam, October 8-16, 2020
Black Diaspora Jam, October 14-20, 2020
The 2nd Black Diaspora Jam brought together 16 diverse changemakers from across the Black diaspora to explore personal, interpersonal and systemic transformation in these times.
Toronto Changemakers Jam, April 6-12, 2021
This 6th annual Toronto Jam brought together 32 Toronto-based and/or -connected changemakers to connect with each other and explore together what transformation looks like in our communities, in our relationships, and in ourselves.
Men and Masculinity: Men Raised as Men Jam, April 8-11, 2021
This brand-new Jam offered 22 participants the opportunity to catalyze positive change through healing, homecoming, and expression of healthy masculinity as part of a resilient whole.
Re-Storying Justice Jam, April 16-23, 2021
This 2nd-ever Jam brought together 30 practitioners in the fields of restorative justice, prison reform, prison abolition, and more, to generate deeper community, self-awareness and healing, and to help move the dial on what ‘justice’ can look like for our times.
Wellness and Healing Justice Jam, October 23-28, 2020
This 3rd annual event brought together 32 social workers, therapists, counselors, and many other wellness and healing artists, to dive into deeper self-awareness, community collaborations, healing across the fields of work, and moving the dial on what is possible in the field overall.
Pacific Northwest Changemakers Jam, January 26-February 1, 2021
This first-time Jam gathered 27 multi-generational change-makers from around the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, British Columbia) to explore the diverse realities of this incredible region, generate shared vision, create lasting relationships, and deepen in self-awareness together.
World Gaels' Jam, April 26 To May 1, 2021
This 7th annual Jam brought together 32 multi-generational Gaelic language and culture creatives from around Nova Scotia, North America, the United Kingdom, and beyond, to create a welcoming, supportive and INSPIRING community.
Queer/LGBTQ* Jam, March 5-12, 2021
This 4th annual Jam brought together 26 multi-generational change-makers from around and across the LGBTQ* spectrum for collective visioning, interpersonal healing and understanding, and self-transformation.
Selected Quotes from Jammers
Wellness and Healing Justice Jam 2020
“…In the radical and progressive social justice circles of which I am a part, our movements and organizations are being torn apart by so much divisiveness, a toxic call-out/cancel culture that has made it so painful for so many. There are too many reasons for that: internalized white supremacy/capitalism, unaddressed intergenerational trauma of generations of oppression, etc. but I truly believe that Yes! embodies the medicine that we so desperately need if we are to actually heal the world in any truly meaningful way: the deep commitment to unconditional love and spirit, to sustainability, to radical connections and allyship across difference. I feel so blessed to have been connected to the Jamily and I really can’t wait to continue this journey with all of you, knowing that I’m not alone. I love you so so much.”
-Amadeo Cruz Guiao, 42, Organizational Healer/Consultant, Teacher and Facilitator, Lunas Consulting, Seattle, WA, Duwamish territories
North America Jam 2020
“I am so impressed with what we created and accomplished in this Zoom Jam. Since the start of the COVID pandemic in the US, I have struggled to build new connections and deepen existing relationships. But the facilitants’ flexibility to our needs and their creative use of online tools ensured we could readily establish trust and grow as a collective. Amid so much uncertainty and turmoil in the wider world, this Jam was a unique opportunity to understand how I’m processing our social moment and learn how to carry forward with a sense of curiosity and joy. Thank you so much for time and effort you invested in this wonderful offering.”
– Anuj Shah, 28,Data Privacy, Portland, OR
Black Diaspora Jam 2020
“It was a time for me to reconnect with my values, explore my hopes and dreams, connect with others, and be vulnerable. I felt deeply cared for by others. I found a new sense of community. I experienced a sense of pride about my heritage that I have never really experienced until the Jam.It is easy sometimes to feel isolated. It was reassuring to know that there is community. I felt that I belonged. It felt safe. The experience was a respite. Fighting for Black liberation and just being Black can be exhausting. The time felt safe and loving. It was right on time.”
– Olliette Murry-Drobot, 50, O2 Strategic Partners, Memphis, Tennessee
Toronto Jam 2021
“I entered into this space a skeptic. I leave (but not really) this space held, nourished and hopeful (and still a little bit skeptical that this experience actually happened??). I didn’t know that this was possible; to trust so many strangers, to connect deeply with someone that didn’t expect anything else out of me, to have non-transactional interactions at this level of stranger-danger-ness. I’m still fighting parts of me that don’t believe that I will be accepted fully and wholly and just-as-is, but you did just that. There were moments I truly believed, and those moments are few and far between in my daily life….”
-AQ Hui, 28, Knowledge Translation and Communications, Toronto, ON
LGBTQ*/Queer Jam 2021
“During the pandemic, my world became very small. It is filled with loved and trusted chosen family but it small. At the Zoomy Jam, I was able to stretch my boundaries and get to know and love others. I was able to see and feel a connection with a larger queer community
I appreciated the intergenerational quality and I found myself opening up and bringing my whole self in ways that I am normally not able to do in social spaces. I was able to re-connect to my queerness as a source of power and freedom as well as remember and heal a little more from the pain I have also experienced because I am queer.
It was a beautiful time of being in touch with my whole-r self and to literally and symbolically take the masks off and just let loose.”
-Bushra Rehman, 46 ( will be 47 on Tuesday!) , Writer, Cultural activist, NY
Pacific Northwest Jam 2021
“Thank you for lightness and spaciousness and a move away from fixations. I came because I wanted to be with you, without expectations. I discovered a home. I experience invitation to simply be. To let go of over thinking. To experience some joy. I loved the embodied reminders to let joy in. To dance. To not problem solve or design or fix or co-create.”
-Bob Stilger, 72, NewStories, Upper Columbia Bioregion
Caidreabh Gàidheil an t-Saoghail | World Gaels Jam 2021
“I’ve just started my Gaelic journey and learned early on that Gaelic language and culture go hand in hand. The Gaels’ Jam reminded me of a third element….community. Here in the prairies, I sometimes feel isolated from the larger Gaelic community. Even though I live 5000kms away, I felt genuinely connected to every person during the Jam. It was such an enriching experience. I am incredibly grateful to have been able to be part of the World Gaels’ Jam, and I’ll remember it for years to come.”
-Cindy Hamilton, 52, Student of Scottish Gaelic at the Gaelic College, Calgary, Alberta
Gifting Forward from the Jams
Check out these humble gifts from the Jams including book lists and playlists.
Upcoming Jams
Interested in Jamming this year? Look into the following offerings!
We continue to put our YES! Jam muscles to work! We’ve been expanding our offerings and figuring out new flavors of YES! to offer. Find out more about how we are taking lessons from biomimicry (learning from nature), and just like any organism, we are tuning into our core essence and figuring out how to adapt in this new environment.
Supporting our Jam leaders with ongoing learning exchanges; hosting Jam alumni in 25+ online community support gatherings; releasing our second season of Always On podcast; enhancing our graphic recording project of Jam tools; sharing our skills and practices with many people in online workshops, talks, mini-mini-online Jams, and through our newsletter; conducting workshops; expanding our YES @ Work offerings ;and more — we have been doing our best to live out our mission of connecting, inspiring, and collaborating with changemakers for thriving, just and regenerative ways of life for all.
Check out our creative offering below.
Check out YES!’s new podcast: “Always On!”
Sharing YES! Jam Tools
Since 2015, Jammer-artists have been working with YES! to generate a series of postcards to share Jam tools through image and words. We are grateful to the many artists who have expressed embodied practices as enlivening images and are pleased to share with you the latest creations in the collection.
Sharing YES! Tools @ Work
Our dynamic collective of international and US-based facilitators have a variety of strengths, skills and talents in supporting groups, businesses, non-profits, universities, schools, etc. in strengthening their programs, conferences, teams and other projects. Listed below are some of the fabulous organizations we have supported this year.
Supporting the Many Flavors of YES!
We invite you to celebrate 31 years of YES! with us by sharing out our 31 Flavors of YES! campaign. Your contributions will enable us to ensure that individuals, communities, and systems continue to encounter Jam flavors in a multitude of places and help support changemakers around the world. We understand and honor that there are a number of worthy causes to support and, so we are grateful for whatever gift you can offer. After all, unlike actual Jam, the further this Jam spreads the thicker it gets.
Support Our Mid-Year Fundraiser
We are raising $25,000 to help support YES! for our work this year: our alumni integration work, storytelling projects, zoomy Jams, and hopefully a few in-person Jams when that becomes viable again. Please help us continue our work to co-create the thriving, just and regenerative world we are building through, and on the other side of, this pandemic moment.
Jam Inspiration
I see
light pouring from my third eye;
light coming into being,
a sun on my crown,
a necklace of stars around my neck,
each one whispering,
yearning to sing into the new moon night sky
the original default mode of being: Love.
I see
myself ascend into the seat of higher consciousness, hearing a voice that repeats over and over
I am All.
I see
a new small community of beloveds wrapped around by millions
of other circle communities
of beloveds to become.
I hear the All say:
include, include, include
more and more of your selves
into the heart that holds you.
For the heart is not a pump,
it is wild forever-sovereign territory
where the soil allows the plant self to grow;
it’s the space where breath expands,
the space where everything, as it is,
is accepted with kindness, clarity and courage
and where always, always, always
the default mode of being:
Love
lives.
About the poet:
Bolivian born multidisciplinary artist Mayra Gemm has been using various art forms as self-healing tools for the past 20 + years. Her current art practice includes innovative acoustic folk singing-songwriting, sound poetry/free music live improvisation as well as intuitive poetry writing. Creative self-expression continues to open her heart in delightfully surprising ways.
Mayra participated in the 2021 Toronto Changemakers Zoomy Jam, which took place a few weeks ago. She shares, “Participating in the Toronto Jam 2021 was a very moving, heartwarming, at times triggering and transformational experience for me. I feel grateful to have had the chance to attend. This poem was written during a ‘visioning of my future a year from now exercise. It felt like a co-creation at the time inspired by all the lovely people that were present at the jam. Since then I added to it. I now see it as a gift given to me to be gifted again.”
About the artist:
Sreeja is a communication designer and illustrator based in Kolkata, India. She participated in the Queer Jam 2021 and works in education spaces, focusing on interaction and play. She is all about social emotional learning for herself and others. She loves to eat, dance and chat.