November 2020 | Vol. 8, No. 3

Greetings from the team at Weave News!

It’s hard to believe, but we are now in our fourteenth year of grassroots journalism and media production. And we have a lot of exciting news to share with you! 2020 has been a year of challenges for all of us, but I am thrilled to report that our organization is stronger than ever! As you’ll see below, we have been busy creating new content related to the COVID-19 pandemic, collaborating with others on projects here in the North Country, and building and launching a refreshed version of our website. Most importantly, we have continued to build our Weave News staff, welcoming a new set of grassroots journalists to join our editorial, development, and social media teams. I am honored to work with such an incredible team of committed people, and I have never been more optimistic about the future of our work! 

As we prepare to launch our end-of-year fundraiser, I want to make a special appeal to all of the alumni who have been involved with Weave News in the past. Now is a great time for you to reconnect with us by submitting an article for publication, collaborating with us on a podcast or other multimedia project, sharing our content in your social networks, volunteering your time and skills, or making a financial contribution to help us take Weave News to the next level. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at any point – we always love hearing from you. 

As the world continues to grapple with the pandemic, the realities of climate crisis, the urgent need for racial justice, and a host of other pressing issues, we believe that our core mission of pursuing grassroots journalism for social justice is more relevant than ever.

Thank you, as always, for your support of Weave News!

John Collins – Founder and Editorial Director

Important Information

Weave News Annual Fundraiser

In order to continue training grassroots journalists and providing individuals with a platform to weave the world together, we are launching our first annual fundraiser today, November 16th! Our goal is to raise $7,500 to support a portion of our operating costs for the upcoming year, and we’ll need your help. While we do have access to occasional funds through St. Lawrence University, our home base, we do not have a regular budget from the university. Consequently, we need to focus heavily on doing our own grant-seeking and fundraising in order to keep our project moving forward. This is why we now have an annual end-of-year fundraiser.

If you choose to donate to our organization, you may also be able to further the impact of your gifts to Weave News through employer gift matching. There are many companies that practice this through a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) department. Please consider using this resource at your company to further the impact of your gifts.

More information about our fundraiser is accessible through our donation page and we will be sharing reminders and updates about our progress through our social media platforms. We will also be having a series of micro-challenges throughout the fundraiser to help us reach our goal. We hope you will continue to support us on our journey to weave the world together!

Weave News Updates

Talking Wings Collective Summit

In the midst of a pandemic, Weave News was proud to support the North Country Art, Land & Environment Summit, a powerful series of conversations and artistic interventions designed to spotlight regenerative solutions to the climate crises. Organized by our friends at Talking Wings and funded by Humanities NY (with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities) and St. Lawrence University, the Summit hosted several virtual events featuring the perspectives of grassroots activists, artists, educators, and other community members who are living and working on the front lines of struggles for environmental and racial justice. In addition to providing logistical and technical support for these events, Weave News published a series of preview articles by Derek Sherrange on prominent themes from the Summit, including settler colonialism, food sovereignty, and ecocentrism. We will continue to bring voices from the Summit to our readers and listeners in the coming months, and we look forward to future collaborations with Talking Wings.

Seeking Weave-related Images

With the help of our newly hired Web Project Specialist, Moemedi Wazzza Rakhudu, the Weave News team has been working to give our website a fresh new look. We have already made the switch to our new website design. However, we are still in the process of finding pictures to feature on our website. Do you have pictures from past Weave News events or from your adventures that express the values/identity of Weave? If you are willing to share them for us to use, please send these images to info@weavenews.org and let us know whom we should credit.

Series Updates

Interweaving

Throughout 2020 we have continued to develop Interweaving, our flagship podcast. When the reality of the coronavirus pandemic emerged, we immediately put out a call for short, audio testimonies from people around the world regarding the impact of the pandemic on their communities. We put together a team of Weave News staffers to receive the submissions, edit them, and organize them into a series of special COVID-19 Diaries episodes of the podcast. This unique project has already featured powerful, first-hand stories from citizen reporters in more than two dozen countries from Argentina to Zimbabwe. Issues highlighted in these reports include the impact on students, local healthcare, human rights, mental health, worker safety, and struggles for social justice. Looking ahead, we expect to produce new episodes of Interweaving that feature the voices of our Weave News authors, local activists in northern New York and elsewhere, and other inspiring individuals who are working to create a better information ecosystem and a more just world.

Conflicting Emotions: BIPOC Experiences at PWIs

Formerly known as Surviving PWIs for POC, the Conflicting Emotions series has served as a platform where students of color could tell stories about their experiences at predominantly white institutions. It has provided a critical look into the kinds of situations that these students constantly find themselves in due to microaggressions, ignorance and, sometimes, overt racism. Moving forward, we would like this series to show that “surviving” isn’t the only thing that these students experience every day but to show that they thrive as well, meet friends for life, and accomplish great things. We would like for the name of the series to reflect inclusivity as well as the full range of BIPOC experiences.

The Glocal Exchange

Previously named Glocal Dispatches, The Glocal Exchange seeks to analyze the implications of globalization on local communities. From dissecting the economic homogenization of the pineapple industry in Huetar Norte, Costa Rica, to celebrating America’s first wind farm in Block Island, Rhode Island - our authors use a critical local lens to unpack the effects of international trends in their own communities. Nested in grassroots journalism, we are actively seeking articles that challenge the stories curated by establishment media and unveil the global agendas at play. Stay tuned for our monthly Coffee Connection series, in which we situate current global events in the larger themes of globalization - and challenge you to do the same!

Opportunities

The Women’s Leadership Accelerator

The Women’s Leadership Accelerator is a program that focuses on helping women and female-identified people to advance their careers and innovations in digital journalism. The program runs from late March to October 2021 and features networking opportunities, workshops, and trainings. If you are interested in applying to this program, the deadline is November 30th. To learn more about the program and to apply, click here!