On this week’s episode of Talking Radical Radio, Gerald Wheatley of Calgary, Alberta, talks about his work with the Arusha Centre. Arusha was founded in 1972 with a mandate to do international development education. In 1994, the federal government ended funding to such organizations, but unlike most similar formations acorss the country, Arusha chose not to close but instead reinvented itself with an emphasis on supporting local environmental and social change. Not only does it have a history of initiating and anchoring projects aimed to have a broad appeal to Calgarians, it also offers infrastructure and other supports to a range of groups, from an anti-pesticide campaign to Occupy to many more. In doing all of this, it manages to maintain a diverse range of funding while embodying an interesting example of a non-hierarchical organizational form that operates largely by consensus. Weatley talks about the many roles that Arusha plays in the Calgary community.
[audio:http://feeds.soundcloud.com/stream/309432142-scott-neigh-talking-radical-trr-ep-3-mar-132013-infrastructure-for-change.mp3]To learn more about the Arusha Centre, click here.
Talking Radical Radio brings you grassroots voices from across Canada through in-depth interviews that concentrate not on current events or the crisis of the moment, but on giving people involved in a broad range of social change work a chance to take a longer view as they talk about what they do, how they do it, and why they do it. To learn more about the show in general, click here.
You can also learn more about ways to listen or go to the show’s page on Rabble.ca. To learn more about suggesting grassroots groups and organizations for future shows, click here. For details on the show’s theme music, click here.
Talking Radical Radio is brought to you by Scott Neigh, a writer, media producer, and activist based in Sudbury, Ontario, and the author of two books examining Canadian history through the stories of activists.
