Programs

CWV programs are listed in the order that they have evolved over the years. Programs are developed in response to ongoing evaluation and the needs of participants to provide a holistic approach to personal, organizational, and community change. Activities are implemented within the context of the issues addressed and/or crises experienced by participants. Technical Assistance provided for individuals and groups follow the same general process: assessment, implementation, evaluation, and follow-up.

Healthy People Heal Communities (HPHC)

• Local core group meets twice a month for skills, team, and leadership development.
• Customized retreats facilitate intensive healing, restoration, and spiritual development and provide opportunities for concentrated focus. Examples include meditation retreats, foot washing retreats, prayer retreats, program planning retreats, team building retreats, and grief and loss retreats.

I Got Something To Say: Who's Going To Listen

• is a program developed and directed by Ella Davis for children ages 9-15 at The Greens at Pine Glen in Durham, NC.  The children meet the first and third Saturday of the month to learn new ways of thinking which will promote overall change.  Through role-playing they increase their potential to learn about themselves, their families, and other youth.  We facilitate and expose them to new ideas by using power words and the positive outcome of power behavior.  Our program provides youth at The Greens at Pine Glen with a structured environment that is supportive while it teaches and refocuses the following skills:  anger management, self-esteem, self-awareness, responsibility, and respect.

Education Our North Carolina Communities (EONCC)

• Since 1995, 27 replicable community education dramas have been presented effecting community outreach.  The very first drama (Silent Screams of Joy) produced in 1995 is an excellent example.  Following an Imperial Foods plant fire, organizers needed to get information to the community that would help to change Workmen’s Compensation laws in NC.  Silent Screams of Joy did that and more.  Four friends return to their hometown to bury their friend, Joy, who died in the plant fire.  As they discuss old memories and present traumas, the mailman arrives with a letter for Joy saying that her Workmen’s Compensation claim was finally won.  But eighteen months after the claim was filed (the average wait time in NC) was too late.  Joy was already dead.
• The dramas are also healing because they weave together stories of people who are impacted by the issue and use them as the cast.  They convey large amounts of difficult information in ways that are educational, healing, entertaining, and engaging and range in duration from 20 to 90 minutes.  Discussion sessions follow.

Micro-Business Access (MBA)

North Carolina Financial Literacy Institute (NCFLI)

• Workshops and proven data collection instruments are used to teach participants about household partnerships, financial documentation, budgeting, and credit utilization.  The program also provides information about the financial rights and responsibilities at ages 18 and 81.

Phoenix Rising (PR)

• The way to begin minimizing the impact of grief and loss is to be very prepared for emergency situations.  Emergency preparedness information is disseminated in communities.
• Amecia's Place is being incubated to focus on families that lose loved ones.

Extreme Green (EG)

• Organic farming will teach urban residents how to grow food in their own yards and communities.
• Housing designs and systems will change/flip the paradigm of a household’s financial economy moving along the spectrum from energy efficient weatherization to green retrofits and new construction.
• There are residents who can afford the cost to reduce the carbon footprint of their everyday lives.  There are residents who qualify for some minimal level of energy efficiency assistance because they cannot afford to “green” their lives.  Then there are those residents in the middle who do not qualify for assistance and cannot afford green retrofits.  This fund will locate, organize, and bank resources to cover the gap.
• Durham’s Urban Agriculture Trust, Cornucopia, is a nonprofit initiative of Community Wholeness Venture (CWV) and Land In Common (LIC) to leverage the abundance among us.  Cornucopia will secure growing sites with public and private land agreements.
• The Trust will work with local residents to establish a network of low maintenance organic gardens with perennial food crops, edible landscaping, and urban orchards serving the community abundant, free food for many years.
• The Trust will secure garden sites with agreements and will incorporate as a 501(c)3 nonprofit.