lokashakti

About Lokashakti

Lokashakti is a nonprofit organization founded in 2009 by Will Travers and based in New York City. Our mission is to promote the ideals of international peace and social justice by providing people with the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary in empowering them to create positive nonviolent social change.

We're working right now on putting together a web resource that we hope will prove invaluable to the activist community around the world. Our idea is to focus on what we see as the three most important ways the internet can help people work more effectively for peace and social justice:

1. Networking
2. Education
3. Organizing

1. Networking. The single greatest service, in our estimation, that the Internet has been able to provide is that of bringing us all closer together, leaving us more able to effectively communicate with one another. This has happened to such an extent that we tend to no longer look upon nationality, distance, not knowing someone, or even language as the natural barriers to communication that they once were. What's missing so far, however, is something devoted entirely to making certain that those interested in working for peace and social justice are able to find each other, whether they happen to be right next door, or halfway around the world.

   When issues of peace and social justice fail to get adequately championed by politicians or the mainstream media it's easy to think that the only people passionate about them are at the margins of society. We know for a fact this is far from true, and here's where Lokashakti finds its niche: combating the mistaken belief that there aren't as many of us interested in working on these issues as there really are. It's in this capacity that the Internet offers us its virtually untapped and entirely unprecedented potential for helping build this movement to such an extent that it can't be ignored any longer.

2. Education. What we see as the second main strength of the worldwide web is its ability to make more information available to more people in more places than ever before. Although to a certain extent this is already being done many places online, we felt that given the interests of the people we hope to reach, our site would be a perfect place to assemble as many useful educational resources related to peace and social justice as possible.

   The only way to ensure that nonviolent action will be effective is for it to be based on a realistic and intelligent assessment of the realities at hand, and for past lessons to have already been well absorbed. Since this organization is all about increasing the power of the people, if the old adage holds true that knowledge is power, then it's only natural for the knowledge of the people to become one of the primary goals toward which we work.

3. Organizing. As a global activist community, once we're all in touch, clear on what it is we're trying to do, and aware of the history of our movements, groups, and techniques, it's left for us to organize ourselves and strategize before we can truly undertake effective nonviolent action. We're just now beginning to understand the potential of new communication technology as we witness tools such as Twitter and text messages being used to help rally thousands of people to a given area at a moment's notice. Previous generations, inspired by things from the Seneca Falls convention, to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, to Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, have long known how important it is to organize, and the capacity for social change shown by this most recent technological revolution follows in direct succession to the methods used in the past.

   By making available resources that make the most of what this new technology has to offer, we hope for LOKASHAKTI.ORG to play a formative role in the future of social activism. Our aim is not to assume any leadership capacity, but rather serve as a tool so that others can more effectively lead the movement to accomplish all that it can and more. Organizing is the final key to getting things done, and new technology allows it to finally be carried out on a scale large enough to really be able to make a difference. When actions are able to be coordinated nationally and even globally, people's potential for nonviolent social change increases exponentially. It's with this that we here at Lokashakti hope to help.

For more detailed descriptions of how we're translating these three broad categories into concrete public resources, click here.

If you'd like to help us out, please consider either a tax-deductible donation, or another one of the numerous ways in which you can assist the creation and growth of this organization. Thank you!

In addition, to help promote the organization, the website, and the ideas they represent, we've also got a band, also named Lokashakti. We play protest music, and we've got a brand new EP out on our very own label, Lokashakti Records. We hope you enjoy what we've written so far.