Family Activism

Empowering Your Community,
Beginning With Family and Friends
By Roberto Vargas

“Roberto Vargas reminds us that the qualities that we most want to see in the world begin very close to home. By sharing parts of his personal journey Roberto provides us with important facilitation tools and insights that we can all use to create more caring, compassionate and engaged families and communities.”

Danny Glover

“Those ready to share in Vargas’s passion will find much to learn.”

Publishers Weekly

In our daily lives, we experience countless opportunities to empower, inspire, and support positive change in those around us. In Family Activism, Vargas explains how fostering what he calls familia—close, loving connections with our relatives and with those we choose to call family—can help us develop the skills and attitudes we need to tackle broader problems in our community, our nation, and the world.

Vargas explains the ideas underlying the familia approach and the techniques that support it using examples from his own life, some of them very emotionally charged. He does more than just describe practices such as the family council, unity circles, and family ceremonies—he shares how they transformed him as a husband, father, son, brother, friend, and committed community activist. Each chapter ends with a series of questions that will help readers understand these practices more deeply and apply them inside and outside the family.

—over—

“Activism,” Vargas writes, “is more than letter writing and mobilizing participation at a protest—it is actively caring for others.” When we become family activists, we develop a new perspective that will help us create a better future for both our families and the world we live in.

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“I know from experience that Roberto Vargas is a wise and compassionate leader. His path of family engagement will save lives and help families to know true ‘family values’, which start with love and support at home, and spread to community involvement and social change”

—Don Hazen, Executive Editor, AlterNet

“Roberto Vargas is one of our nation’s most effective facilitators for drawing forth the best of our progressive organizations. Applying his family activism tools with the staff of the Equal Justice Society has made us a more connected and visionary team, and more effective in building community networks for advocacy and positive change.”

—Eva Paterson, Executive Director, Equal Justice Society

“You want to contribute to the ‘great turning,’ but don’t know where to start. In this powerful, from the heart book, Roberto Vargas suggests we each start by practicing the arts of mutual love and caring within our own family. With deep love and profound insight, he shares his own life stories to tell us how. This book will change your life. Read it and share it with those you love.”

—David Korten, author, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community and co-founder and board chair, YES! magazine

"Family Activism deepens our understanding of practices to inspire and support those closest to us to be better agents of love and change. The communication, ceremony, and facilitation tools that Roberto Vargas shares can make us all more loving family members, and better activists and leaders within any of our organizations and communities."

—Akaya Windwood, President/CEO, Rockwood Leadership

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ROBERTO VARGAS is principal consultant for New World Associates. His clients have included colleges, corporations, public institutions, Native American reservations, and over 150 agencies and organizations dedicated to community service.

Family Activism: Empowering Your Community, Beginning With Family and Friends
By Robert Vargas
Published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. / ISBN: 978-1-57675-480-1
Paperback / $17.95
Number of Pages: 264 / Publication Date: June 16, 2008

***Roberto Vargas is available for interviews. For information about the author and Family Activism, please contact Peter Cavagnaro at (415) 743-6469 or e-mail him at .***