Here at the Story of Stuff Project, we celebrate the fact that our movies have inspired millions around the world—from Brazil and South Africa to the UK and India and everywhere in between. But while many members of the Story of Stuff community don’t live in the United States, we’ve chosen to focus our advocacy efforts here in our home country.
Here are just a couple of the reasons why:
Over the last decade, we’ve seen our country’s democracy and economy crumble before our very eyes. But in the midst of this still unfolding disaster, we’ve also seen a surge in public interest in making change in a way that many of us have never seen before. We want to help harness that energy to build a better future for all of us. And the fact is, we feel best equipped to do that here at home.
We also recognize that our country’s export of toxic waste, toxic products, toxic consumer-focused culture, and climate changing carbon disproportionately impact people in countries other than our own. We feel the best way to express our solidarity with impacted communities, both here and abroad, is to change the way our country operates.
Then there’s the simple fact that there are only six of us! So we partner globally with organizations like the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and others to support organizing in many other countries.
We’re happy to continue making The Story of Broke and our other movies and materials available to anyone around the world. We’ll do everything we can to keep them free to use, share, and show and, with all our movies, we always have our international community in mind.
We share what we know through our movies. We’d love our international friends to share what you know and what The Story of Broke looks like in your country. We encourage you to supplement the movie with materials that speak to the specific reality in your country. Maybe invite a guest speaker to a screening or post it on a website with a explanation of what’s happening near you. Please feel free to share your stories, resources, names organizations you support and questions below as comments. You can also take a look atWiserEarth to find out who’s working on these issues in your community.
And one last thing, if you have a friend in the states, please consider forwarding our emails on to them so they can get involved!
Thank you for all you do to help build a better world. Remember, we’re all in this together.