BELLAMY FUND    EXAMPLE of AN AGENDA of HOPE

We Bellamys represent three generations in the West who have grown up in an era of peace and plenty with no daily life or death issues to worry about. This period saw the emergence of large-scale political movements—feminism, black, gay and lesbian liberation, and the American Indian movements, for example—based in claims about the injustices done to particular social groups. These social movements, spawned in Wesern spaces of plenty, have fostered a philosophical body of knowledge that has encouraged young people to take up questions about the nature, origin and futures of the identities being defended.

Identity politics, as a mode of organizing, is intimately connected to the idea that some social groups are oppressed; that is, that one's identity as a woman or as a Native American, for example, makes one peculiarly vulnerable to cultural imperialism (including stereotyping, erasure, or appropriation of one's group identity), violence, exploitation, marginalization, or powerlessness. Whist Idenity politics is important, the Bellamy Fund aims to bring ito the fore the much bigger global issues of engagement with youth, poverty, jobs, living conditions, education and microfinance.. These are all ellements of cultural ecoloogy as a cross-subject educational framework of cultural ecology.