Ripple of Change

RIPPLE OF CHANGE APP: Sustained Constructive Action to Combat Racism and Make a Better World.

We hope that Ripple provides education and motivation for people to build and sustain their commitment to racial and social justice and to building a better world.

Organize your life to "make good trouble," as John Lewis put it. "Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime."

The goal for Ripple is to help people develop the HABIT of working at least a little bit every day to:

- Educate Yourself
- Center Yourself
- Collaborate with Others
- Take Action in your Everyday Life
- Take Collective Action

It takes alternating periods of vigorous activity and rest every day to build our muscles, develop athletic skills, and improve our physical health. Same idea with learning music. And it also takes daily or regular practices of education, action, and reflection to build or moral muscles and civic skills to fight racism and create a better world.

THE VISION

If a critical mass of people gets serious about educating themselves, building their skills and commitment, and working together to make a better world, the future will look way better than it does now.

How many people does it take? We don’t know! But we know that THIS is the direction we need to head.

HOW CAN I USE RIPPLE?

To begin, pick a small (or large) activity in each category each day and commit to acting on it. Once you’re done, check it off as complete and (if you want) share it with your friends or with a team of folks working on the same goals.

WHO DEVELOPED RIPPLE?

RIPPLE APP is a project of the Civic Leadership Project (http://www.civicleadershipproject.org) and its DC Tutoring & Mentoring Initiative (http://dcTutorMentor.org). DCTMI works to get a volunteer tutor or mentor for the 60,000 DC students reading below grade level or with other needs. The Civic Leadership Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, and dedicated to practical civic and educational transformation. If we are to successfully tackle the major challenges that our communities and our nation faces today, we must create a stronger civic culture. We do this through concrete projects and practices, like DCTMI and Ripple, that bring people together across class, race, and ideology and help each of us develop the civic mindset and skills we need to effectively work together for the shared goal of making a better world.

WHY DO WE CALL IT RIPPLE?

Robert F. Kennedy "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a [person] stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." - Robert F. Kennedy, 1966

WHAT WAS OUR ORIGINAL MODEL FOR THE APP?

Ripple is a free app originally inspired by the article "75 Things that White People Can Do for Racial Justice." written by Corinne Shutack in 2017.