A View From Here

An artist and social entrepreneur, I have come to see the possibility and I hunger to create a better world, not for myself only, but for all of us. Many of us have this hunger. This is but one way.

It is tempting to complain, even feel shameful, that I have not moved more quickly. Creating a peaceful and self-regulating virtual democratic country that promotes social justice is the kind of undertaking maybe only an artist would undertake but I can't help but build this...it is the vision of this better world that compels me forward.

After working many years in rural La Puebla, New Mexico I could see that I couldn't build this better world from there. Rural Northern New Mexico is very much an inspired place and rich in Native American and Hispano/a/Latino/a knowledge, among, other knowledge and traditions, but the infrastructure is weak and I had grown hungry for community.

My first move away from La Puebla, New Mexico was to a small office in the Los Alamos Small Business Center. Los Alamos New Mexico is home of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the atomic bomb was designed and created. While Los Alamos is a place with many experienced and technically skilled people I did not have the resources to compete with the National Laboratory for workers. Many people that work at Los Alamos are highly paid for his or her skills and my grassroots do it yourself artist undertaking was hard for many there to relate to. For this reason I found the community to be ingrown and hostile. I tried to find people to teach me the skills I needed but could not find anything but college courses that would take years at a snails pace to complete. I decided to continue to teach myself. Even as of a few years ago very few affordable and good online courses existed.

I decided to move into Santa Fe and got a small office there. In many ways Santa Fe's infrastructure suffered from a similar weakness and while many in Santa Fe are working hard to improve it I didn't have the time to wait. At the same time I began to realize that I thought differently than many of the people I met there. I realized that my deepest interest is in governance and that Washington DC was the best place for my work.

Finding a way to Washington DC in the middle of the Great Recession has not been easy but my husband and I found a way and in August 2010 we relocated to the metro DC area. For the first time in my life I feel I am in the right place. I love the engagement with policy and governance.

In September 2011 I took a Policy Analyst Internship with RESULTS, a poverty resolving organization. RESULTS and its visionaries including Sam Daley Harris and my mentor and friend Meredith Dodson, have a saying that they are dedicated to "finding the power to end poverty." I feel, through the World Knowledge Bank, I have the will and a way to help end poverty and make the world a better place.

Through this internship I have found community and my public voice.

ARR February 10, 2011

The World Knowledge Bank is not being built by a corporation or university or government with many layers and large amounts of resources and peoples' energies.
Rather I am building the World Knowledge Bank® as a work of art, using my modest financial means and joining forces with others as my finances allow. I am a single individual standing on the shoulders of milliena of named and unnamed human beings' desire to find a just and generous way to live and work together.
I am an individual with more blessings and priviledges than can be gracefully recounted including being born of relative good health in a prosperous democratic country, receiving some of the best education on earth in a country that values individual safety and freedom and encourages girls to become women who can envision how the world could be and make it happen through making contributions to others. I have traveled widely and modestly to see the world. I have seen life's travesties, inequities and joys through my own eyes and I believe in the potential for good in the human spirit.
April 11, 2007, May 5, 2007, October 11, 2007 Ann Racuya-Robbins

Something Beautiful and Practical for Life