Menu
Search
START TYPING AND PRESS ENTER TO SEARCH

What’s a Jam?

Each YES! Jam brings together approximately thirty outstanding changemakers for a week of networking, skills sharing and community building. YES! Jams create transformative fields of shared inquiry in which leaders deepen the root system behind the commitments, prayers and actions that move through their lives.  Our alumni, potent and dedicated multigenerational social change leaders across 85+ nations, support one another and collaborate together on-goingly long after the Jam, sustaining themselves for a lifetime of service to the world.

Learn More

What happens at a Jam?

The program incorporates facilitated dialogue, sharing circles, inspiring guest speakers, organized networking, ceremony, live music, artistic expression, games, movement, participant-led workshops, and free time for participants to enjoy each other and the beautiful environment surrounding them. The core of our work at a Jam is to create a space where inspiring change-makers can build community, and together forge bridges of solidarity and partnership towards the creation of a thriving, just, and regenerative world for all. Friendship is the root system of rapidly emerging movements for positive change. These nine core principles guide the Jams:

Our principles

All issues are connected & central

The Jam does not seek to push any particular issue or position, but to hold space for and honour the intermingling and contrast of a diversity of issues. We believe that the more aware we are of other people’s work and how it connects to ours, the more effective we are.

The fine art of hanging out

We believe that building community requires human to human contact on a small scale. We’ve found that a group of no more than 30 works ideally for our purposes. We believe that you can’t build a sustainable activist community with a list-serve. It takes some serious hanging out together and the Jams are seven days of intensive ‘hanging out’. The most highly rated sessions at many conferences are the coffee breaks. We have found, again and again, that there is a power in coming together to hang out and build relationships. It’s covert activism. It’s building deep foundations. It’s pausing to let the roots of our activism sink into the deeper waters that will sustain us. We are human beings, not human doings.

Sufficiency

As mass marketing and advertising sweeps the globe with its endless message that “you aren’t enough unless you buy our product” we believe that it is a radical stance to believe that there is enough and that we are enough. We don’t have to wait for anything or anyone to feel powerful and to take effective action. We believe that every person on earth is whole and complete. We believe that our work is stronger when we build using what we do have instead of what we don’t have. The Jams are rooted in honoring the sufficiency in each person. We believe that it is possible to create a world that works for everybody; a world where everyone wins. We do our best to create the Jams as a space where everyone can win, where everyone feels honored for who they are and what they bring.

Jam Storytelling

Facilitation Manual

Publications & Media

Podcasts

Videos

Reports & Links

Continue Exploring

Testimonials

“…In the radical and progressive social justice circles of which I am a part, our movements and organizations are being torn apart by so much divisiveness, a toxic call-out/cancel culture that has made it so painful for so many. There are too many reasons for that: internalized white supremacy/capitalism, unaddressed intergenerational trauma of generations of oppression, etc. but I truly believe that YES! embodies the medicine that we so desperately need if we are to actually heal the world in any truly meaningful way: the deep commitment to unconditional love and spirit, to sustainability, to radical connections and allyship across difference. I feel so blessed to have been connected to the Jamily and I really can’t wait to continue this journey with all of you, knowing that I’m not alone. I love you so so much.”

– Amadeo Cruz Guiao, 42, Organizational Healer/Consultant, Teacher and Facilitator, Lunas Consulting, Seattle, WA, Duwamish territories

“The combination of spirit beings joined forces to bring back our true nature as human beings. We lived, we loved, we let down our defenses, and let loose all of our feelings and emotions. We touched on some of our deepest pain, we brought forth the light of inner awareness and calm, and we looked into the fire of discontent, only to emerge stronger and more committed to saving all life forms from the pain and suffering that surrounds all. The 1st Restorying Justice Jam will surely remain as the beginning of a journey inward; not to end there, but to move outward into the outer reaches of the universe..”

– RaPhylo, 64, Anti Recidivism Coalition, Yolo County Conflict Resolution Center, Sacremento, CA, USA

“I work at a job that pays the bills. It’s only in my spare time that I get to do work that inspires me and let’s me follow my passion. But it can be hard to keep that energy up.  Enter the short 3 hour session we had at the Toronto mini-jam. It was like a dose of super energy. Being reminded of how much power can come from a collective process where participants are supported by facilitators in a way that allows them to be authentic, open and honest, which in turn allows for a deep connection. I left our session ready to continue pushing and organizing for justice in the migrant justice movement that I’m a part of.”

– Jeff Carolin, 29, law student and migrant justice activist, Toronto, Canada (traditional territory of the Missaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples)

“Before the Jam, I was often impatient and frustrated in my work, wanting change to happen instantly. The Jam rekindled patience I thought I had lost and gave me renewed hope for the future. It got deep down in the ends of my heart, exploring the real struggles that face human beings today. It created life long friendships that are already building stronger communities around the world. It healed deep wounds and opened my heart to places I thought were impossible.”

– Nick Tilsen, 23, founder, Lakota Mall Economic Justice Project and Lakota Action Network

“Thank you for restoring my faith in the world. To define these past few days as an incredibly transformative experience would still feel reductive to me. It has been that and so much more. I have been surrounded by what feels like the best group of compatible weirdos. And through the genuine love, kindness, nurturing I have experienced, I feel as if I have reconnected with a part of myself that I feared I had lost. Each session has given me the language and tools to better understand myself and how I relate to other people, and for that I am truly grateful.”

– Divya Titus, 29, founding member,
I Will Go Out Collective, Bengaluru, India

“For about a year, I’ve been asking the universe to show me if community is possible in Toronto. These past few days at the Jam, I’ve had an experience of belonging so far beyond even what I thought I was asking for. I feel like there’s a wild wind in my chest. Birds could soar on it. I feel overwhelmed by these feelings of heart-burst-open love. Knowing I have this capacity within me, to love others so hard, and easily, is something no one will ever be able to take from me.”

– Brianna Greaves, 33, Community Worker/ Grassroots Organizer/ Educator, SURJ-TO + Daily Bread Food Bank, Toronto, Canada

Explore

Upcoming Jams

Resources

Let’s Connect