The I Live Here Projects

The I Live Here Foundation also commonly referred to as the I Live Here Projects, is a United States 501(c)(3) non profit organization dedicated to telling the stories of silenced and unheard people around the world through a series of books and other media projects.

The I Live Here foundation was founded in 2005 by Canadian-born actress Mia Kirshner along with J.BMackinnon, Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons. Kirshner is currently the director of the organization.

I Live Here started out as a book documentary that VOICED the stories of refugees and displaced women and children in Burma, Juarez, Chechnya, and Malawi. The I Live here book has provided voices to women and children by allowing them to tell their stories in their own words through a combination of writing, sketches, and self portraits.

The grassroots establishment of the I Live Here foundation began post the realization that more needed to be done in addition to documenting a book on an exchange through various creative arts.

ETINA, an umbrella organization for several activist and environmental groups, serves as I Live Here's charitable sponsor.

Mission statement

I Live Here believes in the power of individual expression to transform the lives of people living in the most extreme situations of poverty and isolation. I Live Here works with local organization partners to create an environment of health and safety and in turn sets up schools and permaculture programs, while providing legal assistance, as well as, legal rights education.

The I Live Here programs goal is to empower those who are unheard and whose voices have disseminated. I Live Here also works with local material which in turn provides participants with a sustainable future. Coming full circle, the stories gathered are then shared through books and other media projects designed to encourage the Global Community to learn, be inspired, and take action.

Kachere Prison Project

In 2005, Mia Kirshner and J.B. MacKinnon traveled to the Kachere juvenile prison located in Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. The original purpose for travel was to gather materials for the I Live Here book. Kirshner and MacKinnon met the reality of a widespread AIDS epidemic and found the prison as well as the imprisoned in unbearable conditions. In addition to these conditions was the realization that many children that were incarcerated could not read or write and had been displaced from society without proper schooling.

The goal of I Live Here was then changed from the sole proposal of the book documentary. This event lead to the establishment of the I Live Here foundation. Much of the work that was done at the Juvenile prison was based on a system of permaculture.

Book Documentary

The I Live Here Paper Documentary was released in October 2008. The Book took nine years to compile..

Throughout this time, Kirshner and many contributors traveled to four different parts of the world deemed in bad shape. War in Chechnya, cleansing in Burma, globalization in Mexico, and AIDS in Malawi.

The book is composed of four different volumes, each belonging to that part of the world.

Mia Kirshners younger sister,Lauren Kirshner, a creative writer, was also involved in the writing of the I Live Here Projects. Lauren Kirshner contributed what has been powerfully recognized as twenty poems for Claudia, a narrative based on family photos, notes by friends, and missing person posters related to one of the hundreds of murdered women in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

The book was published by Pantheon Books, a subsidiary of Random House.

The books tagline is "There are too many untold stories."

In addition to the collaboration of Kirshner, MacKinnon, Shoebridge, and Simons, the book also includes a curriculum developed by novelist Chris Abani in addition to contributions by Joe Sacco, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Phoebe Gloeckner, and many others.

I Live Here was logistically supported byAmnesty International, which also received proceeds from the book.

Since 2008, the book has been used and is currently in use as study material for rhetorical courses in the Communication Studies Department at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. The University of MIT has asked Mia Kirshner to teach a course centered on this book. In Los Angeles Hebrew High, the book is continually being used as a teaching material.