CO-DIRECTOR OF RESTORATIVE JUSTICEMaria Scanelli
Maria Scanelli has been with Resolutions Northwest since 2011 when she was hired as Restorative Justice Coordinator to help identified Multnomah County Schools implement restorative justice practices in their school communities. She has facilitated groups, workshops and taught classes in conflict resolution and restorative justice to elementary, middle, high school and college students as well as youth and adults in correctional institutions. The most cherished part of her job is working with youth to help them identify their strengths and passions in life and guide them into action in service to their community and manifesting the change they want to see in the world. Shortly after Maria earned her MS in Conflict Resolution from Portland State University in 2008, she began volunteering with Insight Development Group, a Restorative Justice focused group at Oregon State Correctional Institute that she helped found. Since 2012, she has focused her volunteer time with Hope Partnership at Maclaren Youth Correctional Facility and is also a volunteer facilitator for the Department of Corrections Facilitated Dialogue Program. Riding rivers, catching waves, climbing rocks and mountains are Maria’s favorite ways to play and as an avid outdoorswoman she makes the most of her weekends escaping to the wilderness for solitude and adventure.
“The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth. Truth has a power of its own. Art has a power of its own. That age-old lesson- that everything we do matters- is the meaning of the people’s struggle here in the United States and everywhere. A poem can inspire a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution. Civil disobedience can arouse people and provoke us to think, when we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress. We live in a beautiful country. But people who have no respect for human life, freedom or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage and kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places- and there are so many- where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” – Howard Zinn