Community Acupuncture – the Calmest Revolution Ever Staged

How a small group of loud-mouthed, over-educated, under-employed activists and a massive group of ordinary, average-income people revolutionized healthcare services by using large empty rooms, old recliner chairs and two-cent needles. 

When: Sunday January 22, 2012,  2 – 4 pm

Where: Edith Stone Room, Albany Library, 1247 Marin Avenue (at Masonic)

Fee: Donation, no one turned away, all proceeds benefit Transition Albany

Transition Albany teams with Sarana Community Acupuncture to co-host the Bay Area premiere of “Community Acupuncture: the Calmest Revolution Ever Staged”, a new documentary by award-winning filmmaker Brian Lindstrom. Lindstrom is best known for his cinema-verite documentary, “Finding Normal”, which chronicles the lives of three people in recovery from chemical dependency.

“Community Acupuncture: the Calmest Revolution Ever Staged” is the story of how a small group of loud-mouthed, over-educated, under-employed activists and a massive group of ordinary, average-income people revolutionized healthcare services by using large empty rooms, old recliner chairs and two-cent needles.  This short but poignant film tells the story of how Community Acupuncture is changing the lives of people with limited finances. It follows six diverse community acupuncture patients and shows the impact of affordable acupuncture on their lives and communities.

Community acupuncture is a social justice movement that provides affordable and accessible acupuncture to people of ordinary incomes and creates sustainable living wage jobs for acupuncture practitioners while building community. In 2002, two Portland acupuncturists, Skip Van Meter and Lisa Rohleder, opened Working Class Acupuncture (WCA) with the intention of making acupuncture affordable and accessible. They wanted to treat their friends and neighbors, so they redesigned the conventional acupuncture business model, treating patients in a communal setting in used recliners, and charging a sliding scale of $15-35 per treatment.

Today, Working Class Acupuncture has 3 locations and is the busiest acupuncture practice in Oregon.  Additionally, over 200 community acupuncture clinics across North America have replicated WCA�s practice model and offer affordable care to their communities. Most recently People�s Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA), a multi-stakeholder cooperative, was founded by the leaders of community acupuncture movement with the mission to create a stable and sustainable economic foundation for the delivery of affordable acupuncture, and the broad vision to build social capital via creating jobs and providing needed services in an affordable manner.

After the film, Tatyana Ryevzina and Pam Chang, co-owners of Albany-based Sarana Community Acupuncture, will lead a Q&A session / discussion about sustainable healthcare.

For more information about Sarana Community Acupuncture, visit www.saranacommunityacupuncture.com, 968 San Pablo Avenue, Albany, CA 94706, 510.526.5056.

For more information about the community acupuncture movement, visit www.pocacoop.com