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| Founded | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Mia Kirshner J.B. Mackinnon Paul Shoebridge Michael Simons |
| Type | 501(c)(3)non-profit organization |
| Origins | Malibu, CA, United States |
Area served | Worldwide, United States |
| Owner | Mia Kirshner |
| Website | www.i-live-here.com |
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 that tells 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.B. Mackinnon, Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons. Kirshner is currently the director of the organization. [1]
I Live Here started out as a book documentary about the stories of refugees and displaced women and children in Burma, Juarez, Chechnya, and Malawi. [2] The I Live Here foundation began following the realization that more needed to be done in addition to the book 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 imprisoned existing in unbearable conditions. Many of the incarcerated children could not read or write.
The goal of I Live Here was then changed, leading 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. [3]
I Live Here was released as a book in October 2008 after ten years of work. [4] Throughout this time, Kirshner and many contributors traveled to four different parts of the world, including Chechnya, Burma, Mexico and Malawi. [5] The book is composed of four different volumes, each belonging to that part of the world. Mia Kirshner's younger sister, Lauren Kirshner, a creative writer, was also involved in the writing of the I Live Here Projects. Lauren Kirshner contributed 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. [6] The book was published by Pantheon Books, a subsidiary of Random House. [7]
In addition to the collaboration of Kirshner, MacKinnon, Shoebridge, and Simons, the book also includes a curriculum developed by novelist Chris Abani, as well as contributions by Joe Sacco, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Phoebe Gloeckner, and many others. [8]
Mia Kirshner is a Canadian actress, writer, and social activist. She is known for television roles as Mandy in 24 (2001–2005), as Jenny Schecter in The L Word (2004–2009), as Amanda Grayson in Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2019) and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2023), and as Isobel Flemming in The Vampire Diaries (2010-2011). Her film credits include Love and Human Remains (1993), Exotica (1994), The Crow: City of Angels (1996), Mad City (1997), Not Another Teen Movie (2001), and The Black Dahlia (2006).
Ramzan Akhmatovich Kadyrov is a Russian politician and current Head of the Chechen Republic. He was formerly affiliated to the Chechen independence movement, through his father who was the separatist-appointed mufti of Chechnya. He is a colonel general in the Russian military.
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Amanda Michelle Seyfried is an American actress. Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, she began modeling at age 11 and ventured into acting at 15, with recurring roles as Lucy Montgomery in the CBS soap opera As the World Turns (1999–2001) and Joni Stafford in the ABC soap opera All My Children (2003). She came to prominence for her feature film debut in the teen comedy Mean Girls (2004), and for her roles as Lilly Kane in the UPN mystery drama series Veronica Mars (2004–2006) and Sarah Henrickson in the HBO drama series Big Love (2006–2011).
Phoebe Louise Adams Gloeckner, is an American cartoonist, illustrator, painter, and novelist.

The Black Dahlia is a 2006 neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Brian De Palma and written by Josh Friedman, based on the 1987 novel of the same name by James Ellroy, in turn inspired by the widely sensationalized murder of Elizabeth Short. Starring Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, and Hilary Swank, the film follows two Los Angeles Police Department detectives investigating Short's murder, leading them through a series of shocking revelations. Mia Kirshner, Mike Starr, Fiona Shaw, John Kavanagh, Rachel Miner, and Rose McGowan appear in supporting roles.
Rebecca MacKinnon is an author, researcher, Internet freedom advocate, and co-founder of the citizen media network Global Voices. She is notable as a former CNN journalist who headed the CNN bureaus in Beijing and later in Tokyo. She is on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists, a founding board member of the Global Network Initiative the founding director of the Ranking Digital Rights project at the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, and is the current Vice President for Global Advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation.
Joyce Hilda Banda is a Malawian politician and former President. Banda took office as President following the sudden death of President Bingu wa Mutharika. She is the founder and leader of the People's Party, created in 2011. An educator and grassroots women's rights activist, she was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and the Vice-President of Malawi from May 2009 to April 2012. She had served in various roles as a member of Parliament and as Minister of Gender and Child Welfare before she became the President of the Republic of Malawi.

The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating is a non-fiction book written by Canadian writers Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon. In the book, the authors recount their experiences, including motivations and challenges, on restricting their diet, for one year, to include only foods grown within 100 miles of their residence. Beginning in March 2005, with little preparation the urban couple began only purchasing foods with ingredients they knew were all from within 100 miles. Finding little in grocery stores, they relied on farmers' markets and visits to local farms. Staples in their diet included seafood, chicken, root vegetable, berries, and corn. They lacked cooking oils, rice, and sugar. They preserved foods for use in the winter but ended with extra supplies.

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Jerry Angelo Brooks, commonly known by his stage name J. B. Smoove, is an American actor, comedian and writer. After beginning his career in 1995 on Def Comedy Jam, he was a writer and performer on NBC's Saturday Night Live (2003–06). He is best known for his starring roles on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm (2007–present) and the CBS sitcom The Millers (2013–15). He also portrayed a fictionalized version of himself on the BET improv-comedy reality television parody Real Husbands of Hollywood (2013–16).
James Bernard MacKinnon, commonly cited as J.B. MacKinnon, is a Canadian journalist, contributing editor and book author. MacKinnon is best known for co-authoring with Alisa Smith the bestselling book The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating, encouraging readers to focus on local eating as a way to address current environmental and economic issues. MacKinnon and Smith also collaborated in the creation of the Food Network Canada television series The 100 Mile Challenge, based on the book. He has won six National Magazine Awards, and the 2006 Charles Taylor Prize for best work of Literary Non-Fiction.
Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam, known by her stage name M.I.A., is a British rapper and singer. Her music combines elements of alternative, dance, electronic, hip hop and world music with electronic instruments and samples.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is an American poet, legal scholar, educator and prison reform advocate. At age 16 he committed an armed carjacking, was prosecuted as an adult, and was sentenced to nine years in prison. He started reading and writing poetry during his incarceration. "A single book, Dudley Randall's The Black Poets, slid under my cell in the hole, introduced me to the poets that had me believing words can be carved into a kind of freedom." After his release, Betts earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College, and a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School. He served on President Barack Obama’s Coordinating Council of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. He founded Freedom Reads, an organization that gives incarcerated people access to books. In September 2021, Betts was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He is currently working on a PhD in Law at Yale University.
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Ottessa Charlotte Moshfegh is an American author and novelist. Her debut novel, Eileen (2015), won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a fiction finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Moshfegh's subsequent novels include My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Death in Her Hands, and Lapvona.

Zomba Prison Project is a recording featuring music composed and performed by prisoners at the maximum-security Zomba Central Prison in Zomba, Malawi. The album I Have No Everything Here was produced by Ian Brennan, and nominated in the 2016 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album.
Ian Brennan is an American music producer.