This year's series theme is "Building Resilient Communities", through Spirit in Action's Theory of Transformation to collectively transform the world by working with communities to Reimagine culture, Resist domination, Reform institutions and Recreate society.
RESIST - Working On the Current System
Workshop One (11:10AM – 12:10PM): The Role of Non-Violent Direct- Action Protests
What will participants learn from this workshop?
How to develop a rapid response non-violent direct action.
How to bring new people into the work that you are doing.
How to amplify your action through social and traditional media.
Workshop Description:
This training will cover how to organize a rapid response non-violent direct actions. We will discuss how to develop a goal, strategy and tactic for your action. Tactics covered will include sit-ins, rallies, and birddogging. We will cover frameworks that will help you bring new people into your work and amplify the work that you are doing through social and traditional media.
Speaker Bio:
Griffin Sinclair-Wingate began organizing around social issues when he was in high school. When he began school at the University of New Hampshire, he saw the impact environmental destruction could have on people’s livelihood. This propelled him into into climate justice organizing. Currently, Griffin is the interim coordinator for 350 NH. He will be graduating from UNH in May of 2017. In his free time, Griffin enjoys playing music.
Workshop Two (1:20PM – 2:20PM): Communicate to Win: Building Relationships, Awareness, and Grassroots Power
Getting the word out about your efforts is an opportunity for your group to define itself and it's values and to gain internal clarity about campaign goals. This kind of clarity makes it easier to reach people who resonate with your vision and provides opportunities to tell the compelling story of your efforts via media, social media, and other external communications. At the same time, a strategy that centers on defining and communicating your commitments and actions as a group grounds your existing team in an authentic shared narrative.
What will you learn?
Tools for developing a collaborative communications strategy
- Case Study: Communicating our Values from Resist the Pipeline
- Strategies for building media and social media reach with an all volunteer team
Speaker Bio:
Marla is a United Methodist committed to supporting people of all faiths and no particular faith to act boldly for justice. An experienced campaigner, trainer, pastor and lay leader, she brings two decades of social justice organizing experience with faith-based, youth, and grassroots groups. She supported the launch of Climate Summer, serving as its Director for five years, and is a Co-Founder of both Better Future Project and 350 Massachusetts. Marla has supported, organized, and participated in many direct action and civil disobedience efforts, including the Lobster Boat Blockade. Her current projects include organizing sustained nonviolent resistance to Spectra Energy's West Roxbury Lateral pipeline project with Resist The Pipeline and re-starting Climate Summer for 2017. Marla is passionate about leadership development and building supportive communities of resistance among unlikely allies. She calls both the Boston area and the Missouri Ozarks “home.”
Workshop Three (2:25PM – 3:25PM): Impactful Community Organizing to "Resist"
What will participants learn from this workshop?
Information about local and regional resistance campaigns that utilize direct action
The basic strategies of nonviolent direct action
Ways to plug in to these regional struggles
Workshop Description:
The workshop will highlight campaigns in the Northeast that have utilized nonviolent direct action to resist fracked-gas infrastructure. Direct action strategies, examples of tactics and ways to plug into existing campaigns will be covered.
Speaker Bio:
For over three years The FANG Collective has been organizing resistance to the fracked-gas industry in the Northeast. FANG utilizes a diversity of nonviolent tactics from community organizing to direct action. FANG campaigns include the #StopSpectra campaign, building resistance to the power plant proposed for Burrillville, RI and working with other community groups to stop a LNG facility proposed for Providence.
RECREATE - Generating New Systems
Workshop One (11:10AM – 12:10PM): How to Impact Policy
What will participants learn from this workshop?
Identifying decision makers
Strategies for influencing local policy
Strategies for influencing state policy
Workshop Description:
Grassroots, all-volunteer organizations can sometimes feel overwhelmed by achieving their day-to-day mission and don’t recognize how influential they can be. The local knowledge and personal connections embedded in grassroots organizations can be invaluable to decision makers – if only the connections are made! This workshop will highlight some best practices for sharing information with and influencing decision makers at the state and local level. The workshop will be enriched by the experience – both successes and failures -- of attendees.
Speaker Bio:
Meg Kerr has been doing environmental policy and organizing for a very long time. She is a graduate of Brown University (BS) and the University of North Caroline at Chapel Hill (MS) with expertise in water policy and science. She has worked for government (State of North Carolina, EPA in DC), university (URI) and non-profit organizations (Clean Water Action, Audubon Society of RI), specializing in building coalitions to solve difficult problems. She has four grown children and one grandson and spends her free time running, playing tennis, and enjoying the out of doors with her husband.
Workshop Two (1:20PM – 2:20PM): Fundraising for Your Project
Workshop Description:
Are you a nonprofit or volunteer group who is interested in taking a more holistic approach to your community-based work? Or someone who is interested in receiving financial support for your community event, tool, or program? Join Grassroots Fund Program Director, Nakia Navarro, to learn about our Guiding Principles for strong community organizing that increase your impact and revenue. During this workshop, Nakia will also share available opportunities for support from the Grassroots Fund, from grants to stipends to sponsorship. Participants will learn:
• What the Grassroots Fund defines as fundable community projects
• What makes a strong, fundable community project
• How to receive a grant from the Grassroots Fund and other foundations
Speaker Bio:
Nakia joined the Grassroots Fund in July 2016 and her nonprofit experience spans well over fifteen years. Prior to joing the Grassroots Fund, Nakia the New England Regional Director at Let’s Get Ready which provides low-income high school students with support services to both enter and complete college. Nakia volunteers her time by speaking to youth about her career and how to become a community organizer. She also volunteers as a board member on both the WBGH Community Advisory Board and the Rise Above Foundation Board.
Workshop Three (2:25PM – 3:25PM): How to Build a Community- Centered Program
What will participants learn from this workshop?
How to design a resident-centered project
- Creating multiple avenues for diverse resident participation
- Challenges that arise when residents are in the driver’s seat
Workshop Description:
The Newport Health Equity Zone (HEZ) has been working to rethink how projects are implemented in communities. We have designed a resident-centered process to plan, implement, and evaluate our health equity work. By cultivating a shared power dynamic across the project, we have been able to develop innovative solutions to seemingly intractable community problems.
Speaker Bio:
Jessica Walsh has been working as a community organizer and program administrator in the field of domestic violence prevention for 13 years. She is a proud mother of 2 and loves to read in her spare time. Olivia Kachingwe has been working as a community organizer for 2 years with the Health Equity Zone project. She received her Masters in Public Health from Brown University. She enjoys baking and traveling in her spare time.
REIMAGINE - Conceptualizing New Systems
Workshop One (11:10AM – 12:10PM): Constellations 101: Overcoming Community Challenges
What will you learn from this workshop?
Tips and plan for discovering transformational practices to incorporate towards a holistic movement build strategy
- Introduction to Systemic Family Constellations
- How to use representative perception as a tool
Workshop Description:
In addition to sounds, thoughtful and traditional tactics, organizers, organizations and movement may benefit from a pre-figurative and transformative approach to the wok of getting Free. With our existing strong foundation in the “Newtonian Physics” model of organizing, we embrace tried and true tactics because they work. In this session, we ask how to explore the new, create intentional room for the emergent, and live the values we want in order to enhance what we already do well. We will explore the Quantum Physical toolkit as a mean of staying mission-centered, generative, and effective.
Speaker Bio:
Julius is a love-centered artist, organizer, and adherent of Divine Love, with a mission to catalyze healing prosperity in the Black community. Julius has been organizing for 10 years and currently services as the co-Director at Worcester Roots, bringing the cooperative business model to low-income communities by incubating worker-owned businesses. He is the founder of Black Lives Matter Worcester. Julius is a trained facilitator in Systemic Family Constellations, a healing modality he studied under Dan Booth Cohen and Emily Volden. He practices intersectional healing, informed by the complex reality of oppression, trauma, and identity to help fill the vacuum of healing for Black folks, communities of color, and their accomplishments.
Workshop Two (1:20PM – 2:20PM): Starting and Supporting Projects led by Young People
What will you learn from this workshop?
- How to make space for youth leaders in community programs: opportunities and challenges
- The skills and opportunities that youth need to be provided in order to be successful in leadership roles
- How youth leadership is different, and what adults and those in power can learn from that
Workshop Description:
This workshop will highlight the successes and challenges that we have encountered in creating a youth-led program in which all participants have the opportunity to grow into new roles. It will outline how we structure our program, what works well and what needs improvement, and the direction we would like for the future. It will also compare youth-led enterprises from those that are more mainstream, and identify the ways that youth and adults can work together and learn from each other to support a more just and inclusive food system and community.
Speaker Bio:
The Windham Youth CORE (“Cultivating Opportunity, Resources, and Education”) is a program by and for high school students in Willimantic, CT. Youth develop the skills to become change-makers through “community enterprises” that support food justice in our community. Members have the opportunity to grow into leadership positions in the program, as well as to serve as liaisons to the broader Windham Community Food Network.
Workshop Three (2:25PM – 3:25PM): Co-Creation Across Cultural Barriers
What will you learn in this workshop?
The benefits of working cross-culturally
- The benefits of working with marginalized groups
- The importance of intersectionality in creating a resilient community
Workshop Description:
Farming with marginalized groups of people is not only a socially just endeavor; it is an essential component in creating a network of people with marketable skills and resilience in the transition to a sustainable economy. This workshop explores what this work looks like in practice, drawn from lessons and experiences from our farming with refugees at SunPoint Farm Sanctuary in Derry, NH.
Speaker Bio:
Jody Creel attended Texas Tech University where he received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Anthropology. Jody taught middle school and high school Biology and Chemistry for four years before “retiring” to a yurt homestead on a farm in Derry, NH. There, he work with immigrant/refugee farmers assisting them in their pursuit of making a life for themselves in their new country.
REFORM - Working Within the Current System
Workshop One (11:10AM – 12:10PM): Systemic Racism and White Privilege Framework
How does systemic racism and white privilege show up in your heart, head, workplace or organizing efforts? Are you clear about these concepts? Are you able to name behaviors or practices that reinforce racism and white privilege in self and others? Is a shared framework used in your organizing? Do you wish you had more tools to address these issues? Through the use of vignettes participants will explore strategies to address these questions.
Speaker Bios:
Fran Smith is a seasoned community organizer and facilitative leader for racial. She began her work as a pro school desegregation student organizer in the 70’s in Boston. Since that time she has worked in the nonprofit and public sector running youth development projects, working on local and national education reform efforts, and former Affirmative Action Officer for City of Weymouth. Fran just began a new role as the Organizing Director for the New Lynn Coalition.
Boston native Olmis Sanchez, is a seasoned youth development specialist, and community organizer with an expertise in environmental justice. At the age of 15, Olmis and 13 of her friends motivated to end teen homicides in their neighborhood, created Beantown Society. Now in its 12th year Beantown Society continues to be a youth led innovative social justice afterschool program. Olmis uses the arts and storytelling to help youth and people of color develop leadership skills and develop environmental justice organizing campaigns. Currently, Olmis is the Program Coordinator for Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project (REEP) at Alternatives for Community and Environment.
Workshop Two (1:20PM – 2:20PM): Power Pyramid
What are the power structures operating to super-exploit people of color? Participants will examine the intersections of environmental racism, capitalism and white supremacy. Questions that will be explored include: What are the power dynamics? Who’s making these decisions? What strategies have been used to shift power?
Speaker Bios:
Fran Smith is a seasoned community organizer and facilitative leader for racial. She began her work as a pro school desegregation student organizer in the 70’s in Boston. Since that time she has worked in the nonprofit and public sector running youth development projects, working on local and national education reform efforts, and former Affirmative Action Officer for City of Weymouth. Fran just began a new role as the Organizing Director for the New Lynn Coalition.
Boston native Olmis Sanchez, is a seasoned youth development specialist, and community organizer with an expertise in environmental justice. At the age of 15, Olmis and 13 of her friends motivated to end teen homicides in their neighborhood, created Beantown Society. Now in its 12th year Beantown Society continues to be a youth led innovative social justice afterschool program. Olmis uses the arts and storytelling to help youth and people of color develop leadership skills and develop environmental justice organizing campaigns. Currently, Olmis is the Program Coordinator for Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project (REEP) at Alternatives for Community and Environment.
Workshop Three (2:25PM – 3:25PM): Communicating Racism through Story and Truth Telling
Often the mainstream narratives exclude oppressed peoples truth and try to silence their stories. How can we change the story! Participants will explore the use of truth telling and stories as tools to build unity and social change. Participants will also share their stories about both challenges and triumphs dealing with racism and white privilege.
Speaker Bios:
Fran Smith is a seasoned community organizer and facilitative leader for racial. She began her work as a pro school desegregation student organizer in the 70’s in Boston. Since that time she has worked in the nonprofit and public sector running youth development projects, working on local and national education reform efforts, and former Affirmative Action Officer for City of Weymouth. Fran just began a new role as the Organizing Director for the New Lynn Coalition.
Boston native Olmis Sanchez, is a seasoned youth development specialist, and community organizer with an expertise in environmental justice. At the age of 15, Olmis and 13 of her friends motivated to end teen homicides in their neighborhood, created Beantown Society. Now in its 12th year Beantown Society continues to be a youth led innovative social justice afterschool program. Olmis uses the arts and storytelling to help youth and people of color develop leadership skills and develop environmental justice organizing campaigns. Currently, Olmis is the Program Coordinator for Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project (REEP) at Alternatives for Community and Environment.