Movement Matters has supported the work and development of labor unions throughout our history - through direct contracts to help locals strengthen their internal systems, the development of strategic campaign plans, and anchoring labor-community coalitions. We have watched with enthusiasm as labor has seen a resurgence throughout the US in recent years. We have also worried at the lack of consistent practices in many unions to build deep and robust member-leadership, not only for issues on the shop floor, but to meet the broader political moment. Our long relationship with 1199SEIU has been a joyful and verdant one in which we have been able to help shape evolving mechanisms for building just this type of member-leadership. Members of 1199 staff have been attending Movement Matters trainings for years, allowing us to build a strong relationship of trust and a common understanding of decolonized popular education and base building. When 1199 staff recognized the need to engage their members in a better understanding of and context for the union’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza, they began to put into place a series of “teach-ins” to engage members around the issue. The Movement Matters team helped to equip 1199 staff with concrete ideas and coaching for how to facilitate these sessions and productively engage in values based conflict de-escalation. 1199’s instinct to use this moment to engage their members in critical reflection and learning is a great example of the steps that are needed to more fully engage labor in a broader movement building. 1199 organizers also recognize the need to more fully embed popular education practices throughout their member engagement. Movement Matters and 1199 organizers prepared an introductory popular education skill-building workshop as part of 1199’s staff convening in Philadelphia this summer. During this workshop, 1199 organizers were able to more deeply understand and discuss how to bring popular education principles into their regular meeting spaces with members. This was a first step in expanding an internal 1199 audience to the principles and practice learned in Movement Matters trainings. We are already planning for a new set of sessions with 1199 staff and members focused on the integration of healing and community care in their membership development practice. We look forward to continuing this relationship and this process, helping 1199 (among a host of other unions) to lead the way in building radical, transformational union organizing. Connect with us for more information about our Technical Assistance and Training work. Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC. We work regionally and with national partners. Sometimes the right group of people, the right facilitation team, and the right content all come together at just the right time and in the right container to create magic. This past spring, Movement Matters experienced precisely such a magical moment at our 2024 Advanced Facilitation Training (AFT). Our team worked tirelessly in the months leading up to the advanced training. We took a curriculum that had already worked well for us in previous years and we dialed in on the places that we instinctively felt had to be strengthened. We breathed life, ritual, culture, art, spirit, and healing into every aspect of the three days, both as a training methodology and as content to be learned. We invited elder artist Baba Ras D to join our already dynamic facilitation team and accompanied him as he deeply incorporated song and rhythm into each day of the gathering. We watched with awe as people shared their stories, called in their guides and ancestors (human and more-than-human), danced, mourned, sang, and created community with-in rhythm. We demonstrated in real time that when we truly move together, our hearts beat in unison, our brains sync, and we create genuine transformative relationships of trust, action, and belonging. Beginning with the application process, we thoughtfully cultivated a tremendous group of participants, spanning two continents and three languages. We met the challenge of making the AFT a fully integrated trilingual space, recommitting to practices of language justice and deep connection through and beyond spoken language. This AFT cohort came from hyper-local grassroots groups, regional labor unions, and national coalitions. We had native relatives from Hawai’i–Kānaka Maoli–, from the Eastern Cherokee Nation, and the Potiguara Peoples of Brazil join other organizers from across the US representing Black, Afro-descendent, Brown, white, and immigrant communities. Folks shared their culture and stories. They built enduring connections across distance and identity. “The thoughtful consideration that Movement Matters incorporated into the Advanced Facilitation Training as it regards to the curriculum, arts, language justice, culture, ethnicity, gender, and identity is unmatched for any training I've ever been a part of. It is an intentional, purposeful approach that directly impacts the success of this advanced training. The content is extraordinary. I really, “REALLY” loved this MM training.” As participants created profound community over the three days, they also practiced advanced skills around the incorporation of arts and culture-building in facilitation practice. We wrestled with how to engage community members fully in our individual work while also holding a disciplined focus on the issue at hand. We learned techniques for conceiving and incorporating popularized graphics and physical movement-based practices to unlock creative potential when envisioning solutions. We dialed in on appropriate practices for building the content and methodology for engagement based on where a group is in its development. “This might be my favorite training I’ve ever been to. Seeing how MM trainers created an intentional, flexible, joyful, trust-filled generative space has given me the confidence that I can too. Understanding how tools actually feel in the body and can land in the heart or mind brought thought-provoking reflections for everyone. It was beautiful and the energy was lit!” These kinds of magical movement building moments need to be held up, celebrated, and aspired to. If we are to build spaces of radical joy, visionary imagination, expansive learning, and transformational power within our organizing work, we have to experience them for ourselves, integrate them into our bones, reflect on how to create them for others, and practice how to create the conditions to do so. As trainers and capacity builders, it is easy to become jaded, to take for granted the work that we are privileged to do, to believe change within our movements is not going to happen. The Movement Matters team owes a sincere debt to each of those who shared space with us at the AFT for rejuvenating us, pushing us to aspire to this level of inspiration in all of our work, and showing us that it is possible. As we collectively move into another round of profoundly contested struggle in this country, as climate change and racialized capitalism threaten the world’s survival, these numinous animated spaces are critical to keep us moving forward, committed to building decolonized power for the world that can be, and skilled enough to move us in that direction. Connect with us for more information on our Advanced Facilitation Training. Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC. We work regionally and with national partners. Providing support and accompaniment to organizers and community workers is a critical part of the way Movement Matters supports our collective struggle for justice. However, we recognize that those working on the ground are only part of the movement ecosystem. We are also excited when the opportunity presents itself to accompany funders who are interested in supporting transformative work. Over the last two years, Movement Matters has been partnering with Resourcing Radical Justice (RRJ), a funders collective that centers Black liberation as the path to a thriving Greater Washington region by advocating for philanthropic sector transformation, coordinating capacity building for and funding to Black and POC-led grassroots organizers, and building, lifting up, and learning from radical organizers. Our Movement Matters team played two distinct roles in RRJ’s Radical Learning Series process: helping to structure and ground the development of a learning cohort and providing content training to the cohort once it had been developed. RRJ drew on our expertise in creating values-driven, body-and-mind centered processes to help them envision the arc of their cohort design―from the application process to the learning modules to the post-workshop integration of knowledge, skills, and values. Those doing “professional” training for funders often overlook the need to allow participants to connect to their bodies, minds, and spirits as they navigate systems that may resist change. We provided concrete ways for RRJ to utilize arts and culture to avoid these traps and help participants deeply connect to new ways of thinking about funding and to navigate (personally and professionally) the obstacles they might face in implementing new approaches within their organizations. In addition to this overall framing, Movement Matters also designed and ran two training modules within the RRJ curriculum. These modules focused on understanding how philanthropy can both support and hinder movement work for systems change and racial justice, both in terms of what they fund and how they fund it. We drew on our deep knowledge of various philanthropic efforts to support community organizing, racial equity and systems change work in the DC area over the last 25 years in crafting the training content. We helped RRJ cohort members critically reflect on and ground themselves in philanthropic practices that contribute more consistently and meaningfully to a healthy movement ecosystem. As always, these workshops were deeply rooted in Movement Matters’ popular education approach and resonated strongly with the RRJ cohort. Helping those who organize money to be aligned with movement organizing in their vision, values, and practice is a critical part of a multi-pronged approach to creating change. We were happy to be able to partner with RRJ to do this kind of transformational work with funders in the region. Connect with us for more information on MM's Funder Training and Technical Assistance . Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC. We work regionally and with national partners. We are thrilled to announce our partnership with the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) to develop popular education curricula for IEN's Indigenous Principles of Just Transition and support in the building of their Just Transition Program. IEN’s principles capture key elements about our relationship to Mother Earth, the immutable importance of Indigenous sovereignty, and the critical role of Indigenous knowledge in transitioning from an exploitative economy to one that fosters life and harmony. We cannot undo the harm we have done to the planet without addressing the destruction of settler colonialism. Climate justice cannot be achieved without centering Indigenous solutions and recognizing Indigenous sovereignty. We are excited to partner with IEN on this significant project! For more information on MM's Curriculum Development or Popular Education expertise, connect with us. Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC. We work regionally and with national partners. This past Summer 2019, Movement Matters created and facilitated a weeklong Community Organizing Institute for Latinx immigrant youth in the DC area. Training youth is different than training staff organizers. It engages us differently, challenges us, offers new perspectives on our work, and keeps us on our toes. Flexibility and responsiveness became key parts of the week. The Youth Organizing Institute allowed us the opportunity to deepen our use of arts and theater/movement based activities to engage young people in deep reflection on the issues they face in their schools, jobs, and community. We explored power dynamics and how they are used to reinforce the status quo. We grappled with the role of race in creating divisions among youth, as well as common experiences that could be built upon. In each of these discussions, we integrated the need for structural change. And in order to create this change, the need for a strong youth voice, for cohesive relationships, for bold action, for organizing. There is much work that is still to be done. The deep conversations throughout the week meant we spent less time than we anticipated on some of the core organizing skills we hoped to cover. We touched on the need for relationship building, but didn’t get to practice some of the essentials of outreach and one-on-ones. We talked about the need to challenge power, but only touched on the tools for conducting target analysis and building strategic campaigns. These became the guideposts for our current work, not just in trainings with Movement Matters, but in our ongoing engagement with the organizations that brought youth to the Institute. These organizations included CASA de Maryland, the Latino Youth Leadership Council, and Many Languages One Voice. It was truly exciting to bring youth from various organizations across the region together to ground themselves in a common experience, build relationships of action, and begin to envision a broader immigrant youth movement in the DMV—especially at this urgent moment. Through our ongoing work with these groups, and our partnership with the Meyer Foundation to expand the number of organizations focusing on youth voice and power, we are excited to continue to build knowledge and commitment to youth organizing. We plan to build on this process and expand the circle of organizations and young people learning and creating change together. Movement Matters is currently scheduled to conduct a 4-day Youth Organizing Institute in Long Island, New York this April 2020. " My experience at the Movement Matters Youth Organizing Institute was transformational and completely eye opening. I am a person that likes to see things form different perspectives and this Institute provided me and my peers with different perspectives on how to view systemic change and most importantly how to move and embrace our people towards systemic change"
Rosa Avila, 2019 Youth Organizing Institute Participant. For more information, visit our Organizing Institutes webpage or connect with us.
Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC. We work regionally with various communities and with national partners. |
AuthorsMOVEMENT MATTERS Archives
October 2024
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