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on building movements: what we see, what we hear.


Movement Matters 2023 Advanced Popular Education Training

11/4/2022

 

Transforming Vision, Power, and Leadership:
Advanced Popular Education Online Training©

FEBRUARY 2023: Thursday 2nd; Thursday 16th; & Thursday 23rd
​Post-training Learning & Action Circle (LAC): Thursday, March 9th
To apply visit:
Advanced Training Series
To apply, visit: 
​Advanced Training Series

​Application deadline: Monday, August 2nd.
​Limit 8-10 participants.
Questions? 
info@movementmatters.net
Popular education is critical to the organizing process. Deep, sustainable constituency/base building and member development can't happen without it; yet it is often misunderstood. Movement Matters has made popular education an integral part of our week-long Organizing Institute,  but we have also realized that organizers are hungry for more and deeper opportunities to learn, practice, and cross-pollinate their skills in this area.

In our February 2023 Advanced Popular Education Training, participants will to learn how to:
  • Develop relevant codes and workshops that deepen constituent engagement and analysis with organizing issues;
  • Integrate popular education into ongoing organizing practices;
  • Ground ritual and culture as part of the popular education process to build internal group power; and
  • Understand their own capacity and continued growth to move and center constituent engagement work.

​​Movement Matters' Advanced Popular Education Training will help participants develop the theoretical understanding and concrete skills to incorporate popular education as a foundational aspect of their community organizing practice.
“This advanced training provided a variety of ideas for popular education activities and practices that I can bring back to my organization, and a framework to think about the purpose of the practice so that we are not just doing popular education for the sake of it—without moving our peoples to action. I believe I will be more creative in developing our popular education approach with our members, guide conversations way better, and also be more intentional about how I do it and why.”
This online training will combine in-person virtual sessions with individual homework and one-on-one accompaniment to allow participants to both learn new skills and put them immediately into practice. 16 content hours + 2 hrs individual accompaniment + 2.5 hr LAC + workbook and specialized materials box.​ ​

​To apply visit: Advanced Training Series
Limit: 12 participants​
To apply, visit: 
​Advanced Training Series

​Application deadline: Monday, August 2nd.
​Limit 8-10 participants.
Questions? 
info@movementmatters.net
​
​For more information on our Advanced Trainings or to bring an Advanced Training to your organization, connect with us.

​
Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.
​
​

Indigenous Environmental Network: Indigenous Just Transition Curriculum

7/1/2022

 
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.

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 in 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 with various communities and with national partners.



Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Getting Tenants in Rhythm

8/17/2020

 
Getting Tenants in Rhythm is the fourth and (for now) final online case example we created to support and inspire organizers, advocates, and community leaders during Covid19 and the current economic and racial upheavals.

Engaging community members where they live is a vital part of the organizing process. Even when we are limited in how we can gather, a building can be the cornerstone for developing community resistance and resilience. We have seen many examples of using pots and pans to create noise and show solidarity. With additional coordination, arts, and cultural elements, these actions can bring in new members, deepen constituency, and showcase the narrative of a campaign. 

​We welcome questions, thoughts, and dialogue on these tools, including how to apply them to your particular initiative/campaign.  Connect with us!
​
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Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Getting Tenants in Rhythm. (2020 © Movement Matters)
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To receive this case example electronically, connect with us at: info@movementmatters.net

​Design and layout by Karina Hurtado-Ocampo. Illustrations by Brittney Washington.
​

Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Dynamic Demonstrations

8/3/2020

 
Dynamic Demonstrations is the third of four online case examples we created to support and inspire organizers, advocates, and community leaders during Covid19 and the current economic and racial upheavals.

Most of our tactics for change require a physical presence. As Covid19 continues to restrict our ability to gather, we have to find creative ways to put pressure on decision-makers. At the same time, we need to engage our members in actions, even when they can't be physically present. Many of our partner groups are combining limited in-person actions and artivism to create dynamic demonstrations. Layering in deeper member engagement and ownership of the arts development process can take these actions to the next level and build long-term membership and capacity alongside short-term political impact.

​We welcome questions, thoughts, and dialogue on these tools, including how to apply them to your particular initiative/campaign.  Connect with us!
​
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Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Dynamic Demonstrations. (2020 © Movement Matters)
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​Design and layout by Karina Hurtado-Ocampo. Illustrations by Brittney Washington.

Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Strengthening Networks

7/24/2020

 
Strengthening Networks is the second of four online case examples we created to support and inspire organizers, advocates, and community leaders during Covid19.

​Engaging new members of loose networks and building relationships of trust and action with them and among them are key to creating a long lasting, active constituency; one that shares values, a vision for change, and the energy and focus to lead in making that change.

​We welcome questions, thoughts, and dialogue on these tools, including how to apply them to your particular initiative/campaign.  Connect with us!
​
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Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Strengthening Networks. (2020 © Movement Matters)
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Design and layout by Karina Hurtado-Ocampo. Illustrations by Brittney Washington. 
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Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Petition Drop

7/16/2020

 
As we continue to work closely with campaigns and other organizing projects during Covid19 we have been advising groups and organizers on how to adapt cultural organizing and deep constituency building to current physical distancing requirements—ensuring that the voices and leadership of community members are at the forefront of demands, actions, and solutions.

We developed our newest online tool to support and inspire groups during a critical time; to animate ideas that lean on creativity and perseverance so we can continue building  constituency and grassroots power to make change. Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Petition Drop is the first of 4 case examples we will be sharing over the next month.

We welcome questions, thoughts, and dialogue on these tools, including how to apply them to your particular initiative/campaign.  Connect with us!
​
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Cultural Organizing While Physical Distancing: Petition Drop. (2020 © Movement Matters)
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Design and layout by Karina Hurtado-Ocampo. Illustrations by Brittney Washington. 
​

MM Immigrant Youth Organizing Institute: The Fierce Urgency of Now.

3/11/2020

 
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.

​
​

2020 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute

11/13/2019

 
Registration is now open for our 2020 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute.

Five days of deep immersion into the mechanics and heart of relationship building, constituency building, and power building for change and equity.

​For more information or to register, visit: 
​2020 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute. 
We look forward to learning and building with you!​

​Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.

​

No Base, No Leaders, No Change: Facilitating Group Process for Constituency Building.

1/3/2019

 
I’m drawing more connections between how my meeting facilitation affects and impacts my relationship with folks I’m organizing.
Base-building is a crucial foundation of community organizing and one of the most challenging areas of growth currently faced by groups throughout the DMV region. Changing demographics in the Washington, DC area have meant that a privileged, politically savvy population is advancing policies, practices, and priorities that devalue the experiences and contributions of long-time low-income communities of color. The region’s growth and prosperity are touted while Black and Brown neighborhoods are destroyed, new development pushes communities to the fringes, racial wealth and income gaps increase, and institutions critical to the culture and survival of low-income communities are undermined. 

In the face of these dynamics, our organizations and communities will be powerless without a cohesive and well-developed base that shares a rooted analysis and has built the trust and discipline to react as a united group. Well-designed, consistent gathering places, and the reflective and skilled facilitation of them, are irreplaceable steps in developing this type of constituency. However, these essential skills are often overlooked as expendable “soft” components of organizing. 

Far from being a luxury, effective meetings and skilled facilitation are vital in building a sense of common identity and cohesion necessary to transform a group of individuals into a constituency that can envision change and take the necessary risks to attain it. These ensuing ‘relationships of action’ drive movement-based organizing work.

Movement Matters grounds our Advanced Facilitation Training in this constituency building context, lodged within our own community organizing framework. In October 2018, we brought together 24 participants representing 12 regional organizations to connect the theoretical role that facilitation and meetings play as the “spine” of the organizing process with practical skills to create more dynamic meetings. 
​
The MM Advanced Trainings gave me concrete ideas to build from, especially with more creative approaches to centering community members in our work.
I feel that my organizing will be strengthened because of this community and identity building aspect of facilitation.

​We engaged in activities that increased participants’ abilities to utilize physical movement and graphics in their facilitation, reframe and redirect comments to deepen participants’ engagement with a theme, and incorporate activities that create strong relationships of action among members.  

Movement Matters staff modeled these tools and approaches to facilitation throughout the training, allowing participants to experience the process and its impact as they honed their own skills.

​This training confirmed that I have the capacity to be a bad ass facilitator and I should step confidently into the role.

We are already actively working with several participating organizations to incorporate the skills and approaches from the training into their organizing work. For example, Movement Matters is helping the tenant organizing team at LEDC build a structure for their city-wide multi-lingual, multi-racial tenant leadership group that is based in liberatory approaches to group learning and identity. We are also helping to strengthen the organizers’ utilization of graphic facilitation and meeting design to move away from a lecture style of training and group building. This tenant leadership group is also leading the development of DC's first tenant union, which will launch the Summer of 2019. We are engaged in similar conversations and practice with several other local groups to help them tweak and/or revamp their constituency building practice through enhanced meeting design and facilitation.

As we reflect on this training, we are envisioning ways to strengthen and expand the content. We expect to repeat this curriculum on a regular basis with organizers from the DC area and other regions throughout the country.

This advanced training helped me remember my “why.” I was having a difficult time figuring out if I was in the right position, but now I am ready to apply everything I’ve learned here in my facilitation practice.
Organizations in attendance include: Critical Exposure, DC Alliance of Youth Advocates, DCGreens, Identity, Inc., Impact Silver Spring, Justice for Muslims Collective, LEDC Tenant Organizing Team, Many Languages One Voice, ONE DC, UFCW Local 400, and Young Women's Project.
For more information, visit our Advanced Trainings webpage or ​connect with us.
​
Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC. ​
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.
​
​

2019 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute

11/28/2018

 
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Registration is now open for Movement Matters' 2019 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute.

Five days of deep immersion into the mechanics and heart of relationship building, constituency building, and power building for change and equity.
​
For more information or to register, visit: 
​2019 Community Organizing and Popular Education Institute. 
We look forward to learning and building with you!
​

Movement Matters is based in Washington, DC.
We work regionally with various communities and with national partners.



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