SONG Statement and Public Release of SONG Org School Agenda!
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm (Politics, SONG)
IGNITING THE KINDRED: A SONG ORGANIZING SCHOOL
It is a time to focus on Surviving and Thriving Hard Times: this means understanding what is going on, and learning from past and current times about how to respond. In 2008, we are in a time of economic recession that means great struggle around housing and basic resources for our communities and family. We are in a time of global battle over access to water, food, and other basic resources. We are in a time of newly trained organizers in every state in the US, and a national conversation about what community organizing is and will be, in light of the elections. We are also in a time of spiritual and emotional struggle: in our relationships, our organizations, and our movements remain deeply divided, and without resources and capacity to re-generate and sustain ourselves. SONG works across lines of race, class, culture, gender and sexuality to strengthen and build our power to work together. Though our base is primarily LGBTQ, we hold our allegiance to the Southern struggle for justice as a whole. For more than 2 years, since Hurricane Katrina, we have been working hard on creation, vision, listening and innovation for our region. As we see it, this moment gives SONG as a collective organization 2 options: Not knowing what to do, and continuing to do the same thing, or Not knowing what to do, and trying something new—risking that it may or may not work. We have chosen the latter. We hope that others will do the same in their own way. For more than 2 years, we have worked on this Organizing School, to meet the conditions of the current moment. By meeting the current moment, we mean that we vision a region and a country where local communities are setting up our own infrastructures (what connects or links people collectively so they can get things done) in sustainable and well ways—these infrastructures are capable of meeting needs for basic resources; as well as capable of transforming trauma and pain, and multiplying and amplifying our resiliency and strength. The Organizing School is only one step in this process. The rest is up to ALL of us together. Folks have asked us to know more about the School, and now we are releasing more detail than we ever have before, in the hopes that what we have learned, mistakes we have made, and work we are trying out might help others in their work in critical times. This work involves the voices (directly and indirectly) of over 100 people in the South. It has had many different versions and formats. This is the latest. We share this with the knowledge that being part of a movement comes first before being a non-profit that fiercely guards information and material. We hope it is helpful to you in some way. We ask only that you credit those more than 100 SONG people when you borrow from it or use it.
In Solidarity,
SONG Organizing School Team (Paulina Hernandez, Cara Page, Suzanne Pharr, and Caitlin Breedlove
PLEASE CLICK BELOW TO DOWNLOAD AGENDA FOR THE SCHOOL AND CORE VALUES OF OUR TEAM. TO APPLY FOR THE SCHOOL ITSELF SEE THE POST BELOW..WE ARE ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS PAST THE DEADLINE ON A CASE BY CASE BASIS, AS WELL AS A SET NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS OUTSIDE LITTLE ROCK
public-agenda-for-igniting-the-kindred-song-organizing-school.doc