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Acknowledgements
Editors: Nisha Sajnani, Wariri Mirenja Muhungi, Jessica Yee, Keetha Mercer, Kat Butler, La-Toya Jones, Nathalie Lozano Neira, and Melanie Matining Copy Editor: Mary Corbett Graphic Design: Anne Gauthier Artwork (pages 13, 18, 21, 32, 33, 38, 39, 44): Kat Butler Publication Coordination: Nisha Sajnani and Carina Foran

978-0-9868128-6-6

Authors
Nisha Sajnani is a feminist and popular educator who creates change through storytelling, deep listening, and the performance of oral histories. Nisha is the director of the Drama Therapy and Community Health Program at the Post Traumatic Stress Center (New Haven) and on faculty at New York University. Wariri Mirenja Muhungi is a Pan-Afrikan feminist and organizer committed to engaging in processes toward self-determination and self-reliance across diverse spaces. Jessica Yee is a self-described Two Spirit Indigenous hip-hop feminist reproductive justice freedom fighter and Executive Director of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network. Keetha Mercer is a youth programmer, a facilitator, a student (institutional and of life), and committed to justice and anti-oppression in all spaces of her life. Kat Butler is a facilitator, artist, and nurse with an investment in thinking broadly about health, justice, oppression, sustainable radical work, and peoples stories. La-Toya Jones is a Child and Youth Worker who loves challenging young women to think critically of their environment, media, and realities of their lives. Nathalie Lozano Neira is a Colombian refugee committed to working with other immigrant and refugee communities in anti-oppression work. Melanie Matining is a queer filipina working as an anti-racist youth worker and curriculum developer dedicated to amplifying the voices and stories of young people of colour.

About This Project...................................................................................................................2 Introduction............................................................................................................................6 How to Read This Book............................................................................................................8 Points of Unity.........................................................................................................................9 Our Stories: To Ourselves and People in Our Communities.......................................................14 Its Never Happened ................................................................................................15 The Courage to Caucus...............................................................................................17 Insights: To Ourselves and People in Our Communities.................................................19 Our Stories: To Our Allies and People Not Working within Their Own Communities..................21 What am I doing here?: Acting as an ally and organizational allyship..............................22 Were Not Ready......................................................................................................28 Insights: To Our Allies and People Not Working Within Their Own Communities...........30 Our Stories: To the Youth We Work With.................................................................................33 Dont be afraid to talk back!: A little about myself and a message to the youth we work with...........................................................................................34 Insights: To the Youth We Work With..........................................................................37 Our Stories: To Facilitators and Program Coordinators.............................................................39 Attention, passengers, theres some turbulence ahead................................................40 Scheduling Your Battles..............................................................................................44 Insights: To Facilitators and Program Coordinators......................................................45 Our Stories: To Grassroots NGOs..........................................................................................47 Identity for sale? Anyone, NGOs?.................................................................................48 Not for Profit Oppression, really!?................................................................................52 Insights: To Grassroots NGOs...................................................................................54 Epilogue................................................................................................................................59

About This Project

In October of 2011, the Girls Action Foundation invited a few of us to sit together over three days to see what might emerge. Each one of us has been working towards some vision of social justice in our own communities and with others through dialogue, participatory theatre, storytelling, popular education, and direct action, amongst other strategies. After years of struggling for and creating our own small versions of these conversations, we found ourselves in a room, and what came out were these stories about the justice in social justice work: about moments where things go very wrong, and about the moments where we felt integrity and inspired in our efforts to sustain our own leadership and that of those with whom we worked. That encounter gave rise to this publication. Social justice is generally thought of as a perspective and practice that works to promote and sustain the dignity of human beings or that works towards equity through a redistribution of power, wealth, and resources. The reality, however, is that people involved in the work of social justice can just as easily fall prey to greed and competition and efforts towards justice can get lost in the replication of the same systems that people working for social justice came together to change. While none of us are experts on the subject, we realized that we had a lot to say about the conditions needed to promote justice, leadership, and collaboration. We also realized that we had different

things to say to different groups of people (e.g. to the non-governmental organizations with which we have worked, to members of our own respective communities, to youth, and to our allies). We discussed how the way we think about social justice is always already distorted by the very systems we were working within a system that thrives on unequal relationships and that values establishing dominance (intellectual, spiritual, emotional, political, and material) and expanding reach over equal and collective self-determination. Another word for this is Colonialism. Colonialism involves the control and exploitation of lands and peoples by force, whether through direct military occupation, economic influence, or theft. Neocolonialism involves exploitation and forced economic and social dependency with even less accountability as the colonial power, be it a nation-state or corporation, does not even need to be physically present in order for it to continue. Then there is the kind of neocolonialism or internal colonialism that involves forming controlled colonies from within such as todays prisons or non-governmental organizations (NGO), which are often referred to as industrial complexes. Critical Resistance has defined the prison industrial complex as the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to what are, in actuality, economic, social, and political problems.1 Decolonization is the un-doing of colonialism. It is what we do in the face of colonialism not just to survive but to thrive despite the atrocities and results of the continuation of colonialism. Even explaining decolonization in the English and French languages is difficult because we are talking about so much more than Western theory or binary understandings can translate. Decolonization is an everyday process as long as we have colonialism, different communities will be resisting it with their version of decolonization.

Taiaiake Alfred, a Mohawk scholar from Kahnawake, has written a lot about decolonization. Here is a passage from his book Wasse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom:2 The first question that arises when this idea is applied in a practical way to the situations facing Onkwehonwe in real life is this: How can we regenerate ourselves culturally and achieve freedom and political independence when the legacies of disconnection, dependency, and dispossession have such a strong hold on us? Undeniably, we face a difficult situation. The political and social institutions that govern us have been shaped and organized to serve white power and they conform to the interests of the states founded on that objective. These state and Settler-serving institutions are useless to the cause of our survival, and if we are to free ourselves from the grip of colonialism, we must reconfigure our politics and replace all of the strategies, institutions, and leaders in place today. The transformation will begin inside each one of us as personal change, but decolonization will become a reality only when we collectively both commit to a movement based on an ethical and political vision and consciously reject the colonial postures of weak submission, victimry, and raging violence. It is a political vision and solution that will be capable of altering power relations and rearranging the forces that shape our lives. Politics is the force that channels social, cultural, and economic powers and makes them imminent in our lives. Abstaining from politics is like turning your back on a beast when it is angry and intent on ripping your guts out.

While we, as organizers, facilitators, programmers, and justice seekers, work to add this learning to our work, we often forget or ignore the ways in which colonial and imperialist dynamics are replicated in our workplaces, the organizations with which we affiliate ourselves, and the groups to which we belong. We do this sometimes out of fear of losing our jobs, sometimes out of a commitment to the work, and sometimes because we feel that what we are working on is more important or bigger than us as individuals. This project is partially a way of recognizing that and striving toward a different kind of relationship to our social justice work, toward a different kind of relationship to how we lead and inspire others to lead, and toward an open conversation.

Introduction
Some might say that this project came together as a labour of love. Others might say that it came as a result of our shared anger, frustration, and sometimes sadness when, try as any of us might, things did not go well when working within NGO, non-profit, private, or even government-funded organizations and agencies alike. Why didnt they go well? What are our frustrations? Where is our anger coming from? All of these questions and more are posed and answered in multiple ways in the following pages. We have stories of hopefulness for change, and stories of strength and pride of why we do the work we do. We also have stories of not being sure what to do, and then stories that we share with you so you might not have to go through the harsh times that we went through. This is a learning process for all of us. We want to acknowledge the path-paving work of various collectives and people before us that can be found throughout this publication, like INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence who gave us terminology so we can feel less alone; for example, the non-profit industrial complex can be used to refer to how even non-governmental organizations can operate as an arm of the government itself based on funding. INCITE!s publication The Revolution Will NOT Be Funded spoke truth to power for many of us and much of this project is continuing similar (but not the same) conversations

started at that time. This continuation NEEDS to happen on our own terms, because we dont all experience the same oppressions and injustices and we arent afraid of the differences between us. Our own stories need to be told. Most importantly of all, we are each coming from our own truths and realities. We are not claiming to speak on behalf of anyone, nor are we asking that you agree with everything that is being said. So often the beauty in difficulty is overlooked because we rush to not deal with the uncomfortable nature of this work, and instead derail or detract from what might be the most difficult part of it all: facing ourselves. So we DO hope that you see a bit of yourselves in this. We hope that it means something to you, whether its because youve also experienced the same things or whether its because you have participated in something you felt was not right or that oppressed others. Its up to you to decide what happens next.

How to Read This Book

This book is full of stories, ideas, and insights but it is not intended to be read cover-to-cover as an instructional manual. Instead, we invite you to get into the stories and check out some of the learnings that we have pulled out of the experiences we have shared. You will notice that there is a lot of crossover between the stories and the learnings, so you might find yourself revisiting certain tales from more than one angle.

Points of Unity
These are points that we believe are relevant to each of the audiences we want to address in this publication. They represent values that we have agreed are important to the expression of leadership in our varied communities and an expression of a decolonizing practice. We have also included one concrete example of how these values translate into practice, although we know there are many more. We value shared responsibility: None of us are bystanders to the kinds of knowledge we choose to create and share in our organizations, as facilitators, and as leaders. This value is embedded in our approach to teaching and learning which takes its cue from people like Paulo Friere3 and bell hooks4, who advocate a reciprocal approach to education in which students and teachers learn from one another. One example in practice: share the flip chart, marker, and facilitator role. No one person has to carry the entire process forward. It is a collective effort even if we have different responsibilities. We value shared authority5: We recognize that each of us holds different kinds of social, economic, and cultural authority in the contexts in which we work and that it is important to use our privileges in ways that support our collective efforts. Each of us has a unique perspective and a contribution to make to our shared efforts at social justice. One example in practice: Become aware of the space you are taking in a group process and work towards noticing whether you are not talking too much or talking over others. You still need to contribute your voice because your experiences are important too. Some call this self-facilitation. We value intersectionality: Our identities and communities are constantly forming and reforming in relation to the encounters we choose, do not choose, and are yet to have. It is important to remember not to compartmentalize or isolate identities or issues or to assume the identities of people with whom you commune. It is important to remember that although weve

got some new and hot language in equity-seeking movements like intersectionality to use in our talk, it doesnt make things change in our walk (i.e. actually being anti-racist).6 One example in practice: Do a gender pronoun check before beginning with a group. Stay in conversation with those you commune with about how they see themselves (how do they identify?). We value storytelling and storylistening: Speaking about and listening to one anothers experiences and perspectives provides a way of truthtelling and groundtilling to prepare the road for collaboration and change. In many ways it IS the road of collaboration and change. Remaining in conversation can be so difficult when we hold different stakes or different points of view, but it is so necessary. One example in practice: We began this project by telling stories about our experiences in NGOs, as facilitators, and as participants it was the only way forward that would permit both head and heart to be involved in teaching and learning, and it provided a way to communicate the complexity of our experiences rather than reducing them to only positive or negative.

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We value circular cycles and ways of being in the world in relation to personal, emotional, spiritual, mental, educational, and organizational growth. One example in practice: This document involved praxis (theory and practice), a cycle of reflecting, reviewing, and reshaping. It is a living document in that, while written in a linear way, lives on as an ongoing conversation. We value expressive change: No matter how magnificent or well-crafted the vision and mission statement of an organization or project might be, its value is expressed in the people involved and in the experiences shared between those who devote their time and energy to its purpose. Often people working together on a common social project talk about how it has benefited them. This is not simply a positive byproduct of the organizations change oriented mission it IS the expression of change. One example is practice: An organization committed to teaching about participatory learning experiences collaboration as a staff team. Similarly, as you will see in our epilogue, our collective experienced the same support we wanted to share with others in the act of writing this document together.

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Some of the most vibrant and socially catalytic organizations we have seen are places where there is a promising confusion about who is serving whom schools where teachers learn and grow, food banks where staff and volunteers are nourished, hospitals where doctors are healed, social justice groups where activists are surprised to find their vision of a better world taking root in their own offices. These organizations are invoking the power of something we might call expressive change a pattern of change rooted in who they are as much as in what they do. They ask themselves: How can we become what we seek?
Warren Nilsson and Tana Paddock, Organization Unbound.
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Our Stories:

To Ourselves and People in Our Communities

At one point during our conversation, some of us realized that we are often asked to share resources and skills with facilitators who are not working in their own communities (people who want to work with those who are marginalized). We wondered about what thoughts we would have for those working from within their own communities and here is a little of what came out.

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Its Never Happened

anonymous

2: do you mean, like, men who wear womens clothes?

3: its never happened (in a meeting about outreach for a program that my work is running for girls and young women. several outreach opportunities/networks have been discussed ill be reaching out to activists, bloggers, listservs, my friends/ acquaintances. a question occurs to me) me: wait, can i just ask a quick question? exec direc: yep, sure me (pacifying): no, certainly me: ok so i know that were mandated to be trans inclusive, but im just wondering how trans people fit into our outreach plan: like im thinking of some participants who could be really interested, but they dont necessarily identify as girls how does this fit in? or do we do any specific outreach to young trans women? (people start jumping in) 1: well, i dont know 2: since we only have 10 minutes left in the meeting me: yeah, i dont think we need to talk about this right now i just think that we do need to figure that out in the larger scheme of our organization ED: well, and yes, i think that this is the deal: we are gender-specific, there is a need for genderspecific spaces for girls to feel safe in, and if people identify with that then they should definitely apply 4: well it is supposed to be a safe space if a person is, how do you say, man-bodied, then girls might not feel like theyre in a safe space... ED: well we are a gender-specific organization, so if people dont identify with that then... anyway, i dont think that this is something we really need to struggle with right now

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3: yeah, i mean, a case-by-case basis ED: yes, i dont think we need a hard and fast policy, like these people can be here, these people cant - we just need to let people apply as needed... let it all be fluid, like queer theory (looking at me placatingly) me: mm hmm. ******* i had originally been interested in working with this organization because, right there in the about section on their website, they said they were trans-inclusive. at the time of this meeting, id seen little evidence of this trans-inclusive policy but i figured since it was there, i may as well ask how it played into our outreach for this program. we did, after all, do pretty specific outreach for a number of other groups. after this meeting, i offered to facilitate a trans 101 for the staff of the organization, but i also never felt

comfortable openly talking about my own trans identity while i still worked there as staff, or asking for the type of respect that i advocated for as a standard in the treatment of other trans folks. to you, to myself, to ourselves, we need to recognize when we are compromising ourselves.

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The Courage to Caucus

Nisha Sajnani

I had just moved to Montreal from Edmonton, Alberta. In Edmonton, I attended elementary, junior, and high school at a time when there were very few other girls like me: of Pakistani descent, walking the line between the parental and peer expectations. I was born in Canada but had experienced enough encounters at school to know that I wasnt seen as Canadian enough. To make matters a little more interesting, I was integrated into the first French immersion experiment in Alberta at the time. I suppose this has been helpful in the long run but I also felt like I was missing something some sort of affirmation that the mlange that I expressed was just as valuable as my mothers ability to claim community with her ancestors. So, I decided to take a more proactive stance in forming the kinds of communities I felt that I was missing in Edmonton. When I moved to Montreal, I joined the South Asian Womens Community Centre (SAWCC) and, while this wasnt the perfect fit, it seemed to fit somewhere at that point in my own identity development. I had never identified as South Asian but it was close enough. With some hesitation, I proposed to facilitate a group for South Asian Canadian young women. I had never had a space like this myself and I was nervous about what we would talk about and if we would all feel comfortable sitting together... what would we do? ... what would we say? ... what wouldnt we say? ... the questions were piling up and I was oscillating between anxious impulses to overstuff the entire meeting with crafts and tasks. Seven women registered. About an hour before my peers were to arrive, a white woman asked if she could join the group. She said she had been to India many times, that she was a member of SAWCC, and that she felt South Asian. I didnt really know what to say ... she was really friendly and I didnt want to exclude her but I sort of felt like if I said no then she would feel hurt and I didnt feel like I had a way to explain my desire for this space. Like I said, it was a yearning I didnt really have words for, but I was hoping to find through the group. So, I said yes. The other participants arrived and looked at her, then at me. Some didnt seem to notice or mind. Some looked at me like I had lied to them like

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I told them that we would have this space and then betrayed it. As the group unfolded, it was clear that we were forced to shape the stories we were telling to the same audience we were trying to avoid. I so wanted a space where we could discover what we might say if it were just us what differences, what similarities, what tensions but what resulted was well tension. We didnt meet again.

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Insights: To Ourselves and People in Our Communities

Do recognize when you are protecting yourselves. Do be able to admit when you are wrong and in what ways you hold privilege. Do remember that you cant speak for all people in your community/ies, despite the fact that we are so often asked to speak for as though we are spokespersons. Do go back to y/our community spaces to get the energy you/we need we have found that this keeps us energized and grounded in the work we do. Do work on having the conviction to ask for and hold spaces that are specific to your community if you need them. Wanting a separate space or caucus does not mean you are working against co-existence or peace building.

We are worried, understandably, to speak of our brutalities and shortcomings because of not being even minimally in control of the public and political domains of speech and ideological construction.
Himani Bannerji
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Robyn Maynard, Fuck the Glass Ceiling! in Feminism For Real9

Lets examine [the word] marginalization. Ive always felt wary about the non-profit sectors use of the word marginalized populations, but I didnt always understand why I felt it was so dubious. Now I do: exploitation has always been a better term that marginalization, because where marginalization just means that people are pushed into, or exist already in, the margins of society, it doesnt explain how or why. The process of marginalization isnt intrinsic to the meaning of the word, and margins seem to pre-exist, as a natural location for people to inhabit in a society, it seems like something that just accidentally happens, and needs to be fixed by pulling people into some kind of imaginary centre, which I imagine is meant to be the middle class or something to that effect. It is a watered down description of the extreme hardships and daily violence experienced by those living in extreme poverty and facing the harshest realities of racism in our society, and it also disguises the reasons for why it takes place. [] The ever-decreasing ability for the poor, racialized, and Indigenous to access the basic food and shelter needs that marginalize people is not addressed and marginalization seems to be a phenomenon that just is. The word exploitation is clearer. The process of exploitation is inside of this word, it contains, in its definition, the fact that somebody is being exploited for the benefit of somebody else; it is describing a relationship. And this makes it easier to understand what is meant in stating that the status of racialized, Indigenous, and immigrant women today is structural.

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Our Stories:

To Our Allies and People Not Working within Their Own Communities
We have each worked in communities that we dont know that well or in mixed group environments and this reality can create its own kind of challenges. Here are a few thoughts about what can centre your work around the dignity of those with whom you work.

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What am I doing here?: Acting as an ally and organizational allyship

anonymous
The best advice I was ever told about allyship is that I will make mistakes and, as soon as I learn to accept that and recognize and learn to admit my mistakes, apologize with sincerity, and work to not make those mistakes again, the better Ill be at achieving my goal of being anti-oppressive in my work and life. It is hard to make mistakes, especially when Im trying to be supportive, and it is even harder to admit to a person who is telling me that I messed up that I made a mistake. But, if I ever want to have any credibility in my work as an ally or with anyone that I work with, I need to accept that being an ally requires a lot of humility and that my ego is way less important than the work that I am engaging in. Thats not the only great piece of advice Ive gotten about being an ally. Another really important piece is that being an ally is not a part of my identity. By that I mean that I cannot declare myself an ally to any particular community. I can act as an ally on certain occasions but every time I do, it is absolutely imperative that members of the community that is organizing for their own purposes recognize me as someone who can provide support in that one particular instance. If I am inserting

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myself into a community that does not want or need my allyship then Im not being an ally at all. Thats the way I like to look at allyship, actually. Not that I am an ally, but that I can act in allyship. I find that distinction very useful because it reminds me that being an ally is not a permanent state, and just because I have been an ally before does not mean that any particular community will want me to work there again. Another piece of advice: its really super important to learn for myself. It is not the responsibility of communities or individuals to teach me about their lives, experiences, cultures, oppressions, etc. Luckily, it is pretty easy to find out these things for myself. The Internet is a wonderful tool; there is an incredible amount of information there to learn from, not to mention books, articles, zines, radio programs and podcasts, lectures, panels, protests, etc. There are a million ways to gather information. Asking an individual to teach you about an entire group of people is not even close to the most convenient; in fact, its actually oppressive to assume that someone wants to teach you. Wait, theres one more. When acting as an ally, its extremely rare that Im in a position to talk or be a spokesperson. I look at it this way: why would I talk about an experience that isnt my own? What do I have to contribute to the dialogue that cannot be told better, more authentically, and with more understanding of the topic and its nuances than a person who lives that experience? If Im the one doing the talking, whom am I silencing? How am I an ally in any situation where Im participating in silencing someone who is struggling to be heard? Basically, what Im saying here is that, for the most part, my position as an ally is to shut up, listen, and get in where I fit in (i.e.: do behind-the-scenes work where Im wanted). So, with that in mind, as a person that often works in contexts that place me in a position of being an ally, I often try and remind myself of these basic things. Its not all I work at remembering, but its the basics. There are many resources around about allyship, a few of which are linked in the resources section at the end of this document. I suggest starting in on the Learning for Ourselves bit and checking some of them out.

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When working in an NGO/Community or Grassroots Organization

Im going to be honest here. I need to work to support myself. I am not independently wealthy, my bills need to be paid every month by me, and sometimes I take jobs that I have questions about because keeping a roof over my head outweighs my qualms about the work. I dont think that this is such an unusual thing for people to do, and Im not ashamed to say that sometimes I cant afford to be so strict in my principles. Im not perfect; I would never claim to be. That said, I find it important to do a cost/ benefit analysis of work I do and sign up for. This is not an analysis of the cost of my rent and groceries added to the benefit of having a roof over my head and a full belly. This is a weighing of the pros and cons of any particular project I work on or contract I do. Including:

Am I qualified to do this work? In what ways? Just because I was asked to do something doesnt mean Im the right person for it. Why was I asked or hired to do this work? Am I comfortable with these reasons?

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What is my relationship to the community that I will be working with? Will I be reinforcing power structures by taking a paid position/position of power in this context? Am I able to make adjustments to a project to make sure it reflects an anti-oppression approach? i.e.: can I approach the work from a participant-led framework? How did this organization get involved in this project and what is their relationship to the community?

When I dont follow these guidelines for myself, I usually end up feeling like I did all that work for no reason, or worse, causing harm where I meant to do good. I have learned this from experience: there have been times when I didnt do my cost/benefit analysis or got caught up and didnt take the time to evaluate what I was doing in my work. One story I would like to share about what went wrong when I didnt follow my own rules happened a couple of years ago. I was new in town, had been unemployed for a few months, and was looking for a new job in a city I barely knew. I was being told by nearly everyone around me that finding work was really difficult here and I was feeling pretty desperate. I landed a contract doing outreach for a project at a local grassroots organization. I was pretty relieved to find something and I took it without doing much research about it. I did know that the idea had come from a partnership between the organization that I was working for and some organizations in another region of the country. It sounded good; the idea was to support community work in that region, build partnerships, reach out to isolated communities and provide a meet-up space. We had the funds, the partners had the drive, and we were going to do something small but interesting. It sounded good.

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Over the months I worked there, the outreach I was doing turned into co-coordinating the project. The project itself had grown much bigger, and so the organization I worked for had taken on a much bigger role in seeing it through. My job was to see through a portion of the bigger project: I was working full-time to organize a week-long conference for youth. The partners that we had were still involved on an advisory role but my job was to put it all together. With the start date fast approaching, we began to realize that we were underprepared for what we had taken on. We werent totally oblivious to that fact and we set about trying to educate ourselves as quickly as possible on the realities of the communities that would make up most of our attendees, and learn about resources that the people who attended could access in their own communities. Still, none of us in the organization were particularly familiar with that region (no one had been there), its cultures, and the lives of the people that were coming from all over to stay for a week a fact that became abundantly clear as soon as the program started. I didnt then, and still dont really, know very much about the places the participants came from. Nor do I know much about the peoples that live there, especially the Indigenous and Inuit nations that lived in that region and who made up the majority of our participants. Nevertheless, I was at a camp that consisted of 30+ youth from many different communities. I had no idea what I was doing; none of us from the organization I was working for did. It was, unsurprisingly, a complete disaster from the perspective of what we were really trying to do. The meet-up space in and of itself wasnt negative; we just didnt need to be there, trying to direct the show. The participants felt the same way, and told us outwardly and through their actions. We were clearly trying to run a program that didnt fit the needs and lives of the people there and it was a frustrating experience all around. The only silver lining was that the youth there bonded tremendously, but not really because of any work on my/our part. In the end, the only part of the conference that worked was the original idea the one that came from those communities themselves way back when it was first dreamt up, the part that was about providing a meet-up space to support local partnerships.

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I wasnt qualified to be there and I learned that the hard way. I was not being an ally in this case; I wasnt being asked to be there in the position that I was there in. I think that the youth were genuinely confused as to why I was/we were there at all. I hope I wasnt involved in causing any serious harm to anyone, but I know I wasnt involved in causing any significant good. That was a major mistake on my part and on the part of the organization that I worked for. It was a project that we talked about in that organization for years afterwards as something we would never do again. We had learned our lesson a lesson that I really hope was not at the cost of anyone who attended that conference. I think that it is important as an individual and as an organization to acknowledge openly that we messed up and to learn from this experience, and share our experience with other organizations in its entirety. I know that that is difficult in the world of grants and external funding. I know that we feel like we have to put a positive spin on everything to justify how we spent the money and to provide that we are worth granting again. But it is not just our reputation as organizations to funders that we are responsible for. We need to make sure we are not doing damage in the communities we work in as well. Our reputation as organizations that can work as allies is paramount to our abilities to work at all. We need to remind ourselves that just because we can do the work (i.e.: get the grants, etc.), doesnt mean we should, similar to my personal cost/ benefit analysis where I need to ask myself whether this work is for me. When we work in NGOs, we need to ask ourselves whether this work is for us too. Being an ally is being creative; it is figuring out how to support communities and especially not to save them, being able to say that a project doesnt make sense and change it, and reevaluating when we know that we are stretching our position. If we do ask those questions, we may risk losing a project; if we dont, we will risk harming real communities and real people. My priorities lie in not harming people.

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Were Not Ready

anonymous
one of the first times that i was invited to speak to people who facilitate programs for young women, specifically on the topic of integrating queer and trans youth into gender-specific programming, this is the story i told. so theres this young kid, maybe 8 or 9. this kid knows that she is a girl shes known it since she was little, even though people keep telling her that she is a boy (and maybe they tell her not to be stupid, or make fun of her, or whatever). but so one day she hears that theres a girls club starting at her school, where girls can go and get snacks and hang out and talk about media stuff and weird things people say and whatever else. and maybe she thinks yes! cool! a place for me!? or maybe she thinks huh. i wonder if thisll be like all the other girl things that people wont let me do or maybe she thinks something else. but she signs up, and tells the person running it that shes a girl (or at least, definitely not a boy), and wants to be part of the girls club. you are the person running the girls club. what do you do? what are you scared of ? what are you hoping for? people said things like i would be scared were not ready i would want to talk to the other girls about it first. other people said things like i would hope that id already talked a bit with the other girls in the club about the fact that girls can look a lot of different ways, that some people might seem like boys but be girls, or the opposite still others said, this would never happen. people in my culture arent like that. the things that people said in response to this story contain a lot of the important points. the problem here is not that this is a trans girl (and/or a racialized girl, and/or a girl with a disability, and/or a girl who has experienced abuse). the problem is not within this kid. the problem is that the group is scared: of her, of change, of having to learn something new, of having to change the way they talk about race, or gender, or bodies, or consent, or safer sex. these fears are due to a long history of other

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people being scared, or told that their bodies are wrong, or that they are less than, or more than, or whatever. these fears are due to colonization, to having parts of our cultures erased, to having histories re-written to exclude our ancestors who resisted or who belonged differently. i just want us to remember: when we are scared of a new thing, of something challenging us, the problem is not usually with the new thing. it is within us, in the way we have been taught to think and act and believe, who is real, and who should be where.

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Insights: To Our Allies and People Not Working Within Their Own Communities
Do take responsibility for educating yourself about other communities who have been identified or self-identify as marginalized or exploited. Dont individualize and pathologize my experience because my experience is a reflection of current collective oppression. Individuals who are from exploited communities and who find themselves in mixed groups risk being singled out as problem people. Dont blame my culture for the violence we face. Communities that have been historically exploited are often the target of commentary that tries to frame culture as the culprit for the cruelty. Uma Narayan10 talks about this as death by culture, wherein dowry murders or female genital mutilation become THE issue associated with a particular group rather than understanding these forms of violence as practices that are often internally contested and expressions of systemic oppression. Do accept that you will make mistakes. Work to identify when you make them and apologize. Dont react negatively to being called out, and dont try and explain (that makes it worse). Do recognize that being sorry isnt enough; learn from it and try not to make that mistake again. Dont assume that because you once acted as an ally that you can always be an ally. Allyship isnt something that you become and therefore always are. Do check your motives and intentions for acting as an ally. Just because you have good intentions doesnt mean that you are automatically an ally. Do be aware of how you take space. It is rarely your position to speak on behalf of a group youre allying to. Also known as knowing when to step up and when to shut up.

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Do be aware of your relationship to the community to which you are being an ally. Make sure you arent reinforcing power structures in your involvement. Do know that you will never stop learning and working at being an ally. Dont drain the resources of people who have been marginalized and exploited. Do not assume that acting as an ally only involves working outside of your community/ies. Actually, engaging (with an anti-oppression lens) in any type of social justice work in your own community/ies can sometimes be more fruitful than working outside of your community due to issues of power and privilege (i.e having the saviour approach). By doing positive work within your community for and with your community, you will have a ripple effect on other communities.

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to the youth we work with

To those for whom surviving oppression is part of a daily reality, the racialized, the queer, the Indigenous, the immigrants/refugees etc, and all the intersections in between from whom we continue to learn so much.

Our Stories:

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Dont be afraid to talk back!: A little about myself and a message to the youth we work with.
Nathalie Lozano Neira I write this reflection not only as a youth worker, but also as a youth who at one point accessed many youth programs when searching for a place to belong and for a little support. Although I did find spaces that were supportive, they were often welcoming because of my peers and because I found youth workers who shared a similar identity/experience to mine. It was easier for me to seek support in environments where I did not have to explain why I was angry, depressed or sad. It was easier to share my story with those who had faced similar struggles and journeys; however, as I gained strength through support, I also became more vulnerable to being tokenized and exploited. My peers and I were often sought to tell our stories of migration to a room full of people who did not really care and could never understand what it feels like to be persecuted or to not be able to be at home with your loved ones. After speaking in public about my experiences, I could not help but think that the audience went home thinking that the reason I am here today is because of my own people, because we are inherently violent. I was sure that it never occurred to any of them that they played a part in my displacement, that the violence in my homeland is a direct result of colonization and of the genocide that deprived me from growing up knowing my culture, and that the West lives

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comfortably partially at the expense of the exploitation of my fellow Latin Americans. How could I ever speak about my story without having to explain an anti-oppressive framework and break it down so people knew where they fit? But more importantly, how could I ever have attempted to do so in the ten minutes they gave me, because the experts, the professors, the directors, and the researchers took the rest of the time? Numerous times we were asked to speak on behalf of all immigrant and refugee youth, to be the token, to fulfill the checklist that will give their events legitimacy (youth of colour, newcomer, young woman, in poverty, queer, etc.). I wish I had spoken back more often; I wish I had had the tools to have told people that I refuse to let them use me; I wish I had understood that my refusal to participate in their games would not affect the level of support I received in their programs. Spaces for youth are meant to provide a safe environment where you can truly express yourself, voice your needs, relate to the staff, be understood, and feel supported to take action. In these spaces, you should know what your rights are, what you are entitled to, and where to go if your needs are not being met. These are the spaces where conversations about power, privilege, racialization, intersections, identities, indigenous peoples, sexual preferences, abilities, and all of the other layers that affect who you are and how you position yourself in this life should be talked about. You should have the space to provide feedback about the support you are receiving because workers should not be helping you or saving you and continuing the victimization; they should be listening and supporting you. You should be able to say that you prefer to see one worker over another if there is a better connection because it is not about them it is about you! Often times I see a blatant exploitation of youths stories by appropriating experiences and claiming an expertise of your lives. Always remember that you are the expert of your own story. If you choose to share your story, do it because you want to, because you feel supported, and dont do it at the expense of your well-being. Think about how sharing a piece of yourself will affect you; consider if your audience is worth of your story, assess if you are brought to an event as a token, and most importantly, only share what you want and dont let anyone make you feel obliged/coerced to say more than that.

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You are entitled to know about the programs/organizations you are accessing. After all, non-profits are supposed to be transparent. How much do you know about how decisions are made in the program you attend? Who decides how the money gets spent? How much money comes into the program? How does staff get hired to work in the program? You have the right to ask all these questions and more. You have the right to demand answers and to understand how the programs you are attending truly work. Dont be afraid to ask questions; dont be afraid to talk back. NGOs and programs are not doing you any favours; they are also profiting from your participation in their programs. Knowledge gives you tools to advocate for yourselves and your peers and knowledge allows you to keep the programs you access accountable. Remember that you have many rights but also many responsibilities as members of your communities. Think about how your peers are also struggling and how you might be able to support each other. Recognize your privilege, learn about those whose experiences you know very little of, learn about whose land you are on, get informed, get united, and be each others allies, because divided, you dont have the same strength.

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Insights: To the Youth We Work With

Do love yourself and acknowledge your gifts. You are talented, intelligent, and have a lot to offer back to your peers and to the community; those who tell you or make you feel otherwise are people not worth having in your life. Think about how the talents, knowledge, and experiences you have could impact your community and how you can use them to identify when oppression is happening to you or to your loved ones. This could be draining, especially when you are dealing with your daily lives where you have to face all sorts of oppression and injustices, so take care of yourself first before you try to care for others. Doing community work is all about continuous learning. There are many identities that you and your peers have so be mindful of what you know, but also be mindful of what you dont know. You might share one identity with your peer but might not understand and at times hurt your peer because of other identities. It is important to ask questions about experiences you might not know but dont demand answers; there are many other ways to learn and resources to access in your communities. Be allies to each others realities and stop the oppression by learning about how the language you use, the comments you make, or the attitudes you have towards your friends might hurt them. Finally, remember that although being self-reflective can contribute to your overall growth, you should do it in a caring manner, love yourself, and make an effort to not take the negative energy that comes your way. Do know that its okay to talk back. Question everything and everyone, including those who you see as mentors, because questioning is a big part of practicing critical thinking. Trust your instincts; if you dont feel comfortable with something that the program, the organization, or the youth workers you trust asked you to do, voice it chances are they might not have realized what is wrong with what they asked you to do. Regardless, dont feel obligated to do anything you feel uncomfortable with. You dont have to do anything that you feel uneasy about in order to receive support from organizations/programs/youth workers.

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Do know that if someone says youre a victim, dont believe them you are a survivor, you are resilient, and there are many sides to you. Do know that when someone says that they are empowering you, giving you a voice, or engaging you, they are actually doing the opposite. Only you can claim a space as yours. Others can help or support you, but only you will feel if they are doing it in a way that doesnt make you feel silenced. Do recognize that there are many different ways of participating in a space. You dont have to speak up all the time to contribute to a group; active participation is a lot more than talking back. Participating is culturally specific: the European way of participating is often shown by talking a lot but in other cultures, one can actively participate by being silent.

Dont let the fancy people tell you that you are engaged in a program. Only you know and feel if you have connected to the staff/program in a way that it is meaningful to you. Diego Cardona11

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Our Stories:

To Facilitators and Program Coordinators

To those who work closely with communities and design, create, and implement programs that influence group dynamics that affect them (as facilitators), as well as the communities they work with.

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Attention, passengers, theres some turbulence ahead

Mirenja A few of my comrades and I had just facilitated some sessions about gender identity, sexual orientation, allyship, and reflections on immigration/documented vs. undocumented youth including other embedded themes. The session was eventful, challenging, heated and rich with constructive conversations for some or/and destructive outcomes for others. While we (as facilitators) anticipated some potential tension in the shared space we were moving into, the energy became more difficult than some of us expected. The context was challenging for all contributing to the group dynamics, including the people responsible for facilitating the workshop. For most of us, the experiences included intense learning moments as well as frustration on various levels. After a long day of swimming in some deep waters loaded with emotions, we (the designated facilitators) had a debrief session to explore how the space was held and what were the insights that needed to be incorporated into our next sessions. Around that moment, a simple yet insightful facilitation gift was suggested. The suggestion was to start the session by saying: Attention, passengers, theres some turbulence ahead. At different moments, we engaged in acknowledging and naming the moment both before the session started and a little bit during and after the workshop. The latter was done very briefly due to time constraints as well as being overwhelmed by the group dynamics and not always responding to situations with awareness. Basically, we tried our best to give folks a heads-up of what our time together might look like based on the needs of the group.It was not enough Therefore, the reasoning behind my appreciation for this simple phrase, Attention passengers theres some turbulence ahead, is that it paints a picture of what is coming, almost like an ongoing

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verbal consent of the trip that we are about to undertake. It sets up the space by recognizing that the trip is filled with potholes, re-routing, new directions, bumps, and more. Its an acknowledgment that the journey might be uncomfortable in terms of what our body, mind, and heart might be familiar with. By using this phrase, the facilitators can identify and name the turbulence, and the passengers are aware and mindful that they, as a collective, are moving into a place of uncertainty. This critical aspect was lacking in our overall facilitation that day. Attention, passengers, theres some turbulence ahead also provides a language that is not buried in facilitator jargon or in heavy academic phrasing that might be alienating and/or disconnecting for some. So I chose to share these words as a tool because they are simple to remember, easy to translate (in various languages) and to contextualize to the diverse spaces in which we work or/and of which we are a part. Each time I am in a debrief session, including the one narrated in this story, significant questions come to me as an organizer, a Pan-Afrikan feminist popular educator, and a working class mother. I ask myself (including the comrades whom I organize with): How can we cultivate an environment where there is an on-going process of emotional consent when we participate in an interactive space that will engage in critical thinking and action? At what cost is the given workshop/dialogue/sharing session/learning going to impact the collective? And also specifically the facilitators? As facilitators, how can we share knowledge and facilitate learning in life without re-traumatizing those that are often already exploited and oppressed due to societal systemic structures? Are group agreements or village rules enough to address some of the above questions?

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This story is not intended in any way to respond to these complicated questions but rather invite us, as facilitators, educators, activists, and learners, to continuously engage in self-reflexive thought processes that critically address facilitating within our systemic structures. This includes locating ourselves socio-politically while we design, implement, and evaluate our practices and frameworks in order to facilitate with wholeness. Since the format of this zine is centred on story-sharing, I suggest we continuously ask ourselves: What is our story? What is the historical context of our stories? How does our story affect other stories? Basically, how do we locate ourselves when we facilitate critical thinking and action? While learning is circular, with no end or beginning (too bad I cannot write this up in a circle), I will begin at the non-existing end of this story to locate myself.

The story behind my story, a summary:

I spent most of my life outside of my motherland, and was socialized in heavily colonial spaces while breathing Eurocentric air in Afrika, Europe, and North America. As a person embodying the intersectionality of being an Afrikan sister, a newcomer to Canada, a community organizer, a popular educator, a working class mother and more, my subjectivity is central in exploring the complexities of my identity, including its implications in facilitating within diverse spaces. To explore my subjective framing, I refer to the first person to narrate the experiential stories that Im sharing and I recognize that they are heavily influenced by social, economic, political and cultural systemic structures. I would like to acknowledge that while ideologies of oppression and privilege are complex and interdependent on ones context (geography and socio-political worldview), I am aware of my daily (often invisible) contributions in re-enforcing Whiteness and white supremacy12 by my (reluctant) participation in the social structures that I live in. In other words, while I am constantly subjected

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to exploitative and oppressive policies, attitudes, and actions (due to the historical context of my identity), and as I consciously engage in resisting and counteracting white supremacy in political organizing, including the daily decisions in my lifestyle that inform my decolonizing journey, I also recognize my part in legitimizing certain colonial frameworks that have been and are still oppressing and exploiting communities worldwide. I choose to locate myself because to me, its central in any decolonizing processes, especially as we facilitate spaces that come with defined societal norms from individuals as well as the structures that built the walls in which many of us work, study, and live in. If we accept that no one is neutral and that all forms of pedagogical methods come from a particular political background, then we can be conscious and aware of the frameworks and practices that we choose to use as facilitators including workers, educators, learners, artists, and political activists. All of this is to say that starting an organizing working group and/or workshop session with something like Attention, passengers, theres some turbulence ahead (make sure its contextualized to your reality both in language and content), and then applying social justice frameworks to critically address and act on the turbulence that is coming ahead, can be an ongoing beginning and end to a circular complex journey of decolonizing facilitation practices.

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Scheduling Your Battles

Anonymous When you book your program space a year ahead of time, you would think that your space is secure. That is not the case when the NGOs believe that your program space is required for their agenda. Unfortunately, executives believe that in order to be financially rewarded/subsidized, they have to take away from their own beneficiaries (their participants) in order to attain their own agenda. As a result, the program that you have worked so hard to organize, for your community, is put on their backburner. Yet when they see fit, they come up with an ingenious idea to use the participants within your program to help attain their agenda. They are unable to see through the fog of their glasses that they are exploiting their own staff and participants. Fortunately, you are quite clear on their agenda. So, the marvelous thing is that as a facilitator, you have your own agenda that counteracts their oppressive and exploitative agenda. You refuse to let their law and order mentality dictate what is best and oppress the philosophy and values of the program. Moral of the story dont let anyone take away your objectives. As a facilitator, you have the right to fight for your participants and the program, even when you are struggling with those who claim to have the anti-oppressive approach within your own organization. Although the program may fall under the umbrella of the organization, ultimately you are the facilitator, so stand up for your program and dont be submissive to others unhealthy practices!

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Insights: To Facilitators and Program Coordinators

Do avoid the saviour approach you are not there to save anyone! There is a difference between charity and solidarity. A charity lens can imply drawing a line between the haves and the have nots or/and the knowledgeable and the ignorant. While when working in solidarity with communities, there is no one to be saved; knowledge is shared in a collective sense where we facilitate learning with each other. Do resist a law and order approach, especially around sexual exploitation, but around other issues too. Recognize how a law and order approach plays into all of the systems that create the oppression that we are fighting. Instead, understand and support a holistic approach avoid victim/perpetrator binaries. Do work towards understanding the relationship and impact of systemic and collective violence on individual lives and collective action. Do know that just because someone isnt talking in your group, it doesnt mean that theyre not participating. How we see participation is culturally specific! Do check the framework that you are working in (i.e. western/talk-centric/language/definitioncentric). Create a new framework with whatever group you are working with, as determined by the group. Do look beyond the usual suspects when you are looking for participants find the youth who arent coming to your group. This can mean expanding your definition of marginalized; think about incarcerated youth, youth with disabilities, and youth who do not see themselves as leaders. Do respect the self-determination of the youth with whom you are working.

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Do work to have the people doing this work be reflective of the people with whom you are working. Do specific outreach to different communities. Dont just assume that people will think your program includes or applies to them, or that your programs can or will be safer spaces. Make sure that you do more than just say they are; its your responsibility to be relevant and accountable to the communities with which you are working. This will take work. Do hold spaces set apart if they are being asked for (spaces for racialized folks, spaces for queer folks, etc). This is okay and is needed. Taking a lead of creating these spaces can be a difficult thing to manage, but supporting those spaces is essential. Do whatever you can to support them, including asking for support in helping you to respond to those who dont understand the need for them.

When were afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators repression. Marjane Satrapie13

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Our Stories:

To Grassroots NGOs

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are organizations that often form to address social needs and inequities. They are typically thought to operate independently of government; however, NGOs are often faced with accommodating the agenda of the government in order to secure funding. This can create a conflict of interest and an ever-widening gap between what people are really up against and what social justice organizations actually do. NGOs can replicate the very dynamics of injustice they were formed to disrupt.

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Identity for sale? Anyone, NGOs?

Mirenja Has your identity even been for sale within the NGO industrial complex? I can almost confirm that many of us reading this have experienced being asked by some organizational structure to facilitate a workshop or speak on a panel because they strategically needed your identity. We know that the imperialist historical context of slavery and colonialism worldwide and the dehumanization as well as the strategic use of bodies as commodities are the foundations of many spaces, and NGOs are also a part of those spaces. Using people for profit is one of the founding principles of white supremacy, alongside its cousins such as racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, classism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and more. So my question is, why does the so-called not for profit sector continue to perpetuate and reinforce such negative practices when their existence is to supposedly counter such dynamics in the name of social justice work? Seriously, havent we learned, witnessed, and experienced enough exploitation of peoples bodies, minds, and spirits over the past centuries? I say this because I am disgusted with the way the NGO industrial complex continues to exploit disfranchised communities and then turn their backs to express their good doer sentiments in their annual reports and/or grants. Some of us clearly know that we are being tokenized and oppressed in a simple request for facilitating a workshop. I am one of those people. For reasons that are often structural and heavily dictated by ones socio-economic needs, we say yes. I said yes way too many times to spaces that did not provide any type of support for me prior, during, or after delivering a service. There was one particular moment when I had that deep feeling inside my gut and my intellect was telling me, NO, DONT DO IT!!!! but I still did. In the moment, I was not able to either articulate or express the exploitative attitude that I was confronted with and/or I bought into the hierarchical structures that installed a layer of fear and anxiety in my bones and heart.

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In my experiences, there are a large number of NGOs that supposedly apply anti-racism and antioppression lenses in their organizational methods; however, from what I have seen (and I know that many of you agree), these methods are simply part of some document, somewhere in the organizations files, written in inaccessible language at the bottom of some other document. So I continue to ask, how do social justice practices live beyond theoretical notions that are there to legitimize the good doer work that many NGOs are guilty of? It is tricky to challenge the NGO industrial complex (especially when you are a part of it) because people who have power (or some type of advantage over another person/community) do not want to let go of it and often embrace a sense of righteousness, which leads to a vicious cycle of avoiding (or choosing to ignore) questioning their good doer status, this is a clear example of how exploitative practices are normalized. When I go back to those moments where I knew key people in the organization were abusing their power and were strategically using me, the environment around me was set in a way where their sense of entitlement was completely normalized and accepted. Therefore, I was judged based on that justified normalized sense of entitlement. While I knew that the exoticization of my identity was needed for the organizations own benefit (and this was not for applying an anti-oppression lens to be conscious and aware of who is included or excluded in a space in terms of diversity and representation), the characteristics maintained by those in privilege automatically alienated me and rendered invisible the oppression that was taking place. There was no practical analysis (outside of the paper traces) that critically addressed the foundational values behind this particular NGOs policies and political culture in terms of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and ability. It was like I was the crazy one, the one with issues. In relation to this story, I would like to share a section from the Combahee River Collective Statement. The statement is dated from April 1977 and was created by the Combahee River Collective, a

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Black feminist14 Lesbian organization active in Boston15 from 1974 to 1980. Unfortunately, this section spoke to me in my experience and is still very relevant today: Black feminists often talk about their feelings of craziness before becoming conscious of the concepts of sexual politics, patriarchal rule, and most importantly, feminism, the political analysis and practice that we women use to struggle against our oppression. The fact that racial politics and indeed racism are pervasive factors in our lives did not allow us, and still does not allow most Black women, to look more deeply into our own experiences and, from that sharing and growing consciousness, to build a politics that will change our lives and inevitably end our oppression. 16 Furthermore, due to a lack of employment equity practices, with people being overworked, underpaid, and undervalued, there was no space to cultivate an ability to observe and identify the attitudes and actions applied to exploit people. This includes the workers as well, since most have to conform to the oppressive culture of the environment they are working in. This story is one among many and can seem simple at first sight, but when I take a deeper glance, it is evident that I was a subject of a particular action, and there are fundamental principles that need to be unlearned, and some others to be relearned to even scratch the surface of decolonizing that space. This is a complicated task.

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Planting seeds or deepening the roots of decolonization?

The particular organizational body later apologized to me when I eventually named what occurred and held them accountable to their oppressive mindset and actions in regards to how I was approached and why. Soon after, I asked myself: To what extent do we choose to plant seeds of awareness and at whose expense? Today, I lose patience when after an exploitative behaviour or action occurs and the person (individually or on behalf of the organization) apologizes, and their action is justified by their ignorance or guilt with the oh-so-notorious message of the day: Well, at least a seed was planted. Another favourite is, This was a key learning for this NGO. While I acknowledge that we are all in different places of awareness and learning, such examples merely reflect a lack of recognition of the power dynamics that drive one oppressive action to another. Whether its an NGO feeding and profiting from the capitalist white supremacist colonial structures we live in, or a person benefiting from their privilege (whether its recognized or not) in the guise of ignorance, I now think that its not enough to plant seeds. More focus needs to be on destroying the roots of oppression. Today, I intentionally choose to centre my energy in order to deepen the roots of decolonization. In this moment, planting seeds is not my battle anymore, especially when its at the socio-political and emotional expense of the person/community that is/has been historically exploited.

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For NGOs that have an authentic commitment to social justice organizing:

BE ACCOUNTABLE TO YOUR SHIT! If we all have a part in these complex dynamics, we have the responsibility to be accountable and to critically and consciously engage in ongoing reflections and practices that challenge how we exercise our contextualized power and privilege. By doing so, we can responsively address the power dynamics including the social, political, economic, and cultural implications for your/our communities. When an organizational body is authentically committed to anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism, the antidote to the NGO industrial complex seems crystal clear to me. The question is, are we willing to lose something? Are we willing to let go of our (negative exploitative) power and corporate greed for real collective emancipation? Or is that piece of pie just too tasty?

Not for Profit Oppression, really!?

Anonymous
Oppression within your own community continues to be a consistent challenge. One may believe that experiencing oppression yourself would reduce the amount of oppressive gifts given to others, especially in your own community. Unfortunately, this story illustrates the very point of oppression/classism in the very place that it should not be observed. The NGO told us that we should stop saying that we serve low income families. The very root of our organization is to serve our community and those in need of our services. Those who need our services are those members who are going through challenging economic times

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and living in our most challenging communities. So, how can one say that our programs should not promote that we serve low income families? We are not for profit; whom else should we be serving? We are there to promote opportunities for clients/participants that would not otherwise be able to access the services that we offer. What should be happening is the aggressive application to access funding, so that we are not put in the position where we have to say sorry, we can no longer provide these opportunities to you. So I say to all the NGOs and the not for profit organizations: Let the foundation of your organization not be lost in your dream to become corporate! Our aim is to serve the community! Dont oppress the very people within our community that deserve opportunity, change, and second chances, for they are the very people who keep our organizations operational. Without them, there would be no organization! As coordinators, directors, and facilitators of the programs, please do keep your foot on the ground and amongst the very people that you are servicing. Do continue your research so that when you are called upon in situations such as these, you have done your background check and are able to stand your ground. Do not restrain yourself from fighting for your community, but do continue the discussion with appropriate personnel so that they too can become reconnected with the very community they are suppose to be serving.

The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself, but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity. Marcus Garvey
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Insights: To Grassroots NGOs

Do believe people when they tell you that you have something to learn. Even with your commitment to social justice, you cannot know everything and you will make mistakes. Those you work with may shed light on aspects of your practice that need attention. Do figure out and be transparent about your organizations position on gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, etc. Make it clear so these positions are shared by your team and your message is consistent across your programming and practice. Dont state that you do something that you dont actually practice. If you claim to be an organization that works for social justice and against oppression, walk the talk. If you name something as a priority or a practice, demonstrate how you carry it through in: ensuring the population you work with is reflected in the people who work and volunteer for or otherwise support your organization (who you hire) the way you hire. the way you evaluate your teams work. the way you run meetings. the way you make decisions.

Do remember that the people who work and volunteer for or otherwise support your organization are integral to your work. Be sure not to devalue them. Employment equity doesnt end at the hiring process. Look at the wages that oppressed groups are generally being paid; its consistently far less than those who hold power in our societies, and with far less job security. Ask yourself if you want to be replicating that in your workplace. How can you walk the talk and not talk the walk?

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Create a forum to discuss working conditions with the people who work and volunteer for or otherwise support your organization. Support the people who work and volunteer for or otherwise support your organization in the work they do but also create mechanisms for them to unpack what they are encountering at work. Provide opportunities for outside training.

Do examine what the costs of fundraising/ capital-raising efforts are to the programming work you do and to your participants. Although fundraising should be strategic, money cannot come at the expense of the core principles of the program and the participants. For example: How can a program that stands for social justice and that works with refugees accept money from mining corporations that created the displacement in the first place? Dont confuse power with knowledge. Just because you may have more social authority within the position that you hold, this does not mean that your opinion should count more than others.

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Dont use people strategically or without their consent. Dont exploit or use the people you work with to sell your work. Do recognize and act. Recognize the power dynamics between the relationship with staff, contractors, consultants, and volunteers and acknowledge how actions, policies, attitudes, and frameworks impact power dynamics within the organizations culture and in society at large. Since privilege is not an entitlement, organizations need to adopt ways of evaluating and critically addressing who benefits from what and why. They need to ask themselves: what are the exploitative attitudes and practices that have been (historically) normalized and are they showing up in this organization?

Do support the people involved in your organization/working group by: Providing spaces that are supported by people who have a critical awareness of emotional and mental responses to conflict during facilitation in order to support the facilitators. Allowing for facilitators to make mistakes and grow from them instead of applying punishment tactics. Being present as an organization (in terms of support) prior, during, and after the facilitation/ service is delivered (this can be in check-ins, debriefing, or ensuring that equipment is in place). Intentionally choosing not to overcrowd a schedule or program for the day and then ignore debriefing time for facilitators. Time for debrief is at the heart/essence for fruitful constructive facilitating. Ensuring there are human resources and tools from which facilitators can learn.

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Engaging in employment equity practices and attitudes (not just unpracticed and/or ignored policies) in the working culture and environment. Engaging in constructive feedback from a place of empathy, insight, understanding and critical thinking to any given situation. Providing free spaces for facilitators to breathe, cry, vent, and express themselves freely without ramifications in regards to the security of their employment or the behaviour within their work environment/culture. Centering learning/training opportunities that are central to cultivating ones ability to observe and identify language, actions, and behaviours around them. Implementing spaces for facilitators to engage in a re-education process to unlearn colonial teachings and (re)-learn decolonizing frameworks.

There must exist a paradigm, a practical model for social change that includes an understanding of ways to transform consciousness that are linked to efforts to transform structures. bell hooks
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Notes
1 2 3 4 5

Not So Common Language. Critical Resistance. n.p., n.d. Web. (http://crwp.live.radicaldesigns.org/?page_id=107) Taiaiake Alfred, Wasse: Indigenous pathways of action and freedom (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2005). 20. Paulo Friere, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (NY: Continuum, 1970). bell hooks, Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (NY: Routledge, 2003). For further discussion on the concept of shared authority, see Michael H. Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Jessica Yee, Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism (Ottawa: Canadian CenTanna Paddock and Warren Nilsson. Expressive Change, Organization Unbound. n.p., n.d. Web. Himani Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism, and Gender (Toronto: qtd. in Jessica Yee, Feminism for Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism (Ottawa: Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third-World Feminism. London: Routledge, 1997. Personal communication, 2012 *Workshop Definition* White Supremacy is an historically-based, institutionally-perpetuated system of exploita-

Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990).
6

ter for Policy Alternatives, 2011)

7

(http://organizationunbound.org/about-2/)
8

Canadian Scholars Press, 2000). 156.

9

Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives, 2011).

10

Print. 85.
11 12

tion and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of colour by white peoples and nations of the European continent, for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege. Definition from What Is White Supremacy, SOA Watch. n.p., 2012. Web. (http://soaw.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=482)
13 14 15 16 17

Marjane Satrapi, The Complete Persepolis (NY: Knopf Doubleday, 2007). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_feminist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston Barbara Smith, ed. Home Girls, A Black Feminist Anthology (NY: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983). Amy J. Garvey, ed. The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (or Africa for the Africans) (Dover, MA: First bell hooks, killing rage: Ending Racism (Boston: Owl Books, 1995). 193.

Majority Press, 1986). 2.

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epilogue
This collection of stories and statements is about trying to shake up the dust over our efforts at social justice and about creating a forum to exchange our own stories and learnings. We remain committed to making sure that our struggle remains relevant and that we are not inadvertently or blatantly leaving out specific voices and struggles. We know that you have a story or three that you could add to this collection. We would like to continue recognizing and acknowledging the writers, activists, youth, theorists, educators, workers, organizations, artists, movement builders, learners, and ancestors that have come before us and who walk with us with their courage, inspiration, dedication, and stories. We also know that many have been and continue to be incarcerated, stigmatized, violated, exploited, or even killed for us to be sharing our stories the way we are today. We did not invent this wheel, and we would like to thank all the people that have contributed to this line of thinking and action. Consider this our spoke in that wheel. We would like to acknowledge how difficult it is to bring busy people together to make something like this and what an amazing challenge it was to bring all of these ideas together to create what you are reading today. There is a lot of collective knowledge in here and although we would, of course, like to have written more, to talk about more issues, to share more stories, it is a start. It has been a pleasure to work together and we hope that our passion for our work and this issue shines through.

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The birth of this document stems from a decision by Girls Action Foundation to stand back and convene anti- oppression practitioners who do social justice work with girls and young women. At Girls Action, we are proud to offer this space and hope it will be a useful document for program facilitators and implementers working in this field.

GIRLS ACTION FOUNDATION is a national charitable organization. We lead and seed girls programs across Canada. We build girls and young womens skills and confidence, and inspire action to change the world. Through our innovative programs, research, and support to a network of over 200 partnering organizations and projects, Girls Action reaches over 60,000 girls and young women.

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