Beyond Organizing, Movement Building

Vital Stats

Rosemary G

Jackson Heights, NY

  • people helped50
  • People Doing It 5

The Problem

Beyond Organizing Movement Building(BOMB) is a collective of students dedicated to the self-education and leadership of the CUNY community. We believe that in order to have a strong, sustainable student movement we must create spaces where there can be an interchange of skills, knowledge, and history. We came about in Spring 2010 due to, what we and others saw, was a lack of educational work at CUNY for student activists and the larger student body that would better sustain our organizing efforts to create change at CUNY. Through our own personal experiences organizing at CUNY, we felt the lack of support and exchange of experiences and skills among CUNY activists. Young activists often dive head first into organizing and often times burn out, become disillusioned, and sometimes even leave the movement. There is no space for them to learn skill sets, create support networks, learn from and teach others about their experiences. We envision that BOMB will begin to fulfill this lack in the CUNY organizing community.

Plan of Action

Our plan of action in the fall is to expand our core collective and integrate other student activists in the decision making body of BOMB. We've created a structure for both core members and volunteers where there would be rotating responsibilities, tasks, and roles. We hope to further develop our internal structure through bi-monthly retreats where we would focus on collective process, community building, and community support. Our plan for our educational work this fall is still in development but we have some exciting ideas that are being hashed out. BOMB's education work will be structured into three overlapping categories: History, Structure and Theory: This will focus on CUNY's history of struggle and resistance. We believe that in order to move forward, we must first learn about other student movements at CUNY and how to use our rich history of activism to inspire our current and future organizing efforts. We must also understand how CUNY functions if we want to bring about any change. And finally, we must imagine what a different CUNY could look like. We will do this by learning from scholars, organizers, communities, and movements. Organizer Tool Belt: This will focus on community organizing and skill sets that all organizers should have under their belt. This will range from "What is community organizing?" to "How to write a press release". By creating a space where we openly share and learn from each other's experiences as organizers, we are making sure that there is a process for developing our organizing skills rather than simply learning along the way. Training for Trainers: BOMB believes that we are all capable and able to do educational work. This is why we want to make sure that this educational work does not stop with an individual, group, or community but rather that we're able to equip ourselves and others with the skills necessary to continue this educational work in whatever spaces we see fit. This is where our educational work would come full circle by training participants to do this educational work themselves, thus continuing the cycle of educational exchange and strengthening our organizing communities.
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