The NCADV Social Justice Institute: Empowering Abused Women as Advocates for Social Change
Empowering domestic violence victims, survivors and thrivers to make social change happen through culturally-competent, asset-based non-traditional ally building is a curriculum is designed to facilitate individuals to learn asset-based strategies to organize people to change the systems that could better affect their lives. The leadership program has three themes:
1) Understanding the formal and informal political and social systems that affect our lives - economic, political, legal, social welfare, media, etc - and the power these systems have on the lives of families in communities.
2) Learning the fundamentals of organizing to build power within neighborhoods, other communities.
3) Understanding the influence that race, class and gender in the United States have on individuals and their ability to change systems.
The NCADV Social Justice Institute will provide participants with community activism and grassroots organizing tools to empower abused women become more involved in making systemic and societal changes to better protect victims of domestic violence and to hold perpetrators accountable.
Setting Norms and Expectations - Participants will delve into the domestic violence issue as well as many cutting-edge social issues that affect people differently. Because the material is the main focus, and group discussions substantiate a great deal of the material, the group needs to have constructive dialogues that will benefit all. Confronting issues concerning social change, especially in trying to influence systems which historically have not been community-focused, can be difficult and frustrating work. It is very important that the participants feel safe enough to share feelings, experiences, ideas and thoughts. When norms and expectations are established, participants have agreed upon how they will work together over the course of study. Read the following information and give your feedback as to what you see are the norms and expectations required?
Eliminating Violence Against Women
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Personal Mandalas - By creating a mandala, participants will design and define their individual strengths. A mandala can be described as any form of circular design that contains symbols of a person's inner self, guiding principles, and overall ideas about the world.
Early Memories of Difference - This topic is an excellent introduction to how each participant views the world in regard to differences - in areas such as race, class, gender and religion. Participants will be able to directly tie their experiences of difference with systems that support or forbid differences to be allowed.
Exploration of Systems and Power - This discussion will create the framework for participants to understand why systems exist and how they operate.
Different Models for Responding to Community Needs - This discussion topic will help clarify the differences among direct service, advocacy, and community organizing as ways to address community needs.
Roots of Oppression - Participants will have an opportunity to discuss how community systems focus on individuals and blame them for their conditions instead of building on the strengths of an individual and identifying the social conditions that create oppression including domestic violence.
System Power Analysis - It is important for domestic violence victims and other oppressed people to analyze who holds power in society and the nature of power relationships related to systems. It is also important to develop the means to identify which factors perpetuate power imbalances. Participants will explore how their strengths fit into various systems.
Wedge Issues - When organizing for change, divisive issues like sexism, racism, or classism can divide a group and slow or halt a group's work. This section will discuss these wedge issues and examine how they can be used as strengths to help campaigns succeed rather than derail an organizing campaign.
Issue Identification - The purpose of this topic is to introduce the basics of how to develop an issue from a problem. Before any race, class, or gender analysis can be framed, participants must understand how to identify issues around which to organize.
Racism, Sexism and Systems - "Framing" an issue is a powerful tool in community organizing. This session illustrates how the same problem can be viewed and explained from contrasting perspectives -- a conventional perspective that denies the existence of racism and sexism, and anti-racist and anti-sexist perspectives that illuminate racism and sexism. Using "various lenses" participants will examine some of the problems and strengths within their own communities and how they also relate to perpetuating or eliminating domestic violence. These exercises will help participants sharpen their skills in critiquing and framing issues to reveal oppression. Racism and violence against women in America - This lesson identifies and defines different forms of racism and how violence against women had its roots in colonial racist policies and practices.
Contact Work - This lesson will help participants understand methods of outreach. Once an issue has been identified and framed using an anti-racist/anti-sexist analysis, contact work will mobilize people to join organizing efforts. Allies mobilized may or may not be traditional allies, but perhaps new ones who hadn't seen how the domestic violence frame affects them.
