OP Detroit Agenda

May 27, 2014

Our Power Agenda

We are currently working on creating an engaging agenda that includes a shared vision for a Just Transition in Detroit and beyond, information and skills shares, networking and social activities and strategies for scaling up youth and young adult leadership in the climate and environmental justice movements.

Agenda highlights include:  
  • Opening ceremony that honors the land and ancestors
  • Plenary and discussion on the Climate Justice Alliance, Our Power Campaign and Just Transition frame
  • Presentations and discussions on environmental justice movement, decolonization and liberation
  • Cultural activities, performances and opportunities to socialize while getting to know one another
  • Campaigns - fights and solutions - that attendees are engaged in with strategies and lessons learned
  • Connecting our work locally, nationally and globally
As soon as we make revisions to our working draft, they will be posted here.

Please note that the OP Detroit program will begin Friday June 27 at 9:00am and go through Sunday June 29 at 3:00pm.

 

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Join us for the Food System PMA

May 13, 2014

Join us on Friday May 23 from 4:00pm-8:00pm for a food systems people's movement assembly!

Submitted by Charity Hicks, E4H Fellow

EAT4HEALTH DETROIT is hosting a local gathering to share, strengthen, and co-create an anti-hunger, food secure, food justice, food sovereign local/regional food system in Detroit.

In Detroit we can no longer afford to contaminate our environment with 68 superfund sites, 281 facilities releasing toxic chemicals, poor air quality with high particulate matter well above national and state averages and soil contaminated with heavy metals such as mercury, lead, & cadmium. The cumulative impact of this pollution is literally killing people. 

We must continue to work to empower the Detroit community to value the air, land and water ecology. Our food system is directly nested in our environmental/ecological systems & worldwide energy footprint and in the JUST TRANSITION campaign we are calling for a transition from our extreme energy economy to a JUSTICE centered, localized, resilient economy. Policy has a significant role to play in this shift towards resilience and must be leveraged to build transformative solutions, alongside grassroots organizing.

We are calling the full community to join the discussion, work and campaigns to help shift our food system and all of our public systems into a climate conscious, local/regional centering. We need solutions which will promote and enhance environmental justice, health & nutritional well-being, and economic equity. This requires a multi-faceted bottom line food system grounded in Food Sovereignty which has justice in every element; our quality of life and the earth requires it.
 
If you want to help host, sponsor, and/or support the gathering please contact Charity Hicks 313-725-0554 or sublimelight[AT]netscape.net.

 

Fundraise for Our Power

May 2, 2014

Figure our your Fundraising Needs for Our Power Detroit, June 27-29


Our Power Detroit is focused on strengthening and scaling up youth and young adult leadership of the environmental and climate justice movements. 

We have been working hard to raise money to host an event that will not require folks to pay for food, lodging or registration. Unfortunately, we do not yet have funds to offer travel stipends. 

Therefore we are asking you to raise your own travel . Below are some ideas and tools for raising money from foundations and grassroots along with some resources attached:

Foundation Fundraising

  • If you receive foundation funding, ask your funders if they provide discretionary travel grants. Some foundations that do this include Chorus, Solidago, Noyes and Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock.
  • Common Counsel Foundation also provides travel grants for grassroots exchange meetings through the Grassroots Exchange Fund (GXF). Applications are due the FIRST MONDAY OF THE MONTH so complete yours this week to get it submitted for May!  http://www.commoncounsel.org/Grassroots+Exchange+Fund

Grassroots Fundraising 

Nine Tips: How to Raise Money for Your Participation in the Our Power Gatherings by Sha Grogan Brown for the USSF
  1. Ask 10 of your friends to save their spare change for 3 months and donate it to your costs.
  2. Ask 30 people if they will support you at $10 each.
  3. Plan a party at your home or a local community space, and ask for a $5-$15 donation.
  4. Creative Sales: bake a batch of cookies, decorate 20 postcards or write a poetry zine and sell them for $5 each.
  5. Did your organization receive grant money this year?  If so, ask your program officer about applying for discretionary funds to support your group's travel.
  6. Share a hotel room with 3 friends.
  7. Set aside $15 from each of your paychecks from now until the event.
  8. Host a yard sale or a car wash.
  9. If your birthday is coming up, ask people to donate to your Our Power costs instead of giving you gifts.