The Ella Baker Women’s Center for Leadership and Community Activism

Community Activism & STRIVING SISTERS SPEAK!!! (S3)

A Brief Overview

WHO ARE WE?
The Ella Baker Women’s Center for Leadership and Community Activism

1.   Founded in 2007 by Dr. Patricia Parker , a UNC Professor of Communication Studies.
2. Mission: Committed to serving disenfranchised communities by:
   a. Empowering women and girls to be leaders in their communities.
   b. Helping to build productive and equitable relationships between citizens and public/private institutions.
   c. Providing community organizing training for residents to work for social justice in their own communities and beyond. 
3. Ella Jo Baker (Adapted from http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/) : The granddaughter of an enslaved woman who was beaten for refusing to marry a man the slaveholder chose for her, Ella Baker spent her life working behind the scenes to organize the Civil Rights Movement. If she could have changed anything about the movement, it might have been to persuade the men leading it that they, too, should do more work behind the scenes. Baker was a staunch believer in helping ordinary people to work together and lead themselves, and she objected to centralized authority. In her worldview, “strong people don’t need strong leaders.”

 
Striving Sisters Speak!!! (S3)

1. Striving Sisters Speak!!! (S3) is the flagship project of the EBWC
2. It was launched in 2007 by a group of high-school aged young women of color that live in low-income housing communities in Chapel Hill, NC and a dedicated group of activists and students:
   a. COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS: Ms Serena Bethea,  Ms. Deloris Bailey, Ms. Stacey Craig
   b. UNC STUDENTS: Grad Student: Jennifer Mease;  MURAP Students:  Joaquin Sanchez, Jr., Elisa Oceguera, Alysa Campbell, and Connie Iloh.
3. Mission: To build multi-generational coalitions where youth and adults work together for social justice in our communities and beyond.
4. We are in Phase 2 of a three-phase process:
   a. Phase 1 (2007): Launching of a youth-adult partnership connecting high school-aged young women with adult activists working on youth identified projects.
   
   b. Phase 2 (2008): Expansion of the partnership using youth coaches from phase 1 working with a new cohort of youth activists (rising 9th graders and newcomers to the neighborhood);
   
   c. Phase 3 (--): Replicating the partnership model in other neighborhoods.
   

What are our Accomplishments?

1. Community Organizing Training
   a. Personal, Organizational, and Community Leadership Training: (Chapel Hill, Summer 2007 and Fall 2007): 15 weeks of training with eight (8) high-school aged young women that formed the core leadership team of S3. The training was led by Dr. Parker, UNC students, and local community leaders.
   
   b. Youth/Adult Partnership Training (Chapel Hill, August 2007): 2 day training workshop at the Hargraves Center with six (6) S3youth leaders. Facilitated by The Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development www.theinnovationCenter.org.
   
   c. Youth/Adult Partnership Training (Boston, MA, August 2008):  Two S3 Youth Leaders and four EBWC activists received 3-day intensive coaching with consultants for the Kellogg Foundation’s Leadership for Community Change Initiative (KLCC).Community Campaigns
2. Community Campaigns
   
   1. The Dumpster Project (2007): A project identified by the youth to address problems related to public works management and waste disposal in their community.
      a. Six Youth Leaders partnered with three community activists to form youth/adult teams
      
      b. Youth/Adult Teams: Formed to address various aspects of the project, including communicating with Town officials, documenting waste disposal problems and issues through multi-media and interviews, and organizing the community for action.
      
      c. THIS PROJECT taught us how challenging it is to form youth/adult partnerships and revealed some of power dynamics in the Chapel Hill civic structure.
   2. The Trinity Court/Pritchard Park  Street Festival (2008): A project that brought the two communities together to organize a festival encouraging positive youth engagement and highlighting the positive assets of  its residents
      a. Two youth leaders mapped the idea for the festival using tools learned in Boston at the KLCC training.
      
      b. All youth leaders met weekly with adult residents and community activists to plan the festival
      
      c. Youth and residents engaged town officials, including the chief of police, who was persuaded to visit the community and discuss the communities concerns with policing approaches in the neighborhood.
   3. Sharing the Mantel: A Conference on Collective Leadership Models for Youth and Adult Partnerships (2009)
      a.    November 2008-April, 2009: Youth leaders team up with students from Duke and UNC to plan a spring conference on multi-generational coalition building.
      
      b.    Jan 10, 2009: Youth Leaders helped to plan and execute a pre-conference to identify issues for the conference
      
      c.    January-April, 2009: Youth leaders network with other youth groups from around the country (DC, Jackson, MS, Tennessee) to build capacities.
3. Community Speaking Engagements
   
   1. Human Rights Workshop (September, 2008):  One youth leader (Tasha Chambers) worked with Dr. Judith Blau, UNC Professor of Sociology, and Dr. Patricia Parker, to prepare and present a workshop identifying and discussing human rights issues in Dr. King’s speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Four other youth leaders joined in.
   2. Presentation to Duke University Student-led course on Social Justice (November 2008): Two S3 leaders (Cassandra Lloyd and Tiara Denning) led a discussion on collective leadership for 15 Duke University Students.