Community Wealth Building Work Session TODAY

[Abi Shakur]

Hi folks, 

Here is a reminder that we will be meeting today at the Southwest Library (900 Wesley Pl SW, Washington, DC 20024) at 6PM for our in-person work session this month. We are going to begin planning our Community Wealth Building Day as a kick off for different efforts that we have discussed over the last few months. 

We will meet in Meeting Room 2! Please let me know if you have any questions. 

See you then,

Abi

[Abi Shakur]

Hello everyone!

Thank you to those who were able to attend our work session yesterday. We had a number of very fruitful discussions on how to build our public education efforts moving forward. 

Below is a short summary for those who were not able to make it. 

1. Georgetown EDIJ Program:

• Corey reminded us that there is strong potential to work with Georgetown University's Education, Inquiry, and Justice Program to recruit students to develop a curriculum about cooperative economy and/or solidarity economy which we could then use in our Public Ed. 
• Working with them would involve engaging students once a week throughout the Fall semester and providing them with connections and resources to build that curriculum
• Corey and I are going to touch base soon about next steps. But our group yesterday felt this would be worthwhile to pursue, especially as we have been discussing different education topics to bring to the broader community. Please let me know if you would like to assist in this work or if you have interest in working with students in the Fall

2. Community Wealth Building Day

• We discussed having a Community Wealth Building Day similar to what we did in 2023 this October. We named several goals for the event, generally including, making space for DC's base of coops to connect and align with one another, as well as explore strategies for radical healing and conflict resolution, and showcasing the base of coops to the general public, celebrating what the cooperative economy can bring to DC.
• At our July meeting, Ron, Amanda, and I will present a plan and ask for support in building the CWB Day from you all. Feel free to let us know now if you are interested in making this happen. We have a lot of beautiful visions and tactics to bolster our cooperative economy in DC! Let's make them happen

Lastly, I will mention that we are still looking for an anchor to hold this coalition long term and a fiscal sponsor to help us acquire funding, especially for the CWB Day. We will continue to discuss how our new areas of work (tech assistance, public ed, and legislative advocacy) will manifest going forward, and the CWB Day in October may be a chance for us to kick off each of these campaigns in earnest. 

I hope you all are doing well. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or would like to connect.

Best,

Abi

[letlearninglive]

Hi Abi,

Thanks for your informative update below.  The stars may be aligning because while you discussed organizing a Community Wealth Building Day in Oct this year, we  (Learning Life, a DC-based nonprofit) are organizing the second DMV Democracy Festival, to be held on Sat Oct 4, 1-6pm, at All Souls Unitarian Church in NW DC this year, an 8 minute walk from the Columbia Heights Station on the Green Line. 

The DemFest schedule includes (a) a discussion on economic democracy, and (b) a democracy market / tabling for different orgs.  As I shared on this list prior to the first DemFest last Oct, we consider coops a vital part of a more democratic society.  We're thus keen on engaging the DMV coop community in both (a) and (b).  We charge orgs only for the tabling ($100-$300, depending on the org/coop revenue + request for half or full table).  In return, interested coops would have a centrally located venue, space to discuss the local Community Wealth Building movement, tabling space for promotion and sales, and a festival crowd. 

Happy to talk if you're interested.  You can use my Calendly to schedule a Zoom mtg.   

Paul Lachelier, Ph.D.
Founder & Director, Learning Life
pa...@learninglife.info

Schedule with me on Calendly

Learning Life is a Washington DC-based nonprofit devoted to developing inclusive learning communities in order to widen participation in democracy and diplomacy for our interconnected yet divided world. Learn more about our programs: the DMV Democracy Learning Community, Family Diplomacy Initiative, and Citizen Diplomacy International.