Embedded Files
ride or die [sey-krid]
n. the person (people) who stand by you in any problem and vice versa
Our First Radical Act
Our First Radical Act
The programs we are reflecting upon in this guide were created within an organizational context. Interestingly, although the programs we (Trish and Aida) were creating both focused on developing the leadership of women-identified people of color, within the organization they were seen as completely unrelated bodies of work because they had different funding streams and the two of us worked on separate teams. We were not encouraged to see our work as connected or to work collectively— in fact just the opposite. In many ways, those surrounding each of us presented the other person and their developing program as a threat to the success of our own. Meanwhile, each of us was struggling to find the creative thought partnership and technical support within our own teams to bring our respective programs into being.
Separately, we were each asking ourselves, “How can we, with integrity, design programs that encourage women to center interdependence but allow our institution to keep us siloed?” Finally, we were brave enough to ask this question of each other. After a deeply healing conversation where we explicitly named all the ways that society generally and our institution specifically had discouraged us from seeing each other fully, we named that each of us possessed unique gifts which would make our respective programs that much stronger. So on that same day, we committed to supporting each other's programs no matter what, and we also committed to supporting each other no matter what, having no idea what that would mean in practice.
"When a sista is real, she is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.”
Toni Morrison, Beloved
Bringing in Outside Collaborators
Bringing in Outside Collaborators
We understood very early on that the first step in building programs focused on transformation was to identify a team who not only aligned philosophically with our budding vision, but who also aligned with our deeply collaborative approach and had the necessary combination of skills to implement this vision.
We invited folks:
With the knowledge of organizing, structural racism, and leadership development to enhance our offerings
Whose external perspective would continuously push our thinking beyond our organizational deliverables.
We also believed our team must comprise people who have been directly impacted by the conditions making it crucial to call Women of Color in and up.
To learn more about the intentionality we held in building our team, see Chapter 3 in Full Pedagogy Guide.
Our Team & Superpowers
Our Team & Superpowers
Viveka Chen (knower) is called “the oracle” because of her deep facilitation experience, her workshop design prowess, and her vast knowledge across our content areas, particularly racial equity.
Zuri Tau (compass) is skilled at honing in on outcomes to make sure they correspond with program design, and at creating adaptable learning and assessment tools that are comprehensible, fun and do not undermine the power in the room. As a sociologist and evaluator, she has a deep interest in naming Women of Color as knowledge creators.
Trish Adobea Tchume (weaver) is described as “the dopest connector” because of her adeptness at identifying what mix of talents are needed to bring something to life, seeing how those talents show up in people who are often overlooked, then connecting those individuals across diverse social locations in a manner that makes everyone feel they belong and are brilliant.
Aida Cuadrado Bozzo (witness) is masterful at observing what is happening in the moment, quickly sensing emergent opportunities for learning, and is unafraid to lean into generative conflict. She is often the first team member to name the issue simmering under the surface of the room and stop conversation to address it.
Holiday Simmons (healer) masterfully matched somatic practice-to-content to nurture a culture of safety, resilience, empowerment, and healing; exposed us to decolonizing tools; and embodied a tender masculinity that participants received openly.
For more on how we intentionally built our team's way of working together, see Chapter 3 in Full Pedagogy Guide.
We are the descendants of our teachers, generations
of Women of Color and People of Color whose writing
honors our lives, our hopes for our communities, and all
the culturally-rooted ways that we show leadership.
Some of their names are known to many —Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldua, Ocatavia Butler, adrienne marie brown, Paulo Freire, Grace Lee Boggs, the Combahee River Collective, Johnnie Tillmon.
Some of them live closer to our hearts — our abuelas working in the spirit realm and women who joined us at critical moments to shift our consciousness and shape our thinking.
- Excerpt from Calling In & Up: Leadership Pedagogy for Women of Color Organizers, pg 11
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