Like others, I really enjoyed this activity. It was incredible to see all the points on the map! At first I wondered if I would be able to find any additional organizations to contribute, but that was not an issue. What I find even more interesting that browsing through the map is reading my classmates' posts about how they found various organizations. I loved hearing the personal connections between people and places, missions, and populations.
I started my own global journey by researching community agriculture projects. I remembered in past research that Australia has done a good job at bringing together social work and environmental justice. So many organizations popped up, but Northey Street City Farm stuck out to me. Not only does NSCF bring permaculture and fresh food to the community, but provides community classes on sustainable living, play groups, parenting groups, and weekly art/music/play in the dirt sessions. Although none of these provide tradition social services, I feel that they embody systemic change and resistance to "business as usual."
Next, I searched for rad feminist groups throughout the world. The All Women's Action Society is a really inspiring organization in Malaysia. This autonomous group of fierce women bring gender-violence to the public sphere, providing direct service to survivors and advocating to systemic change. A cool aspect of the organization is their structure. AWAS functions as a collective, with a small staff and lots of volunteers. They meet as a collective regularly and emphasize open participation. Volunteers join working groups of their interest that allow them to work collaboratively and autonomously. I love this model and feel that it is really sustainable!
After being inspired by AWAS's work and collective structure, I was interested to see if there are organizations that support grassroots movements. Fahamu is a pan-African organization that provides movement building tools, education, and awareness raising to support activists and movements. It warmed my heart to see this collective organization doing work throughout Africa since grassroots movements are what brought me into social work.
Ultimately, this activity showed me once again that I/"we" are not the first (or only) to think of something. I loved that the themes of collective and autonomy are mirrored in organizations and programs around the world. It makes me curious about more ways to get connected and learn from these organizations and more from other areas. Let's figure it out and do it!
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