Taking Root

R2W  Critical Faith in exchange with Brown Berets, Watsonville, CA

For nearly four decades the work and ideas of Paulo Freire and popular education have been an influence in both the North American social movements and institutional education.

In recent years, The Highlander Center, Project South, IDEPSCA, and several unsung but critical popular education projects have fostered grassroots leadership using a pedagogy rooted in liberation and self-determination. On a national level, there are grassroots 'graduates' of popular education activities engaged in the social movement and many areas of civic participation.

Doing grassroots critical pedagogy, talking story and theory of Paulo Freire with SOAR and Engaging Education at UC Santa Cruz

R2W Critical Faith 7 day immersion on Tohono O'odham Reservation researching border issues, globalization, immigration, and human rights with indigenous leaders

On the US West Coast today, the effect of this work is demonstrated in the courageous engagement of IDEPSCA participants- many of them day laborers and domestic workers- as activists in the movement for worker and immigrant rights. The criminal justice reform work of the The Center for Young Women's Development is executed by young women who have emerged successfully from the juvenile justice system. The muckraking young writers and advocates of Silicon Valley DEBUG come from the workplaces of electronic assembly, the low end of the high tech industry. Youth United for Community Action's environmental justice workers of East Palo Alto come from neighborhoods endangered by industrial pollution. Engaging Education (E2) and Represent 2 Witness/Critical Faith  graduates are young leaders of color from places such as South Central Los Angeles, Honolulu's Kalihi District, East Oakland, and San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point who are creating new and inventive politics and culture and taking over the leadership of key campaigns and organizations. NAKEM YOUTH of Honolulu's working class Kalihi District is breaking out the complex contradiction of langauge oppression and the pursuit of linguistic justice.