Courage, like organizing, is something you learn by doing. It’s a strength you find deep inside yourself, in places of hurt and hope, that you share with others. It’s also something that when you put it into practice, you learn to do better.
That’s why training has always been a big part of People’s Action’s approach to good organizing. Training is where we create the shared spaces we need to learn and discover. Training is where we invest in one other, so we can grow as people, organizers, and as organizations.
“Training builds the bridge,” says LaTanya Lane, one of our senior trainers. “People can build resilience, practice skills and become strategic, so they can become people who are actually making the change they want to see.”
Indeed, we believe so much in the value of training that when People’s Action was founded fifty years ago by Gale Cincotta and Shel Trapp to fight discrimination in Chicago, they first called it the Housing Training and Information Center.
This investment in one another is essential to our work, and it is what builds strong and powerful organizations. It’s the foundation of our Organizing Revival, because sharing and sharpening the most effective skills of community organizing is the only way we can expand our base to achieve the scale we need to confront the unprecedented challenges we face.
That’s why People’s Action is working hard to expand and offer training programs to more people than ever before, both in-person and online, and in multiple languages. This summer, many of you participated in our virtual National Volunteer phone banks and Fundamentals of Organizing trainings, our in-person Training for Trainers courses, or our 13-week Organizers Bootcamp. And many of you are starting and strengthening your own training programs. This month, we’ll share some of your stories.
And many of you put the lessons you learned at these trainings directly into action – such as at our DC fly-in this month, where People’s Action members went to Capitol Hill to let Members of Congress know that the Trump administration’s deep cuts to housing and health care will harm us all.
As organizers, we challenge each other to see ourselves and the world as honestly as we can, then take action together to improve our lives. We take risks as we try to make the world a better place.
In organizing, it’s good to know you’re never alone. You are part of a family of those who came before, who entrusted you with the skills you need to find and build your own power, so you can in turn pass these skills on to others.
We will need each other more than ever before in the uncertain days to come, as attacks on immigrants, the unhoused and working people escalate. So we will continue to offer more training, with more opportunities to build, grow and take action together.
Juntos podemos. Together we can, and together, we will.