Vision Statement

We are a community education and empowerment initiative that is re-imagining how communities can grow learners who think critically, live responsibly, and create meaningful change. We center the needs of those who are currently marginalized from meaningful educational experiences, with emphases on students of color, gender expansive and queer students, and differently-abled learners. Our youth and family programs are infused with social justice praxis. Summer camps, curriculum development, community education, and school building initiatives are the focus of our work in the Bay Area. We strive to create individual, community, and environmental change by fostering intergenerational, land-based learning practices.

Theory of Change in 4 Parts

Part 1: The Issues We Address

• Preschool-to-Prison Pipeline

• Undervalued and Under-resourced Educators

• Inflexible, Homogenizing Curricula

• Disconnect Between Sustainable Ecology and Marginalized Communities

• Lack of Individual and Community Self-Determination

Part 2: Communities of Accountability (Stakeholders)

• Youth Learners and Leaders  

• Educators

• Parents and Families

• Black and Indigenous Queer People of Color

• Funders and Business Affiliates

• Community Leaders Committed to Intersecting Social Movement Work

• The Land and Biosphere

Part 3: Proposed Interventions and Rationales

• Collective Land Stewardship: Use ecofeminist perspectives to draw connections between land access and community self-determination. Practicing land-based learning, food cultivation and sustainable farming has positive effects on communities who have been historically denied access to such resources.

• Camps: Serve as “test kitchen” to determine best practices. The camps create community base for kids and families who are currently in traditional schools. They are also an opportunity to reach the maximum number of people possible, by reaching learners in traditional schools

• School: Alternative learning spaces that center Black & Indigenous Youth of Color, disabled youth, gender expansive and queer students. Schools are serious laboratories for social justice pedagogy. We offer holistic psychosocial services.

• Community Center: Fosters intergenerational learning to support communities committed to connectedness and life-long learning

• Curriculum Development - Current mainstream school curricula are deeply ineffective and students thrive when they see themselves reflected in these teaching materials. We want to use Positive Identity Development as an interim solution to collective liberation. We strive to be responsive to current political and social events.

• Teacher Support: Teachers who seek further training are better able to support students when they have ongoing professional development for working with diverse learners, flexibility, ability to be creative and responsive to student needs.

• Innovative Funding and Compensation Practices - Sharing of housing, food, and other resources are ways to bring principles into practice. An example of this would be on-site produce cultivation and self-sustaining building practices.

Part 4: Outcomes

• Fewer number of students pushed out of learning and into prison pipeline.

• Curriculum creation that embeds learning in practices that support diverse communities with respect, capacity, and humility.

• Ongoing support and training tools for educators in highly stressed communities.

• Low-impact, environmentally sustainable land use.

• Strengthening networks of social change agents to advocate, educate, and plan interventions across and within identity groups.

• Develop replicable, scalable models of community education and support for students of color, gender expansive and queer students, and differently abled students. We see connections and particularites between rural/urban settings.

• Communities see themselves as stewards of land and culture.

• Business growth that contributes to community wealth and sustainability.

• We contribute to the liberation of black people.