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Rural Organizing Project
Intergenerational Dialogues
In 2003 ROP’s Director, Marcy Westerling received the Leadership for a Changing World award (www.leadershipforchange.org), as one of 17 recipients across the country. This program seeks out and holds up the work of those that offer outstanding leadership in their communities and move forward a social justice agenda. This program has since expanded to include a pilot program called the “Intergenerational Dialogues” that brings the youth of these organizations together as an opportunity to hold up the young leadership in the recognized groups. ROP participated with 4 other groups from the Northwest in 2 weekend dialogues that brought together 7 participants from each group: 2 “anchor” leaders 5 emerging leaders (youth).
Map of Living Room Conversations done in Oregon as of May 2006. Created by the ROP Youth Pod at the Intergenerational Dialogues. 2006
ROP put out the call to youth in small town Oregon that wanted to participate. We received nearly 50 applicants and among those great leaders we had to narrow it down to 5 people to join us. The volume of applicants told us that small town progressive youth are hungry for an opportunity to gain more skills and support. ROP selected a group of participants that reflect the diversity of our small town communities- ranging in ages from 14 to 27, queer youth, youth of color, and youth living with disabilities. What was different about the ROP pod (as we came to be called) from the other participating groups is that we were coming into the dialogues 1. not knowing the youth beforehand and 2. with all of us living in different communities around the state. The other groups all worked together day to day and lived in the same community. At the first dialogue in Portland in December 2005, the ROP pod got to know one another and developed a project to work on over the next several months. They chose our focus to be immigration, specifically further developing ROP’s existing plans to expand our base of pro-immigrant rights supporters in small town Oregon committed to stand up for the rights of all people living in this country. ROP youth inserted themselves into this work over the next few months: attending and even leading living room conversations on the topic, participating and also providing leadership at the annual ROP Caucus, attending Y QUE (a youth led conference on immigrant youth organizing) and leading immigrant rights work in their own communities (including a high school walk out in Cottage Grove!). In total we completed 27 living room conversations in 22 different communities, with over 350 attendees. Of those, 80 participants have already signed up to be a part of local immigrant rights response teams. All of the ROP pod members furthered our understanding and ability to lead conversations on immigration, a true success in a moment when the issue is so contentious and divisive in our local communities. However, another major outcome emerged during the 2nd dialogue in Seattle in May, 2006. It was here that we developed our next steps for our work together. First, the group affirmed prior hopes – like working with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to deepen cross cultural education and solidarity. All pod members also affirmed their interest in continuing immigrant rights work with ROP. Several pod members will be interning with ROP over the summer months. The youth also determined the best way to expand the pod would be to focus next steps that develop a statewide “map” of youth groups and youth organizers across the state. The youth will literally be going school district by school district to identify the progressive youth groups (formal and informal) and leaders. ROP will then develop and host an email listserve that allows progressive small town youth to connect together and strategize across communities. A quick snapshot of ROP’s base shows that a very small percentage of the folks we are in relationship with are under the age of 24. Small town progressive youth are often the first to leave their communities when they graduate from high school, often times moving to larger communities for college. The small town progressive youth group mapping is a first step in building more relationships with progressive youth and supporting them as they chose to step forward in their communities and offer leadership in social justice and social change. In a moment in time when being outwardly progressive in small town Oregon can be challenging and isolating, ROP is furthering it’s mission to break isolation and build local progressive infrastructure by working with small town youth to support their local work as they further their efforts to create change, one community at a time. As Aaron Opela shared during the closeout of the 2nd Intergenerational Dialogue, “When I first saw ‘emerging leader’ by my name I just thought, ‘what? Me? Leader?’ But now, after these several months working with ROP and being a part of the dialogues I really understand that I am, in fact, a leader.” It is these kinds of relationships that ROP seeks out to support and develop in our next step of youth outreach to rural and small town Oregon. CLICK HERE to Read more on how you can support building a network of small town, progressive youth. Cottage Grove Students for Peace & Justice being recognized by ROP for their incredible organizing over the last year. They organized 2 walkouts: one against the war in Iraq and one for immigrant rights, making the links between peace and immigrant rights. |
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