#UjimaWednesdays | Understanding Power & Mapping the Landscape | 10.08.25

Month Description:

This October, we will explore how communities build and use power to move into organizing change. From understanding our past, youth power, to the roots of organizing to mapping power and taking strategic action, participants will gain tools, insights, and strategies to move from ideas to impact.

Event Description:

The Organizing Center, an organization committed to developing organizers base building and resilience practices, will lead a two-part, in-depth workshop on organizing. We’ll start by breaking down what power is, the forms it takes, and how it moves in our communities and institutions. Participants will map their organizing landscapes, and identify where decisions are really made.

Facilitator Bio:

Janelle Lapointe is an Afro-Indigenous climate justice and Indigenous rights organizer from Stellat’en First Nation, a small Indigenous community in so-called Canada. With years of experience in grassroots organizing, policy advocacy, and political education, she is deeply committed to building strong, leaderful movements that challenge the status quo.

Janelle’s work centers on the power of multi-racial and multi-national solidarity, ensuring that climate and Indigenous rights movements are intersectional, justice-driven, and impossible to ignore. She brings a wealth of experience in campaign strategy, coalition building, climate policy, Indigenous rights, and community-led resistance, always with a focus on power-building and collective action. As a trainer and facilitator, she is passionate about equipping communities with the tools they need to fight for a just future.

She is currently based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada