#UjimaWednesdays | Understanding Power: Unpacking the Pillars That Hold Up Systems

02/19/2025 06:00 PM - 07:30 PM ET

Admission

  • Free

Location

Haymarket People's Fund
42 Seaverns Avenue
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
United States of America

Virtual Meeting URL: www.tinyurl.com/ujimawednesdays

Description

Power, Transformation, and Miracles: Ujima Power Project

The 2025 Ujima Wednesdays Workshop Series theme: Power, Transformation, and Miracles: Ujima Power Project and the programs dedicated to it explore the tension and nuances that power inspires, posing questions about the metaphorical, political, and social dimensions of power. Power, Transformation, and Miracles: Ujima Power Project  examines power as a concept with concrete, material consequences. This workshop series is dedicated to exploring the collective power of communities to transform ourselves and the systems that shape our lives. How is power enacted and performed across histories and institutions? Who holds power, and who resists or rejects its use? How do we reclaim, redistribute, or shift power, and is it ever enough? Can power bring us closer to justice, to liberation, to a more equitable society? How do we learn through power? What are we empowering, and by what measures? When does a shift in power lead to true transformation, to revolution? Understanding these types of power —and the pillars of support that sustain existing systems— can help us become weapons of mass construction. 

Grounding in Power: Grasping at the Root:

This month in February, we are kicking off our yearly theme, Power, Transformation, and Miracles: Ujima Power Project, with Grounding in Power: Grasping at the Root. Join us in an exploration, understanding, and flipping the switch on power. This series workshops will provide participants with an understanding of how power is garnered, harnessed and enacted. We’ll also explore how communities can collectively use their power to strategically move toward a more just and liberated future.

Event Description:

Building on our conversation about power, this interactive workshop - facilitated by Noemi Ramos from the New England Community Project - will break down how power operates within the pillars of support that uphold systems of oppression and change. Together, we’ll explore different types of power, how institutions maintain control, and how communities can strategically challenge and shift power dynamics.

Facilitator Bio:

Noemi Mimi Ramos, Executive Director of New England Community Project, brings a fresh pair of eyes from Boston’s neighborhoods and a savvy approach to community and political organizing. For over 20 years, she has served the community, fighting for social, racial, and economic justice in Boston and across the region.

Mimi has gained most of her experience from working on direct advocacy issues such as Earned Sick, Early Education, Housing Justice, Worker Rights and the power of Base Building connected to Civic Engagement. The strength of her organizing has been focused on local power that deepens and strengthens the leadership led by black and brown resident leaders and building intentional relationships and partnerships with allies that reflect and support building the strength and long-term agenda that centers BIPOC and working-class neighborhoods. 

Some of the partnerships and spaces Mimi has supported uplifting and anchoring are Right to the City Boston, Community Labor United, Homes for All Mass. T4Mass and the Voter Table. Her continued support from family and close friends have given her the motivation and courage to keep building. She always says she learned grace and courage from her mother, strategy from her father, her boldness from her grandmother and the power of love and gratitude from her brothers.