#UjimaWednesdays | Reclaiming Land, Building Power | 4.16

Month Desscription:

This April, we are continuing our yearly theme with From the Ground Up: Building Power With Land, in collaboration with the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative and the Kensington Corridor Trust. In this series, we’ll explore how communities are reclaiming land and building grassroots governance as tools for collective liberation.

Through conversations with organizers and practitioners on the ground, participants will explore real-life models of community control, gain insight into the power of land stewardship, and build strategies to root movements in place-based power. Together, we’ll learn how community land trusts and community-led governance structures create pathways for long-term stability and economic justice.

Event Description:

In this workshop, we will explore how The Guild is building community-owned models of land, housing, and real estate to support self-determination for Black, working-class, and marginalized communities. Led by Nikishka Iyengar, founder and CEO of The Guild, we will discuss the strategies and challenges involved in creating shared equity land models and community-controlled spaces. Participants will learn how The Guild's approach creates long-term stability and economic justice, and will have the opportunity to discuss how similar models can be applied in their own communities.

Facilitator Bio:

Nikishka Iyengar, a social entrepreneur, community organizer and media-maker with over a decade of experience building economic democracy, is the founder and CEO of The Guild, where she develops community-owned models of land, housing, and real estate to foster self-determination for Black, working-class, and other marginalized communities. She also leads Groundcover, a $30M fund dedicated to investing in shared equity land models. A current Loeb Fellow at Harvard, Nikishka co-hosts the Road to Repair podcast focused on moving beyond a “business-as-usual” economy toward solidarity and collective liberation.