Solidarity Collective
vision
Bringing together Witness for Peace regions, stateside grassroots organizers, international human rights accompaniers, and advisors, the Collective sponsors speaker tours and conferences, participates in nonviolent direct actions, offers delegations to Colombia, Cuba, and Honduras, and works with people in their local communities in the U.S. to develop skills and strategies to change destructive U.S. policies.
Join us as we embark on a journey to build a Collective rooted in Witness for Peace’s powerful legacy and driven by the movements and creative strategies of today.
Founding history
In late 2019, the WFP regional organizations and former national and international staff, announced the formation of the WFP Solidarity Collective grounded in horizontal and participatory governance.
The Solidarity Collective collaborative project is an effort to bring us closer to our core values of horizontal and accountable solidarity both in our international work and within our own organization. Practicing horizontal and participatory governance, the collective is led by those closest to the work—our partners in Latin America, international team members, and grassroots organizers in the US—and strives to uphold the same worker's rights, feminist, and anti white-supremacist principles within our own organization that we advocate for transnationally.
Background
In December 2018, the WFP National office (which acts independently, with its own 501c3, separate from the various Regional 501c3s) laid off all national and international staff, ceasing to fund the international teams that had been present in Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, and Mexico for years, along with the national support staff.
What happened next is hard to believe. In an inspiring show of resilience, commitment, and visioning, our national and international staff, supported by the Regional WFP 501c3s, kept our important work moving forward, guiding us through the storm, and reconfiguring ourselves into a new organizational model informed by grassroots horizontal and participatory governance in a momentous effort to build an organizational model that embodies our values and is able to support transnational movement building in a meaningful way.
Despite losing the support of our National Office, Regional Offices, International Teams, and former National Staff are still on the ground carrying out the vital mission of Witness for Peace, and we’re building up to be stronger than ever, rooted in horizontal leadership, through the Solidarity Collective.
The WFP Solidarity Collective's formation was inspired by the analysis and vision of Berta Cáceres, including the need for movements to inherently reflect the intertwining struggles against capitalism, racism, and patriarchy. The collective brings together grassroots organizers across the hemisphere, stateside regions, international human rights accompaniers, and our advisors to campaign for peace, justice and sustainable economies in the Americas. We will continue to host speaker tours, conferences, human rights reports, participate in nonviolent direct actions, organize policy actions, provide human rights accompaniment, offer delegations to Colombia, Honduras, and Cuba, and build this amazing transnational movement that we are all a part of.
We look forward to moving down this new path with you, growing as a collective and a movement rooted in Witness for Peace's powerful legacy and driven by the creative movements and emergent strategies of today.