Speak Your Truth is a community-based, multi-media life history and storytelling project that uses a socio-political and economic popular education model of leadership development and community organizing. Our aim is to train organizers to join in the movement for human liberation and an end to all forms of oppression.

On the Margins and in the Lead

A core group of young people will lead Speak Your Truth projects in communities throughout North Carolina, especially in marginalized parts of the state such as rural areas and poorer neighborhoods. Community leaders of Speak Your Truth will be young folks also on the margins in some way—those who don't usually have access to the benefits of privilege—be it money, maleness, white skin, healthy urban communities, decent housing, having a specific religious belief—especially a Christian or Protestant one, reliable transportation, no trauma from violence, decision-making power, the ability to speak English, quality education, heterosexuality, able-bodiedness, or sufficient basic resources.

Young people will become storycatchers and community-builders through popular education trainings, research and cultural analysis, and the transfer of interviewing, transcribing and other audio-documentary skills. They will record interviews of community members, then design and lead local participatory events about storytelling as a tool for social transformation.

Ella Baker, a humble warrior for civil rights, said strong people don't need strong leaders; they need the skills, information and opportunity to lead themselves. With this principle at its core, Speak Your Truth organizing institutes train and develop a cadre of skilled young, multi-racial community organizers in marginalized, low-income communities in North Carolina. The goal is for young community organizers to develop and carry out local issue campaigns with their community members that address root causes of inequity and oppression and to build strong relationships and collaborations with other disenfranchised communities in the state.

Speak Your Truth Grounding Principles

1. Speak Your Truth	· Begin with where people are · Share individual stories · Learn “deep listening” · Learn basics of authentic dialogue · Listen for understanding, empathy, and compassion
2. Deepen Analysis, Gain New Knowledge, Engage with Theories of Social Change & Liberation	· Use social analysis tools to help youth connect their experience to a broader social & political context
3. Bring Your Full Self: Body, Mind & Soul	· Exercise your non-verbal skills in the learning process · Bring your art, theater, dance, music, song, poetry, humor and sense of style to the work
4. Develop Your Humanity	· Bring an open sensibility to discussion and work · Learn about and connect with other cultures
5. Confront Oppression and Privilege	· Understand and address the contradictions of race, class, gender, sexual orientation and gender expression, and other issues of privilege, oppression, and power
6. Community Organizing for Social Justice	· Experiment with liberatory forms of teaching/learning partnership · Develop basic skills for community organizing · Learn ABC’s of grassroots leadership, identifying issues, skills and talents, developing other leaders and taking action · Learn social change strategy and movement building
7. ADROA	· Analyze, Dialogue, Reflect, Organize, Act. Repeat.
8. Be an Heir to a Fighting Tradition	· Learn what it takes to carry on the work with energy and enthusiasm for the long haul · On-going annual leadership development reunions

Compiled from conversations with Heirs Project advisors and planners and adapted from basic tenants of popular education, specifically Larry Old’s “Planning Educational Activities with Eight Overlapping and Interlocking Popular Education Principles.

Contact us to see how you can help: organize@heirsproject.org

We need your financial support to make this happen. Please make a donation today!