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Organizing for Community
with Nada Kader, Wilder Nicholson & Alex Jackimovicz
A report about the Westchester Social Forum for mobilizing community engagement and solidarity.
The 2024 Westchester Social Forum, organized by WESPAC Foundation and its Director Nada Khader, was held on April 14th at the Andalusia School in Yonkers, NY. The event opened with a vibrant People's Parade, a land acknowledgment, and a series of engaging social justice workshops focused on the struggle for Palestinian self-determination, Climate Justice, Immigrant Justice, Decarceration, Worker Justice and Cooperatives, and Housing for All.
Dozens of community organizations participated in the forum, tabling to exchange ideas and information, foster solidarity, and celebrate their work to create a more just and equal society. The event included performances by musicians, dancers, and speeches by community leaders, setting the stage for a day of insightful discussions and collaborative learning.
Participants engaged in various workshops, which addressed pressing issues, and provided a space to learn from one another, strengthen local organizing skills, and connect as a community. The social justice forum harnessed the collective power of the participants to build the movement for progressive social change.
Nada Khader, Wilder Nicholson, and Alex Jackimovicz will share their reflections about how community organizing develops meaningful connections and lays an important foundation for movement-building work by leveraging the networking potential of forums and conferences. Discover how these events give space for public engagement on critical issues and the impact of bringing people together to exchange ideas, strengthen relationships, and collectively work toward positive change.
Nada Khader has served as the Director of WESPAC Foundation since 2001. WESPAC was recently recognized by the City of White Plains as a leading force in Westchester County, New York, for peace and justice work for the past five decades. Nada has been a student of Prout, the Progressive Utilization Theory, for more than thirty years. Prout is a vision of a just and peaceful world with an economy that works for all people and is based on local self-reliance, cooperation, guaranteeing all people and living beings the minimum necessities of life and ending poverty.
Wilder Nicholson is a documentary storyteller based in Wabanakik, Maine, and works with nonprofits and cooperatives to share stories of social change. Wilder began directing short documentaries with a Community Matters Grant with Bowdoin College in 2013 and has since worked with community initiatives locally and internationally as an editor, cinematographer, and producer. In 2020 Wilder worked with the Cooperative Development Institute to produce a series of documentaries on employee and member owned businesses in Maine’s local food system. Today he is working to build a media cooperative and organizes permaculture and activist training around Prout, a socioeconomic vision for a new economy serving all.
Alex Jackimovicz is the co-founder of the Alliance for Economic Democracy, and an activist, spiritualist, and small businessman in Boothbay, Maine, who has been involved in various local, state, and national social and economic justice campaigns. He has worked on numerous initiatives connected to the international movement for Prout, for three decades. Alex has worked with the Maine People's Alliance, the Maine Small Business Coalition, and the Maine Fair Trade Campaign. He partners with others to generate connections among those engaged in various spheres of the economic democracy movement organizing. Alex writes and speaks extensively on economic democracy and alternative economics, advocating for a societal shift where community needs, sustainability, and human and environmental well-being take precedence over maximizing profits.
When you register for this event - you will receive the Zoom link in the Registration Confirmation Email and in the reminder announcements in the week prior to the presentation.
Announcements for other scheduled 2024 events will be coming soon.
Feel free to invite your friends to come to this event. They can register at proutalliance.wildapricot.org/events or Events Page - Proutalliance.org/events. Please don't share the Zoom link.