Political Education

The Philadelphia Student Union's Building A youth Movement (BAYM) Leadership Institute is happening again this summer! Every summer, high-school age young people from all over Philadelphia are invited to join Philly Student Union's youth leaders for a week of leadership, creativity and fun.

Organizing Upgrade, a website devoted to "open strategic dialogue between left leaders from the field of community organizing," has an essay from long time Philadelphia organizer Willie Baptist. 

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Any approach to social change, organizing and leadership development has to be based on your assessment of the situation and of the problem.  If you have one assessment or one diagnosis, you’re going to have a particular prescription and a particular approach to the solution. Either we’re dealing with a teddy bear or we’re dealing with a grizzly bear, and either estimate will determine your set of tactics, your organizing approach.  If you think you’re dealing with a teddy bear and in reality it’s a grizzly bear coming at you, you’re going to be in trouble. So this estimate of the situation is absolutely crucial to the process.

Philadelphia Student Union was part of a recent action held by the Effective Teaching for All Children campaign, in front of the School District Building and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) office.

Baltimore March 27th-29th, 2009 An upcoming conference will focus on developing a nationwide strategy to organize for cities that work for people not just for capital. There will be a focus on creating conversations between activists, analysts of the current financial crisis, and academics (and of course those who fit more than one label). As short as the left is on funding for think tanks, this event is aimed at a long standing need. We're particularly excited about one of the organizers United Workers out of Baltimore

The Poverty Initiative, an organization dedicated to "raising up generations of religious and community leaders committed to building a movement led by the poor, to end poverty"