Emerging ChangeMakers Network is an organization dedicated to research, community-programs, training and leadership development. The organization is often thought of as a talent scout for the social justice community because it finds up and coming leadership and connects them to issues, ideas, people and organizations that can make a significant impact in traditionally marginalized communities.
Contents |
Following Hurricane Katrina, Jessica Norwood was tapped to do a leadership capacity scan in Alabama with the Center for Social Inclusion called Triumph Over Tragedy[1]. Her insight from that work led to the founding of the Emerging Changemakers Network in 2007. Born out of a research project conducted around leadership capacity building, Emerging ChangeMakers Network was founded to address the strong need to re-imagine how native professional talent and native emerging activist leadership was uplifted.
The Emerging ChangeMakers Network is a connection of emerging leaders who believe in a core set of values and principles that lead them to create actions of compassion, equality and justice on behalf of communities that have been historically disenfranchised due to race, class, gender, nationality and/or immigration status.
The ECN constituency includes individuals from various professional backgrounds and economic classes that have a committed relationship to traditionally marginalized communities. However most have a college education and are mainly under the age of 40.
The ECN constituency lives in mostly rural and mid-sized cities and are concentrated in the Deep South with members in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, Texas, Florida Pan-handle, South Carolina and Louisiana however The ECN networks boats emerging leaders in the California, DC, Chicago, Philadelphia, Oakland and New York.
Outreach There are sets of values and principles that help the Network identify potential members around that we believe is the foundation of a healthy community and are intrinsic among Emerging ChangeMakers.
Following Hurricane Katrina members of The ECN network joined together to support the efforts of Saving The ECN Selves and Katrina on the Ground by hosting 400 college students in Mobile, Alabama who had donated their spring breaks to rebuild the gulf coast. Providing food, housing and connecting the college students to residents that needed assistance gave the program the needed infrastructure and led them to carry out their mission. Highlighted in Newsweek, People, and Crisis magazines, and television coverage on Black Entertainment Television (BET) this on the ground effort allowed us to connect to other up an coming leaders and strengthen The ECN capacity to reach communities that had been left The ECN of the rebuilding and recovery process.
The Network, in partnership with Moving Forward Gulf Coast[2] and the 10th Anniversary of V-Day brought together 1,200 low-income, women of color from 7 states of the 2005 Hurricane Diaspora to be apart of a weekend long healing, information sharing, support and action oriented community. Mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and grandmothers: these are the true unsung heroines of hurricanes Katrina and Rita were the women who nurtured and cared for their loved ones and communities in a natural and man-made disaster, and continue to survive the ongoing trauma of recovery unequalled in The ECN nation’s history.
The Selma Leadership Summit is an annual meeting that is held in Selma, Alabama on the backdrop of the Jubilee Bridge Crossing Celebration's re-enactment of the "Bloody Sunday" march from Selma to Montgomery. This summit is an invitation only event for an average of 40 leaders from the network. This group of people is invited by the leadership team to come and discuss the state of affairs in their community and set the strategic agenda for the following year.
The Network is in the process of developing a study with the Hiphop Archive[4] at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute of Harvard University and Victor Thompson, PhD Candidate at Stanford University to look at emerging leaders, mainly college age, who volunteered their time on the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The ECN goal is to release a report that highlights the stories of these young responders for the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Non-partasian video advocacy tool used to document voter injustice and general voter experiences. Partnership with PBS and You Tube. Changemakers received free video cameras in exchange for their participation.