Restoring power to the people.
Power is the ability to have one’s will carried out despite the resistance of others. — Max Weber
We Are The Ones to create the world in which we want to grow, live, and thrive.
To do so, we are working to reform policies and remove legislative barriers, enable community members to define what success is for them and hold accountable institutions that claim to act on their behalf, and develop economic enterprises that fairly compensate workers, and share and build wealth.
Policy
We create an enabling environment to address community-defined, shared priorities in a manner that fully reflects the aspirations of the community.
Our process involves working with community residents to determine the conditions needed to improve their quality of life and then develop policies and legislation that facilitates those conditions.
We practice participatory democracy in which the people develop policies and hold accountable the institutions charged with implementing those policies.
Accountability
Assessing the success of projects implemented by institutions, non-profit organizations, and government officials and entities based on the community’s criteria is how meaningful change is accomplished.
We work with people to formalize shared community priorities and pair those priorities with accountability assessments to understand the actual impact on community members’ day to day lives. Our focus is on cultivating tools of self determination (scorecards) to be used by the community to measure success on the community’s terms.
We can also review previous and in-process projects by understanding what resources and information has been collected, how and where resources and monies have been spent, and whether these efforts satisfy specific criteria / provide demonstrable benefits to the community based on the communities perspective as stakeholders.
Economy
We are working on developing a solidarity economy that focuses on Economic Sustainability, Economic Inclusion, Equitable Labor Force Participation, Business Support Service, Equitable Development Environment, Quality of Life, Cooperative Economic Leadership and Cooperation.
Our work develops repeatable and scalable instances of community resilience through community wealth building (communal asset creation, acquisition and development) in Black communities. We are creating a solidarity economy that connects individual interest to collective need and interest through the dynamics of reciprocity and solidarity.
Through Policy Development and Advocacy, Cooperative Enterprise Development, and Community Based Participatory Outcomes Measurement, we pursue the creation of a solidarity economy learning.
“Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
— Frederick Douglass
The Time is Now
Contact
Identified a policy that is impeding people’s progress or holding them down? Wanting transparency and accountability for a project or activities that are supposed to benefit your community? Unable to find employment that pays a living wage? Or simply want to be the change.
Contact us.
Email
info@wearetheoneshtx.org
Phone
(281) 694-5434