W.A.T.O. End of Year Newsletter
Communication is key.
We Are The Ones Solidarity Cooperative is up to Big Things - activating people power in Third Ward to create the economic conditions and community WE want to SEE. We wanted to share what we’ve been working on with supporters like you who have been engaged with us in one or more ways from our inception.
Here’s what we worked on in 2023.
With our communities:
Supporting the Community and Celebrating Kwanzaa
1. We’ve been engaging Third Ward residents and allies in cooperative and solidarity economy education.
In the winter, we updated our general cooperative education sessions and began hosting semi-regular Introduction to Solidarity Economy sessions that provide an overview of what is happening in Third Ward and how intentionally organizing our actions towards people and collectivism rather than profit and individualism can strengthen our community and the flow of resources within it.
In collaboration with Community Collectives United and the new CLASS Bookstore, we also launched our first round of bi-weekly study circles, digging into the history of African American cooperation in America through Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard’s book Collective Courage. Our first round of sessions started in early spring and concluded late this summer but it’s not too late to join the continued learning and practice circles or join the next round of study! For more information on joining you can email john@wearetheoneshtx.org.
Finally, in the spring, we partnered with Plant It Forward and the Emancipation Economic Development Council to host a special Introduction to Solidarity Economy session, focusing on the role of food and food cooperatives in this movement for economic liberation and connection.
Looking forward, our team is preparing to launch Sankofa circles: community discussion, healing and mutual aid spaces centering healing black trauma and resourcing Third Ward residents through the sharing of material goods as well as ideas. We can’t wait to announce our first one soon!
2. We’ve been working with existing cooperatives to employ Third Ward residents, meet community needs and increase self-determination.
Community Care Cooperative
We’ve developed Third Ward’s, Houston’s and Texas’s first black home care cooperative and the second home care cooperative in the state via the Community Care Cooperative Initially, we trained 12 caregivers and cross-trained 4 workers as community health workers. In partnership with the University of Houston’s Community Health Worker Initiative, Community Care Cooperative also developed several partnerships and completed CHW projects with
University of Texas at El Paso around drinking water filters and
UTHealth Houston as part of the Take Care of Texas initiative around COVID-19.
Recently, the caregiver sector of our business was approved as a Medicaid provider. CCC is in the process of registering with the Texas Department of Health and Human Service and applying to be a STAR Medicaid Managed Care provider through insurance plans offered by Aetna, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and others.
Our Community Health Worker sector is currently working on projects with
University of Houston Community Health Worker Initiative and Harris County to expand the number of CHWs in the workforce and
The Meadows Mental Health Policy Institutes, Hackett Center.
Third Ward Construction Community Builders
We’ve supported the continued development of the 3rd Ward Cooperative Community Builders - a construction worker cooperative focusing primarily on repair, recovery, and remodeling. 3WCCB has done work for:
Emancipation Economic Development Council (at their Elgin location)
Third Ward Jiu Jitsu
Habitat for Humanity - Houston
West Street Recovery Project
Several area churches and Third Ward residents
The construction company specializes in electrical work, but has done everything from kitchen and bathroom remodeling, exterior siding and roofing, and demolition.Currently, it’s working with the Emancipation Economic Development Council on the renovation of the Golden Hobby House building, which the EEDC recently acquired.
Childcare Cooperative
In 2023, we also supported community members in exploring the development of a shared services childcare cooperative. Childcare providers interested in the cooperative model worked through this How To Create a Solidarity Enterprise Manual with us, learning the fundamentals of building and managing a cooperative business. For more information about ongoing childcare cooperative development sessions please reach out to laura@wearetheoneshtx.org.
We welcome anyone interested in learning about the cooperative model and potentially developing a cooperative business to reach out to grace@wearetheoneshtx.org! We will be holding additional learning and development opportunities in the future.
3. We’ve developed resourcing relationships with groups across the nation supporting black cooperation.
In 2021 we were awarded granting through Solidaire- a community of donor organizers mobilizing critical resources to the frontlines of intersectional movements for race, gender and climate justice.Through Solidaire’s Black Liberation Pooled Fund we’ve been able to do all the community facing work mentioned above and some core internal structure work (more on this below)! We renewed another year of support from Solidaire in 2022. Learn more about the Black Liberation Pooled Fund and other recipients here.
At the beginning of 2023, we joined SEED Commons - a national network of locally-rooted, non-extractive loan funds supporting the development of local cooperatives across the nation. We’re excited about the opportunities for cooperative development here as a result of this relationship. If you are interested in starting a cooperative business, please reach out to us!
Lastly, in the realm of resourcing relationships, in the spring the New Economy Coalition approached We Are The Ones to join as a member of their national network of cooperative and solidarity economy developers. This has created access to people, learning spaces and tools across the country geared towards the fight for an economy that centers people over profits.
4. We’ve built relationships and partnerships with organizations that are organizing within the larger movement for a post-capitalist liberatory economy.
A few highlights:
Starting in 2022, we began co-developing the National Association of Black Cooperators - a network of cooperatives and cooperative developers working in and with black communities. The National Association of Black Cooperators (NABC) was formed in October of 2022 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at a convening of thirty-five black cooperators from California, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Texas, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia, with a mission to “Build a Black solidarity economy through:
Grounding ourselves in collective principles and cultural practices
Sustaining cooperative business development
Advancing political education and a policy agenda
Exchanging knowledge
Engaging in intentional community-building.
Since its founding, NABC held a Spring convening in Dayton, Ohio, in March of 2023 and a Fall convening in Washington, DC, in November of 2023. To date, NABC has mobilized some 100 individuals to build the organization's structure, operating systems, and policies by participating in workgroup circles that meet once a month and include Culture and Well-Being, Communication, Membership and Outreach, Political Action, Resources, and Structure. As a founding member of NABC, We Are The Ones Solidarity Cooperative is actively building a social movement that centers Black cooperation and transformation of ourselves, our communities, and our structural conditions as prerequisites for black liberation and self-determination.
Additionally, in 2022 we engaged in a panel discussion on Leveraging Policy for Impactful Change in Black communities hosted by Black Tech Futures Research Institute. In 2023, we also participated in the re-envisioning of the Southern Worker Coop Network alongside the Texas Rural Cooperative Center out of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
On the inside we’ve been self-organizing for impact and a people-led movement:
Working on our bylaws with University of Houston Law Center
1. We’ve been building our internal structure.
We’ve adopted and are utilizing Sociocracy - a peer based governance system based on consent - and additional democratic governance tools in phases to organize our work and practice collective decision making. Our team has been meeting regularly twice a week since 2022 to apply our energies towards internal development as well as communal activation. Finally, starting this past spring, we began defining operational roles and accountabilities and sociocratically electing ourselves into those roles.
Simultaneously, we’ve been working with the University of Houston Law Center to incorporate as a multi-stakeholder cooperative that is owned and supported by a diverse class of members including supporters, worker members, developing cooperatives and mission aligned organizations who are all invested in the economic liberation and self-determination of Third Ward residents. In this process, we’ve also developed our organizational by-laws - defining how the organization runs and the distribution/ decentralization of power!
2. We’ve been building and defining our culture.
At the end of 2022, we held our very first in person team retreat! This in person time gives our team the opportunity to get to know each other better, and build our skills in non-violent communication, storytelling and narrative building. These skills and stories have been foundational in how we approach each other as well as how we approach the continuous development of the organization.
In 2023, our team also defined our collective values - the things that matter to us as founding members - as part of our work to create organizational values that include and also transcend our own. These values serve as an anchor for how we do our work and hold ourselves accountable in caring for each other and the organization. Our collective values are:
Feminine Economics
Self Actualization through Cooperation
Authentic and Empathic Communication
Action and Accountability
If structure is the map, culture is the compass. We are building an organization that’s compass holds us in fidelity and is representative of the type of respect our community holds and deserves.
3. Last but most certainly not least, we’re developing our strategies for all facets of this work.
Much of the work we accomplished last year happened by sheer will, need and organized capacity. However, we know these things are not enough on their own to sustain a long-term movement in which we exercise our ability to make informed choices regularly. As a result, we’ve dedicated much of this next season of our work to strategy.
In the spring of 2023, we defined a frame for our operations that included several core objectives. They are (in order of priority):
Accelerate development of 3 existing cooperatives to first 6 months of consistent profitability
Build an active coalition of 3 or more community based organizations representing housing, education and business development/ economics that collaboratively work towards interconnected measurable community based participatory outcomes
Identify and organize the repeal of policies hindering community land trust home purchasing/ development in Third Ward resulting in a minimum of 5 CLT residences/purchases
Advocate for medium to high feasibility affordable housing policies identified in the ECDP 2017 report: Right to Return, No Net Loss of Affordable Housing Goal, Freeze Tax Payments for Low income Homeowners, and Tax Abatements for Long-term Residents.
Incubate 3 new cooperatives from ideation to first 6 months of full operation/ first loss
Additionally, we established a strategic planning committee to design and steward an organization-led strategic process. We’re excited to have finalized that process in the fall and be in the strategic planning process right now-defining our roles’ and circles’ work for the upcoming year at the speed of trust!
We’ve been able to accomplish so much in the last year but this work is on-going and never ending. We need you; we need us - community members, to activate our power and revitalize our community in ways that are aligned in relationship, interdependence, cooperation and respect for the humanity and liberation of all and especially black people. Join us as a supporter, cooperative worker or organization/ cooperative business. To learn more about opportunities to get involved, email us at info@wearetheoneshtx.org.
We look forward to doing this work with you.
In solidarity,
We Are The Ones Solidarity Cooperative