The Process

Our Next Steps: Racial Equity-focused Organizational & Regional Transformation Work

December 2022

In case you missed previous announcements, we sadly had to cancel our 2022 It Takes a Region conference. We will definitely miss our in-person gathering this Fall, but NESAWG will be reaching out to you in various ways as we dive deeper into our commitment to the region.

  • We are committed to the Northeast region and to bringing about a farm and food systems change that will continue to be inspired by our ITAR 2022 conference theme: A Farm and Food Systems Change Rooted in Love.
  • We are committed to honoring and upholding the sovereignty and inherent leadership of Tribal Nations aboriginal to Turtle Island.
  • We are committed to lifting and centering voices of color. 
  • We are committed to centering equity and justice as core values to inform our collective efforts.

To better understand how the absence of equity and justice plays out in the farm and food system today, and how we can recognize it, challenge it, and move toward a more just and equitable food system for ALL, NESAWG will be going through internal reflection, dialogue, critical analysis, and restructuring processes at an organizational level using the Freirean approach¹ of “To See, To Analyze, To Act” that was shared earlier this year.

We will also be reaching out to the larger NESAWG community to hold conversations at both local and regional levels. To start, our focus will be to launch the first phase of a long-term farm/food system transformation. This phase 1 will consist of a deep Landscape Assessment of the Northeast region acknowledging that this work will take place on unceded territory, and honoring the protocol of Tribal Nations aboriginal to this land. This Landscape Assessment will be conducted in the Four Directions:

  1. Community Needs & Priorities 
  2. Community Challenges & Barriers 
  3. Skills Assessment
  4. Resource Assessment

We see this as a slow, steady deliberate process, in which we will be both challenged and inspired, and we look forward to engaging in it with you.