Convenings

“We can use these skills [learned at Third Wave’s convenings] to evaluate where we are currently and where we want to be. They will be incorporated into our strategic plan and our future policy and procedures.” – La’Tasha Mayes, New Voices Pittsburgh

Convenings of grant partner organizations are opportunities that Third Wave provides to foster strategic thinking and movement building. It is a major component of the Reproductive Health and Justice Initiative because we believe it is imperative that funders provide resources and make space for grant partners to link up and collaborate.

Board members, staff and volunteers – young people of color between ages of 15 and 30 – from our grant partner organizations come together to develop a collaborative, national strategy for the short and long term future. To date, the RHJI has held 7 convenings to provide grassroots organizations with skills trainings and space for peer exchange and strategy development. Each convening plays a specific role in the relationship-building and movement-building process.

Most recently, organizations met in October of 2007 to engage funders in a dialogue about how to best support their movements, formalize the national network they launched a year ago, and create action plans for 2008 – including a National Week of Action for Reproductive Justice that will take place the week of April 16 through 23! This convening built on the extensive planning from a July Working Group meeting, also facilitated by Third Wave.

In August and April of 2007, Third Wave held two regional trainings for RHJI organizations on legislative advocacy, successful management of staff transitions, and transgender people’s rights.

At the third convening in October of 2006, organizations chose to form a national network devoted to advancing reproductive justice and came together to start concrete work to share information, coordinate work, and integrate the ideas of the six new grant partners of the RHJI.

The second convening in September of 2005 focused on developing shared language about reproductive justice and beginning to iron out a vision for the role of young women and transgender youth in the Reproductive Justice movement.

The initial convening in January 2005 focused on relationship-building: identifying shared values and discussing challenges facing the reproductive justice movement.