A while ago, Sarah Maria reached out to BRED and a few Baltimore cooperatives, asking if they could interview us for a film about cooperatives. The resulting documentary is available now on YouTube, and it is fantastic. Thank you to Sarah for shooting a film about worker cooperatives and the benefits to the workers and to the communities that surround these businesses.
Tag: BRED
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August Solidarity Breakfast Series at Red Emma’s
Join the Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy for a breakfast series exploring the amazing solidarity economy enterprises that are black-led, Black-centered, and putting people, ecology, and justice before private profit. Please register for free HERE
Our featured speaker for August is Rafiki Antarah Kabila. Rafiki is a community organizer and educator with the Black August Organizing Committee (BAOC) and George Jackson University (GJU). GJU is a prison-based liberation education initiative working to transform the U.S. Prison-Industrial Complex into the largest educational institution for New Afrikan people, offering Afro-centric studies, political education, and correspondence courses to incarcerated citizens to replace criminal mentality with collective consciousness.
Through the BAOC, Kabila advances political and cultural education across New Afrikan communities, strengthening the culture of resistance and nation-building. His work intersects with key community development initiatives including the Autonomous Infrastructure Mission (AIM) encompassing sustainable agriculture communes (SAC), youth action programs, cooperative economics, math and science centers, community safe-zones, and emergency response networks.
Grounded in collective work and responsibility, Kabila believes New Afrikan people must organize to meet their own basic needs. As he affirms: No one will rescue us from our national oppression but us.
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Reflections From BRED’s 2023 Apprenticeship And Academy Programs
On Friday, December 15th, participants in our apprenticeship and academy programs met in the Baltimore Free School to reflect on how it went and what the next round could look like. These two programs were headlined by BRED members Trish and Jim, and have been taking place in person and virtually since July. Trish and Jim facilitated the final meeting for the cohorts full of reflection, feedback, and future planning.
The group invited other BRED members to attend the meeting, and we thought we’d share some takeaways. Overall, these programs had a positive impact, and everyone seemed to enjoy learning, sharing, visiting co-ops in New York, and expanding their co-op knowledge. Other things the cohorts loved were:
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The stipend provided to the participants was much needed and appreciated by everyone.
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The flexibility of having online and in-person meetings.
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seeing so many different size co-ops
Several people agreed that they wished the programs lasted longer.
Moving forward there is a plan to explore things like a final project, communication between participants about their co-op events, co-op visits, a weekly email and so much more. Congratulations to the 2023 Apprenticeship and Academy cohorts.
2023 BRED Apprenticeship and Academy -