Welcome to We Rise: Movement Building Reimagined!
We Rise was created by Movement Builders for Movement Builders. Drawing on JASS’ work with women leaders, activists and organizations in a range of countries and contexts, we take you behind the scenes to learn from these activists and their movements. By making the dynamic nature of movement building visible and accessible, we hope to encourage and strengthen movement builders everywhere.
We Rise is a Resource For Anyone Who Wants to Change the World. You will learn from living movement building stories, the strategic choices on which they are built, and hear the voices of those involved. You can download tools and related material for use in your own work wherever you are and whatever your needs.
Cycles of Movement Building
The Cycles of Movement Building is a framework for movement builders - both experienced and new – who want to learn more about the how-to’s of movement building.
As you explore each Cycle - Rising Up, Building Up, Standing Up and Shaking Up - you will find key ideas, helpful tools you can add to your Toolkit and activist conversations to help you think about how to strategically meet the moment.
Are you just starting out or in the heat of Shaking Up? Are you ready to take bold action or are you Building Up or regrouping? What challenges and choices are you facing in your context? What change do you want to make? Have you thought about risks and safety?
No matter where you are in your movement building journey, there is something here for you. You can use these helpful questions to get started.
We Rise: By and For Movement Builders
We Rise weaves together stories, tools and ideas from the experiences and insights of women at the forefront of change to provide in-depth learning about movement building. Explore the site: you can see and collect popular education tools in your own personal toolbox, click through a real movement building journey full of strategic insights, and you can learn more about cycles and different aspects of movement building. Find out how We Rise can support you in building your movement.
Tool Kit
Tools We Need for the Movements We’re Building
The We Rise Toolkit puts movement building tools in your hands.
Here’s how it works: As you explore We Rise - the Movement Building Journeys, the Cycles of Movement Building and Key Ideas - you will see Toolkit icons. Click on any icon to view a summary of a popular education tool, and if you like it, add it to your personal We Rise Toolkit.
Need help with a specific challenge? You can browse and download “tool packs” by topic. Or search for a specific tool.
You can access your We Rise Toolkit any time to find the tools you have added. You can download them and you can share them with others. And you can always remove tools that are no longer relevant and add more.
Find out how to build and share your Toolkit now!
JASS & Movement Building
Transformative Ideas for Transformative Movements
Movement building—the effort to build and amplify the collective power of women and other marginalized people—is at the heart of JASS’ work. We equip and accompany activists around the world to be more strategic, effective and safer as they tackle challenges and opportunities in their own contexts. We draw inspiration from many movements and anchor our work in the power and politics of specific ideas and practices.
Movement Building Journeys
We believe that the change people want, comes from the movements they build. Movements are the way that people build sufficient collective power to create solutions, gain accountability and protect their rights, freedom and resources. Yet movements for social change can seem mysterious, as if they sprung out of “thin air”. Where do they come from? How do they grow? In truth, behind every push for justice, freedom, democracy and equality, there are people working together to galvanize the collective power of communities to transform unacceptable realities into desired solutions.
The Movement Building Journeys take you behind the scenes to explore and learn from the real challenges, choices and changes made over time by activists and leaders in three very different places - from HIV-positive women in Malawi, to those fighting to protect democracy, land and life in Honduras, to the young women building a new kind of women’s movement in Southeast Asia. Following our Cycles of Movement Building model, each story moves through different moments—Rising Up, Building Up, Standing Up and Shaking Up—to reveal the evolving and dynamic nature of organizing for change. Within each journey you can experience actual setbacks, detours, break-throughs and impacts made along the way. You will be able to hear the voices of women involved, download tools and methodologies they used and gain insight from their reflections. We hope these inside stories help you strengthen your movement work wherever you are.
We call forth the future in the sense that we make the path by walking. JASS is resilient, creative and persistent in its engagement.