Here's a short glossary of frequently used terms in organizing spaces that you can use to jump-start your journey into community activism. Whether you're a seasoned organizer or just dipping your toes into the waters of issues on your school campus, familiarizing yourself with these terms will empower you to communicate more effectively, foster deeper connections, and navigate the intricacies of community organizing. Nos fuimos!

Action Plan/Strategy:
The "game plan" that outlines the steps (tactics) your chapter will take to accomplish your local issue.

Activism:
taking action to effect social change.

Advocate: to speak on behalf of others who are unable to represent their own interest due to disability, inherent complexity of the venue such as courts and hospitals, or other factors.

Allies: The people who support your issue but may not necessarily join your group. Allies may be policy makers, individuals or community organizations.

Base: the people from the constituency that an organization can readily mobilize for events, actions and meetings although they may not be formal members.

Campaign: Your overall effort to make change on an issue. A series of connected activities, each of which builds the strength of the organization and brings it closer to "winning" what you are fighting for.

Constituency: a group or class served by an organization or institution, specifically the people impacted by the issues that the organization works. This can also be thought of as an organizations' potential base or as the "community" to be organized.

Decision maker: the person or body within an organization with the power to make the decision to change a policy or practice; sometimes also referred to as the target.

Direct service: Supply basic services to people who need them specific to their social, economic and cultural background often to meet basic needs such as food, health care, etc.

Durable power:
ability to influence key decision-makers on a range of issues over time.

Faith-based: affiliated with or based on religion or a religious group. In community organizing refers to developing power and relationships mostly through congregations that can promote an "issue".

Fundraising: activity done to collect money or there resources.

Goal: What you decide you want to achieve.

Grassroots: people at a local or low level rather than at the center or upper levels of an organization or movement; associated with bottom-up, rather than top-down decision making, and is sometimes considered more natural or spontaneous than more traditional power structures. In community organizing refers to using the people as the basis for a political or economic movement.

Institution: A deeply rooted and significant practice or organization in a community. A system or practice that seems permanent and like it has always existed.

Leader: a member of an organization who takes initiative in analyzing problems and thinking through solutions, gains the loyalty and trust of other members of the organization and shows commitment by being actively involved in the planning and execution of campaigns.

Legal action: the process of using a lawyer or the court system to effect social change, examples include arbitration, mediation and lawsuits among others.

Member: a person who is part of the organization' constituency who meets the organizations' criteria for membership (e.g. pays dues, completes organizational orientation, participates in actions or activities).

Mobilizing: to prepare and organize for action; get together to effect a specific social change.

Opponents: The people who stand in the way of the goal you want to achieve. They may or may not be people who have the authority to make the change, but they are people who like things the way they are, are scared of change, or who will be upset or lose something if you achieve your goal.

Organizer: a person who is responsible for ensuring the growth of the organization by developing members to lead the process of building the base, developing campaigns and build the organization.

Policy Recommendation: Outlines how you want your target to address the issue your organization has identified as a problem, and clearly identifies a solution to the problem.

Political: exercising or seeking power in the governmental or public affairs of a state, taking a position or having influence on specific bills and policy.

Power: the ability to act; actions that engage with and influence groups; sources of power in a democracy include position, organized money and organized people.

Protest: actions usually (but not always) undertaken by those who lack access to resources or whose values conflict with the dominant elite to force powerful groups to respond to demands.

Self interest: a concern for one's own advantage and well-being.

Social Movement Building: encompasses diverse collections of individual activists, local and national organizations, advocacy groups, multiple spokespersons, and more, held together by relatively common aims but not a common organizational structure.

Stakeholder: The people who will be affected by your issue and have an interest in the outcome. This could include youth, policy makers, service providers, caregivers, etc. and your constituents. Stakeholders can be allies, opponents or targets.

Tactics: The steps you will take to complete your action plan and accomplish your goal.

In February I'll be back in the skies headed to Havana, where I will participate in a delegation with Solidarity Collective to learn about Pan Africanism in the Cuban context. Some questions we will be exploring during this delegation are:

How do Cubans, in a Black-majority country, approach environmental protection, religion, housing rights, and healthcare?

What is the role of historic and contemporary abolitionist practices in their quest to eradicate racism?

What challenges remain to build an equitable society, especially under the yoke of 60 years of the u.s. Blockade?

What do these lessons mean for the struggle for black liberation in the u.s.?

I've dreamed about the next time I would visit Cuba and how I would track down the friends I made there in 2017. At that time, the government controlled access to internet via these cards that you would purchase then redeem on your device for timed access. The idea was that you would take your Wi-Fi card and head to a communal place like La Plaza with your device to access the Internet with others.

While some north americans might find that kind of Internet access draconian, surfing the web in public like that made me value my time on the Internet more. Has this changed since I was last there? I am personally interested in how groups are leveraging tech and the Internet for education and organizing. I now have a solid couple of years of IT/programming education to reference while I meet with teachers and journalists at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and hear about the right to free education from daycare through university and literacy campaigns. I wonder if they've heard about decentralized social media protocols like Nostr or Activitypub or if they ever experienced censorship from the authorities on the Internet.

I recently experienced censorship in the YouTube comments as I explained to fellow web surfers why we must include Vieques and the other islands in the archipelago when talking about Puerto Rico politically. My ability to comment was restricted as I tried to convince others who talked down on Haiti and Cuba as failed states to instead take my Pan Caribbean perspective. I really enjoyed Dread's talk at Nostrasia 2023 about how he is using Bitcoin and Nostr to bring the islands together as the US Dollar and financial institutions like Western Union and the IMF keep us divided and oppressed.

The more I learn about Bitcoin as a tool for global wealth distribution, the more I understand how these institutions rob youth and families of basic necessities and facilitate the rise of authoritarian regimes and systems that punish journalists and activists through political repression. The corporate ownership of our means of internet communication by the likes of technocrats like Musk and Zuckerberg won't let authentic conversation between Caribbean-based diaspora happen on their platforms while they get to destroy countries like Myanmar and shape public discourse to their whim. That's why I'm glad I found Nostr.

My personal blog currently lives on my Uberspace asteroid in a Bludit instance that lacks much functionality outside of themes and data analytics, so it's just sits there as a personal repo for my thoughts. Nostr provides all of this with a direct link to my Bitcoin wallet address and comment functionality. If people value my content, I can get "zapped" and earn money for my content. I can now engage with my audience directly without a middle man. No Substack, no moderators censoring my messages, just community. The job now is to bridge my community and this new way of socializing on the Internet.

To help make this as educational of an experience as possible, I ask my audience: What questions or feedback do you have about my trip and the types of questions I want to explore? Is there anything you've ever wondered about Cuba? What suggestions do you have in terms of how I can better present information; written word, audio interviews, video, or photo essays?

Leave me some love in the comments and stay tuned!