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At Side By Side we are particularly hopeful about the commitment of this generation of young people to work for a better world. And after twenty years of experience in the field, we now work almost exclusively with groups of high school and college age youth from all corners of the U.S. and abroad. We share their determination to speak with honesty, their willingness to take responsibility for change and their passion for community.
Side By Side appreciates young people and their commitment to work for a better world.
We share their determination to speak with honesty, their willingness
to take responsibility for change, and their passion for community.
We embrace their hopeful vision of campus communities that are truly welcoming of diversity.
Side By Side is committed to working with diverse groups of young people in many different settings. We are particularly skilled at leading the 1Campus!™, Ubuntu=The Power of Community™, Organizing to Defeat Racism™ and Students Leading Change™ workshops, as well as facilitating retreats, conferences, in-class lectures and keynote addresses. We conduct campus climate assessments and evaluations and are often called upon to advise student groups and administrators on community building strategies for resolving campus conflict.
What We’ve Learned
- Community is key: there are practical and replicable skills, attitudes and strategies that help us create open and just campus communities.
- Recognizing the ingrained attitudes, misconceptions and misinformation we have about others is critical to the work.
- Community building begins with taking responsibility for our prejudices and biases and the way these have structured our communities.
- Policies, practices and organizational structures convey our struggle with building diverse communities and must be focused on for real change to happen.
- Being a part of a diverse group or campus does not automatically make you an effective community-builder.
- Community building is intentional work grounded in honest and effective dialogue, and culminating in positive action.
- Community-building is a leadership skill.
- Community building is the antidote for divisiveness and conflict.
- Community building allows groups to deal with the past and the present with honesty and integrity.
- Community building work is not complete until there is commitment to change - on an individual as well as institutional level - and the policies and practices to get us there!
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