We help workers understand the policies that have created the problems that they face every day.

Our Economics for Everyone Workshops document inequality and offer partner organizations and community members the opportunity to collectively and democratically develop political analysis.

Using popular education — with healing justice and language justice tools — we facilitate trainings for movement leaders. We’re working to live our values as a movement support organization, and we’re reimagining ways to think about the economy and our connection to it. In our trainings and workshops, we share accessible tools and participatory activities that foster understanding and shared critical reflection about the ways our economy is structured. Using participants’ own experiences as the starting point, we build shared analysis to support collective action for change and grow our movements.

What is Popular Education?

Popular education is a unique alternative to traditional classroom education methods. Rather than sitting through lectures and writing assignments, popular education workshops engage participants in a more democratic and cooperative conversation based on personal experiences. Popular education is openly political, and popular educators see the learners as powerful people who can change the social conditions that surround them. With popular education, ordinary people define their own problems and apply the lessons of past political successes and failures to their own situation.

Popular Education & Economic Justice

We believe that popular education is a critically important tool for base-building in the economic justice movement. It is an effective approach to raising the consciousness of those most impacted by economic inequality and empowering these individuals towards action. In short, popular education helps with movement-building to support the greater democratic social movement.

Why Healing Justice and Cultural Organizing?

Healing Justice and Cultural Organizing are some of the tools we use to create inclusive spaces that reflect the world we're building.

Too often, building a fair economy is treated as separate from the well-being of those who lead the way. Our popular economic education model is informed with a healing justice framework which includes tools and practices to create spaces for learning and action where participants bring their whole selves. Our practice toolkit includes circle work—to increase accountability, empathy, and connection—breathing, visioning, guided meditation, and space for cultural/spiritual traditions.

This work integrates naturally with popular education — both approaches provide alternatives to head-centric learning, engaging people in their hearts and bodies in this work of personal and social transformation, and both develop our capacity to see systemic causes of the challenges we face and take action for change. Our long-term goal is to see more frequent and meaningful use of popular education, cultural organizing and healing justice in movement spaces.

Transforming our individual and collective traumas into a deep capacity to heal, educate and liberate ourselves is work that must be done internally and externally. We need to nurture ourselves and communities into different ways of being alone and of being in collective. We strive to support the opportunities that exist for critical reflection and radical vulnerability in the movement for economic justice.

Why Language Justice?

UFE is a movement leader committed to language justice, creating multilingual spaces to learn and build together as an essential part of working for racial and economic justice. We use simultaneous two-way interpretation (Spanish and English), for which all participants who are not bilingual in these languages wear headsets, to be more inclusive and democratic. Initially the headsets are met with some resistance, but participants continue to report that the experience is transformational.

We provide education tools for base-building in the economic justice movement.

We believe that popular education is a critically important tool for base-building in the economic justice movement. It is an effective approach to raising the consciousness of those most impacted by economic inequality and empowering these individuals towards action. In short, popular education helps with building and sustaining a broad-based social movement. We are supporting. . .

Movement leaders to build nurturing organizations and care practices that strengthen our communities and movements.
National and local work to lift up, strengthen, and coordinate immigrant community-based struggles for dignity and well-being.
Low-wage workers organizing for dignity, respect, and fair wages.
Statewide campaigns for fairer state revenue systems.
Educators doing social justice work in public schools.
Community members building infrastructure to practice transformative justice in response to harm
And so much more!!!

Learn more about our recent Popular Education, Healing Justice, and Language Justice work:

> Spring 2022 Training of Trainers

> Facilitating at the United Association of Labor Educators 2022 Summer School

> Workshop Series with Action for Equity in Dorchester, MA