We are currently in the Empathize Phase of our Liberatory Design process.

Our last few meetings have been spent familiarizing ourselves with the BIPoC Demands. It’s been fascinating to hear how everyone interprets the Demands and what their questions are related to the original intent behind them. This process is also giving all of us a good sense of what Demands need to be taken up by the committees and which ones are already seeded in other parts of the organization. For example “antiracist development” was a demand presented by our BIPoC staff and even prior to the Demands being shared, our Development team was working on this. In our opinion, it seems like this effort should stay within Development and also, we should be formalizing some way for RJI members to give feedback on what is being created. 

To help us prioritize which Demands we want to run through the liberatory design process this summer, we will be sending out a survey to get feedback from our “closest community members” meaning our contracted staff, residents, community curators, Youth, Industries, Board members.