Jefferson Center Strategies Jefferson Center programs are built on four over-arching strategies or approaches: popular education, participatory research, multicultural, working on multiple levels and in multiple arenas. Popular Education People, regardless of their formal education, acquire complex and detailed knowledge of their communities and workplaces based on their own experiences. Popular education values this and other ways of knowing, and sees learning as a process—a collective construction of knowledge—based on a dialogue between different forms of knowing, in which low-income workers play a pivotal role. Popular education begins with people telling their stories, sharing their experiences and histories. Comparing these stories with those of their peers, and reflecting on their experiences within the broader societal and structural context, workers develop their own critical analysis of their reality. Simultaneously, they are developing the analytical and communication tools necessary to be actors in the transformation of their communities – and towards a more just and equitable society. This worker-led, start-from-experience approach is essential when working with highly vulnerable, distrustful communities who question their ability to contribute to public policy change and have long-been excluded from, or worse, used as tokens in the conversations and decision-making bodies that directly affect them. In this sense, popular education is a political act – and a highly democratic one. It responds to the needs and interests of marginalized populations, and encourages them to reclaim and revalue their knowledge and their right to participate in all arenas of civil society and decision-making. This approach is slow, but it works. It puts “legs” on community efforts, and these “legs” are what will sustain worker participation over the long term. Participatory Research Similar to popular education, participatory research puts the needs, interests and engagement of the community at the center of any research process. In contrast, traditional research often involves an outside academic coming into a community to collect data from or about research “subjects.” Such research may be done over a relatively short period and findings are rarely shared with community members. If findings are shared, they may be written or presented in an inaccessible manner. Generally, an article is published in an academic journal by the researcher, contributing to his or her professional gain. Participatory research, on the other hand, seeks to recognize and engage community members as crucial contributors in each stage of the research process. Research questions are useful to and decided in collaboration with the community; research methods emphasize building trust and cooperation among participants, and findings are shared in ways that are understandable and relevant to the communities involved. The Jefferson Center strives to engage with communities in participatory research so that rural people can identify the information they need, better understand the processes they are involved in, further their collective goals, and improve their quality of life. Multicultural Work The Jefferson Center is one of the few organizations in the region with a history of working multiculturally, bringing together low-income workers of different cultures and backgrounds to learn and act together. We have and will probably always struggle with how to work more effectively and respectfully in a multicultural arena. Nonetheless, there are several key things we have learned about multicultural work: • Facilitating Communication across Language Barriers Crucial to building relationships across racial and cultural lines is the ability of people to communicate with each other. Providing simultaneous interpretation in the native languages of all program participants helps “equalize” inequalities in participation that result when preference is given to the dominant language. Publishing all program documents in appropriate languages has also proven essential to enabling the participation of the most marginalized sets of low-income workers in the region. • Emphasizing Common Ground but acknowledging tensions and respecting differences. We look for common problems among rural, low-income contingent workers across cultural or ethnic lines that can serve as the motivation and thread that ties together conversations. Integral to these multicultural dialogues is the process by which people analyze both common interests and how hierarchies of class and race play out in their workplaces and in their communities • Valuing Cultural Identity Culture shapes identity, as it does patterns and styles of communication, ways communities make decisions, and how people see themselves within their workplace and the world. Incorporated into the popular education process is the sharing of cultural histories and traditions; understanding one’s own culture and that of others. Trying each other’s food. Singing each other’s songs. • Bicultural/Bilingual Staff This is a challenge that needs to be better met. A major impediment is the lack of appeal of NGO-based natural resource issues to the yet-small cohort of bicultural/bilingual populations committed to working for social change. The natural resource community has a great deal of work to do to help make this a sought-after career option. Working on Multiple Levels, in Multiple Arenas In the same way that popular education values different forms of knowledge and sees each of them necessary for a more complete vision of reality, we believe it is necessary and imperative that a variety of groups work on different levels and with different approaches and tactics in addressing similar structural problems and inequalities. The Jefferson Center is unique in that it doesn’t fit squarely into any one arena, but rather is in communication with actors working across the spectrum, including individual community members, community-based organizations, academics, legal advocates, small social justice groups, large NGOs, governmental agencies, etc. We serve as a node for networking among and across these different sectors, facilitating communication between groups that normally don’t have the chance to hear what each other are thinking or doing. In past program work, this has meant serving as a bridge between: • Low-wage, natural resource workers from different cultures & communities in   the region. • Grassroots communities & mid-level organizations, activism and dialogues. (Only   as individual workers or communities of workers make informed decisions about   how and with whom they want to become involved.) • Community forestry and natural resources focused organizations & mid-level   groups looking at issues of immigration and contingent labor. • Rural & urban communities and social justice organizations. • People, practice & policy. • Multiple perspectives/ topics
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