The Womanist Working Collective

The Womanist Working Collective is a Philadelphia-based radical grassroots collective comprised of Black folx of marginalized gender experience (specifically women -trans and cis-, femmes, gender expansive folx), and the youth of the same lived experiences. While this language will never be enough to encapsulate all of the Black folx we center, we want to be clear that we affirm the full breadth of Black gender expansiveness and explicitly reject cissexism.

We raise funds to support our community-based solutions and to provide tangible resources. Our Community of Practice unapologetically centers our Quality of Life and livelihoods. Through our work, we shift the reality and culture of how society holds, supports, protects, and educates our communities while we are simultaneously developing for ourselves the tools and language to thrive against the systemic oppression reinforced by local social determinants impacting us daily. Our ultimate goal is Black Liberation utilizing Womanist Praxis as the vehicle.

Community weaving is the bedrock of all we do. At our height, Community Organizing and Education in everything from self defense to body doubling to ancestral practices welcomed over 300 in General Members and 10-12 as part of the Fellowship Circle (the co-guiding body of Womanist Working Collective). Through the WWC Black Liberation Therapy Fund, a community initiative which has provided over $30,000 in funding towards traditional & radical therapy services, we acknowledge the very real impact external forces have on our lives, livelihoods and Quality of Life. As we work to support the liberation of our communities and comrades in struggle, the need for a redistribution of resources from those with to those without continue to be one of our methods to address systemic inequality. We often find ways for those in immediate need either by connecting them with resources, fundraising with them or creating circumstances for them to get their needs met. WWC’s Safety Net(work) is what we’ve created as the monetary pathway for such circumstances - granting money, (when available) to our community during emergencies, without them having to divulge sensitive or compromising info that is often asked by larger and state-based institutions. Here, we’ve moved over $14,740 of groceries, cash & reciprocal services to Black women, gender expansive folx during the COVID-19 pandemic alone. We’d also joined/co-organized with M.A.S.S (Mutual Aid Solidarity & Support) with just under 25 other BIPOC Philadelphian mutual aid mobilizers, fundraising and distributing nearly $50,000 in cash support.  The newest offering, O ni Owo Solidarity Transfer. is a one year, once monthly paid Guaranteed Income Pilot program born from the data & need seen in the Safety Net(work) that currently supports 3 participants. Lastly, The 2Ubuntu Community Timebank, an online space of Black women, femmes and gender expansive Philadelphian people who offer support to others and accept support for themselves. We've had over 40 members, several partnership organizations, and over 221 hours of mutual support. 

We believe the projects we develop and that you support externally can help change the reality of how Black women, femmes, gender expansive people and the youth of the same lived experiences thrive in this country, and improve material conditions locally.

 

Established in October 2015 as an affinity group on Meetup, we began gathering as likeminded Black women (cis & trans), femmes, and gender expansive people. Responding to our almost immediate growth and increased membership, we sought to shape and expand what had quickly evolved into an intentional Community of Practice centering livelihood and Quality of Life for Black women, femmes and gender expansive folks. Today, we continue building around those needs with feedback from participants, recipients and WWC members to achieve our support & social action goals.

 

We exist to improve Black women, femmes, gender expansive folx and the youth of the same lived experiences'  Quality of Life by dismantling these Interlocking Systems of Oppression, which we’ve identified with the help (read: text/work) of bell hooks, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw and the Combahee River Collective as the Imperialist White Supremacist Capitalist CisHeteroPatriarchy. Through our work, we shift the reality and culture of how society holds, supports, protects, funds, heals and educates Black women, femmes gender expansive folx, and youth of the same lived experiences, while we’re simultaneously developing for ourselves the tools and language to thrive against these interlocking systemic oppression reinforced by the local social determinants impacting us daily (i.e. Neocolonialism's Gentrification, Capitalism's poverty, White Supremacy's Racism, Cissexism's Transphobia, Heterosexism's Homophobia, Patriarchy's Misogynoir.

Black women often know exactly what it is we need, yet we are rarely asked or listened to due to racism, sexism, classism, colonialism, cissexism, heterosexism, ableism and a variety of other factors informed by various systems of oppression which hinder our self-determination and quality of life. The convergence of these products of power and domination in our communities lead to social determinants such as our disproportionate mental and physical health disparities, gentrification/displacement, sex trafficking, interpersonal violence, abductions, sexual assault, police brutality, murders, workplace discrimination and Push-Out, unemployment and more. So we continue to build informed, participatory and grassroots community solutions to the issues Black women, femmes, and gender expansive people and youth are facing in our neighborhoods, led by us and for us. Focusing on the community allows us to share resistance, organizing and mobilizing strategies where they’re most needed to have a real impact on our material reality.