WHAT IS THE SPIRITHOUSE PROJECT?

Incorporated in 2001, SpiritHouse is a social justice organization that brings multi-ethnic people and intergenerational communities together in a process of community formation. Here, they develop the language, knowledge, analysis, community spirit, hindsight, insight, and foresight, and connections to organize, educate, and lead a racial justice movement at home and throughout the nation. In this process of community formation for racial justice, SpiritHouse uses a pedagogy of community building and reaffirmation that draws on cultural and spiritual resources to draw out the power of communities, in order to develop concrete strategies to take their struggle for racial justice to the media, public policy advocates, churches, youth, halls of government, interfaith communities, institutions of higher education, and social networks.

SpiritHouse has a history of successfully bringing disparate people together to discuss issues of common concern. SpiritHouse programs connect social history to current action and programming. As a laboratory for human development and social justice, SpiritHouse serves as an incubator of ideas and activities that serve to build people’s capacities to advocate for themselves.

SpiritHouse operates from the deeply-held belief that racial injustice, all forms of injustice, and violence are social and spiritual diseases that contaminate and dehumanize all of us. This applies to communities in power, as well as communities that are socially and economically dispossessed. Injustice and violence spread a national cancer that eats away at our national unity and potential. As a national nonprofit, we work for a healthy and vibrant nation that has plenty of good room for everyone to use their talents to build up a better society.

What are traits of SpiritHouse as an organization that make it unique?

• Disseminating knowledge.
• Being a networking force.
• Incubating ideas and activities.
• Building people’s capacities to be agents of change in their communities.
• Allowing people the opportunity to develop hindsight, insight, and foresight through participation in programs and activities.
• Perceiving needs and working to develop appropriate responses.

The Significance of Our Logo

The camel has come to represent The SpiritHouse Project and its Fellows because it signifies patience and endurance. Camels are known for keeping knowledge and truth. The camel symbolizes great journeys and transgression. It is a strong, yet calm, species that is known for being resourceful. These are all qualities we hope to maintain in our work for social justice.

Like the camel, we are prepared to make the long journey toward a truly democratic society. We are strong in our causes and resourceful in our laboring. We travel not alone, but in caravans carrying our communities with us. The shadow underneath our camel indicates movement across the landscape and its gaze toward the horizon. We are always walking and looking toward a bright future.

The destination is freedom.

HOW WE WORK

Participatory Democracy

The SpiritHouse Project operates on three fundamental principles of participatory democracy:

1. Let the People Decide - SpiritHouse recognizes that ordinary people and grassroots communities are not powerless. They possess the capacity and power to make decisions about their lives at home, and in the nation.
2. Strong Leaders Emerge Out of the Body of Strong Communities - They set a discourse and develop a plan of action that emerge out of communities' collective struggle, consciousness, and vision. Authentic leaders do not make decisions; they facilitate decisions that communities make.
3. Authentic Struggle for Liberation is Intergenerational - In an intergenerational struggle, generations work in harmonious debate that allows each generation to bring its knowledge and experience to the common table as resources to be valued. They draw on their resources and experiences to fashion a common dream, where they are bound together as a collectivity with common interests.

Spirituality

SpiritHouse recognizes that justice is both a spiritual and social concept that are interconnected to each other. Injustice and violence are signs of deep spiritual malformation. They spread a national cancer that eats away at our national unity and potential.

The SpiritHouse Project's work is a spiritual call for us to reconcile our relations with God, each other, and all aspects of creation, by building and sustaining what Paulo Freire calls intimate democratic spaces that cut across the social, economic, and religious prides in our lives.

SpiritHouse recognizes that injustice breeds and spreads lies that distort our images of God, ourselves, and others. SpiritHouse believes that the truth sets us free. Therefore, truth-telling plays a major role in our work. SpiritHouse Project helps unveil the truth through research, the arts, spiritual reflections, stories of ordinary people, action, education and community building, sacred texts, broadsides, and community formation.