About Us
A program of the Building Movement Project, Solidarity Is generates tools, trainings, and narratives to facilitate transformative solidarity practices for movement building organizations and activists who are invested in meaningful social change.
Our Story
The idea for Solidarity Is came from the Solidarity Summits, a gathering of local and national movement leaders brought together by the Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, and the Proteus Fund’s RISE Together Fund. The cohort of leaders spent five years building their individual and organizational relationships through the framework of transformative solidarity. They gathered in places with rich histories of multiracial solidarity including Nashville, New Orleans, San Diego, and Albuquerque to learn from local leaders and to build narratives and strategies to address issues ranging from immigration and Islamophobia to anti-Black racism and violations at the border.
As a result of the Solidarity Summits, cohort members have experimented with solidarity practices in different contexts from coordinating resistance activities against the enforcement of bans, walls, and raids in the United States to connecting their community members together to bearing witness during times of community trauma.
Our Team
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Deepa Iyer
SENIOR DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC INITIATIVES
Deepa Iyer is a South Asian American writer, strategist, and lawyer. Her work is rooted in Asian American, South Asian, Muslim, and Arab communities where she spent fifteen years in policy advocacy and coalition building in the wake of the September 11th attacks and ensuing backlash.
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UyenThi Tran Myhre
SENIOR COORDINATOR, MOVEMENT BUILDING PROGRAMS
UyenThi (pronounced “Wing-T”) Tran Myhre is the Senior Coordinator of Movement Building programs at BMP, supporting communications work, curriculum development and trainings, and solidarity cohorts.
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Adaku Utah
SENIOR MANAGER, MOVEMENT BUILDING PROGRAMS
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, raised in Festac, Nigeria, grounded in her legacy of organizers, farmers and healers, Adaku harnesses her seasoned skills as a political strategist, holistic healer, transformative facilitator, somatics coach and ritual artist as an act of love and commitment to her community.
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Priti Nemani
Policy Analyst
Priti (pronounced “Pree-thee”) Nemani (she/her) is a Policy Analyst with Building Movement Project, offering assistance with research, writing, and support of solidarity cohorts.
Our Guiding Principles
We envision a world where everyone practices solidarity to bring about mutual liberation, equity, inclusion, healing, and justice for all peoples. We commit to dismantling the institutions, policies and practices of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism and xenophobia.
We hold that solidarity is not only practiced through our external work, but that it is a necessary component of our individual and organizational work as well. Addressing anti-Black racism within our movements is a cornerstone of our solidarity practice. We embrace the real, messy work of solidarity, welcoming moments of tension and conflict as opportunities to learn and grow together.
Our Roles
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Builder
Creating and sharing tools on transformative soidarity with movement leaders through workshops, teach-ins, curricula, and more.
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Storyteller
Uplifting solidarity narratives and frameworks through the Solidarity Is This. podcast, writing, and social media
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Weaver
Facilitate movement exchanges between communities to build shared solidarity analyses, narratives, and relationships.