#UjimaWednesdays in May: Power in Proximity Workshops

Our workshops this May, in keeping with our 2025 theme Power, Transformation, and Miracles, center local and small-scale worldbuilding. The Power in Proximity: Small Worlds, Big Shifts focuses on how  intimate spaces, from neighborhoods to collective gardens, shared workspaces to cultural hubs, become powerful sites of resistance, connection, and transformation. In these small worlds, power is not abstract or distant; it is immediate, lived, and deeply personal.

This series invites us to ask: How do communities reclaim power through the creation of shared spaces that reflect their needs, histories, and visions for the future? How can local organizing, mutual aid, and art or culture shape the way we challenge larger systems of inequality and injustice? What happens when communities create and protect worlds that center collective care, autonomy, and mutual respect? We will learn how local, grassroots movements grow from the most personal connections— from relationships and trust that form when communities come together to meet their own needs—and how they can ripple outward to challenge larger structures of power.

The Power in Proximity workshop series will take place each Wednesday at 6:00 PM EST at Frugal Bookstore (57 Warren Street, Roxbury, MA).

May 2025 Workshops

May 14: No Soil, No Sovereignty: The Grow or Die Campaign | RSVP

In this workshop, youth organizers from the Roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project (REEP), a program of Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE), share the vision behind their food justice campaign, Grow or Die. Together, we’ll explore the role of land and cultivation in Black and brown self-determination, and gather input on a proposed garden for Dacia Street.

May 21: Light Work: Building the People’s Grid | RSVP

During this workshop Greg King of Boston Community Solar Coop will speak to the importance of community ownership of our energy and replicating the cooperative models in Boston and building in other communities.

May 28: Brick by Brick: Building Power Through the Built Environment | RSVP

What would it mean to own the systems we rely on every day—our roads, streetlights, power grids, and public spaces? In this workshop, James Johnson-Piett, founding Principal and CEO of Urbane Development, explores the future of community-owned infrastructure.

Date TBA: Tending the Soil, Building the Future: The Woolson Street Story | RSVP

In this workshop, Robin Gibson of Mattapan Food & Fitness Coalition will share how community members transformed a street and vacant lot, once marked by violence, disinvestment, and environmental harm, into a thriving green space rooted in care, connection, and community power.

Please Note: This workshop is being rescheduled. If you RSVP, we’ll notify you as soon as the new date is confirmed.

About Ujima Wednesdays: Political & Financial Education Workshops

Boston Ujima Project, Inc. holds financial and political education workshops every Wednesday that are open to the public, where community members come together to co-learn and then later co-create at our member team meetings. Watch all past events on our Youtube. To learn more about this year's workshops, visit our landing page.