On Sunday, my Moxie group had our first reflection dinner at Ada’s house to discuss how our first week went working at our internships and living in the city. While we were on the topic of homelessness in New York, Shannan brought up something called “world building.” Now, I’ll be honest. I was nodding my head, but through Shannan’s intelligent words and intellectual thoughts, I didn’t understand a thing she was talking about. 

However, as the conversation continued, she made it very clear that in order to create effective change, we cannot work within the systems that marginalize the communities we are advocating for. We cannot properly fight for LGBTQ rights if we are trying to maneuver our way around a heteronormative society. We cannot empower women if we are doing so in ways that allow the patriarchy to exist. We cannot promote racial equality if we support systems that perpetuate white supremacy and continue to place white citizens on a pedestal. With that said, “world building” is the process in which we think of ways that will allow us to gradually dismantle these systems to create a better world for everyone. Rather than focusing on the individual, “tangible” successes like raising money for a charity or giving a homeless person $5, we need to ask ourselves “What would the world look like if it was a place where everyone could thrive despite their race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, etc?” What kind of world do we want to live in? This really resonated with me because after a week of working at Girls For Gender Equity, I can clearly see that this organization is an eminent reflection of “world building.”

GGE has an after school program called Urban Leaders Academy and I spent the past week observing the classes and interacting with the kids who attend. To say I was amazed is an understatement. ULA provides photography, cooking, film, step, and many other different classes that students don’t normally get to take during the regular school day. Students also have the opportunity to take a class where they discuss teen dating, consent, and violence that I did not think so deeply about until college. Additionally, the students have a “purpose” class where the instructor allows them to define what their purpose and position is in this society rather than the white man determining that for them. After sitting in on these classes, I knew GGE wasn’t lying when they said that their mission is to create platforms that will allow young people of color to live self determined lives. I noticed that ULA isn’t some ordinary after school program where kids play games and kill time until their parents come to pick them up. Rather, ULA is a program that shapes future leaders who will create the power they need, that society often strips them of, to create change within their communities and beyond.

In ULA’s film class, the students had the opportunity to film an anti-bullying movie and the day I came to join, they were about to record the last scene which encompassed a protest. The teacher told the students they could make posters with slogans that supported gun safety and suicide prevention, but besides this instruction, the students had full control over what they wanted on their signs. They made beautiful signs that said “Never Give Up Hope” with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number on it and many others that I would have never thought about creating at 11 years old.

Take a look at them yourself:

As you can see, GGE is giving their students a voice. Confident ones at that. GGE provides their students with a space to speak on reality and are showing them that a hierarchy should not stop them from calling out racism, sexism, or any form of oppression when they see it. In only the span of a week, GGE and Moxie has taught me that it is not about helping the individual. Creating a better world is not entirely about tutoring students so that they get better grades and can go to college. One step towards a potential utopia would be providing our youth with the tools they need to speak against against barriers, on their own, thereby creating the urge to destroy them at such an early age. Sure. We can have all the juicy, red apples we want. But, if one bad apple can throw off the harvest and poison whole population, how can a few charitable successes fix an entire world?