"We can by consumers and producers co-operation, . . . establish a progressively self-supporting economy that will weld the majority of our people into an impregnable, economic phalanx." - W. E. B. Du Bois

Photo Credit: Shareable

REPAIRED NATIONS focuses on building wealth in Black communities by giving youth the tools needed to remain rooted: access to land and access to capital. Bookclubs, Workshops, and Trainings will educate and inspire communities to engage in cooperative effort, while giving grounded, practical skills for collective ownership. We repair the effects of colonization and oppression by helping to weave interconnected communities into thriving, sustainable networks to equitably provide the essentials of life.

Our immediate goal is to educate youth of color in California about cooperative enterprise and develop necessary infrastructure for cooperative development in under-resourced, disadvantages communities.

We are guided by the cooperative successes seen across the globe: Black Cooperatives in the US during the 19th Century (read Collective Courage) and today, Italy’s cooperative approach to unemployment, MONDRAGON’s multi-billion dollar annual revenue, South America’s recuperation movement of abandoned factories, Indigenous lending circles . . .

"African Americans have a long, rich history of cooperative ownership, especially in reaction to market failures and economic racial discrimination. However, it has often been a hidden history and one obstructed by White Supremacist violence." - Jessica Gordon Nembhard

Below, please find information on:

• Think Outside the Boss Workshops for Black Communities

• Cooperative Book clubs Black Communities

• Year of Return Exchange Trip

Sustainable Economies Law Center and Repaired Nations, have joined forces to begin a concerted effort to bring cooperative resources to Black Communities, starting in East Oakland and Richmond, CA. 

Repaired Nations was created in 2018 as a container for Greg Jackson's Equal Justice Works fellowship, hosted by the Law Center. Greg embarks on a 2 year paid fellowship that focused on expanding the impact the Law Center has in Black Communities, an explicit effort to be more equitable in the creation of cooperatives for liberation and autonomy of frontline, marginalized communities. 

The Sustainable Economies Law Center is one of the only organizations in the U.S. that provides free or low-cost legal services and resources to worker cooperatives, and the Law Center is widely viewed as a leader in developing legal structures, policies, and other strategies to support the growth of a worker cooperative movement.

View Our Calendar Here to RSVP

Click Here to Download Documents from our Workshops and Bookclubs

The Law Center, Repaired Nations, and the East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative are collaborating on a new learning pedagogy for cooperative education in the Black Community through cooperative book clubs held in East Oakland and Richmond.

We will honor the cultures whose ancestors relied on oral histories and education; comprehension and intelligence go deeper than Eurocentric Training. We tap into the organic intellectual streak present in communities often not included in Eurocentric, institutional learning environments. We bridge two spaces: (1) the natural learned expertise and expertise of underrepresented communities and (2) the bodies of literature they may otherwise not engage as sources of information. We cross the divide between education and soul activation. We translate solutions into a medium that is expertise, but is often overlooked because of value propositions. We gather to show people the power inherent in themselves, and facilitate community reflections that evidences greatness and deep knowledge.

We aim take away all borders to participation and use non judgmental,  non violent, constant communication. We uplift those who were shamed and disconnected from their opportunity to learn. Everyone is always right for participating. We create psychological safety in our group settings through very intentional facilitated discussions.

We make information more accessible by distilling large bodies of text into micro-modular segments. We confirm the natural intuition of Black Communities through our micro-modular summaries and facilitate conversation to elicit learning rather than rote instruction. We facilitate the discovery of culturally relevant conclusions, solutions, and pathways to meaningful, structural change.

View Our Calendar Here to RSVP

Click Here to Download Documents from our Workshops and Bookclubs

We are organizing a cultural exchange trip that is primarily focused on creating pathways for African Americans to re-invest in Ghana regeneratively, without perpetuating the problems of capitalism perpetuates. Our Culutural Exchange invites East African, West African, and U.S. cooperatives to begin dialogue for a co-created equitable development policy for Ghanaian economic development, and beyond. Dialogue is the key to our trip, for only through dialogue can two distanced peoples begin to find synergies between themselves, and only through dialogue can new arrivals to Ghana know what Ghanaians want for Ghana and how to help steward this vision. Co-created equitable development policy can only be built upon discussion, upon exchange of ideas and. information.

We are a group of cooperative- minded people seeking to learn how Ghanaians structure their collective efforts, to offer our experience and expertise to local projects, and to engage critical conversation regarding international cooperative exchange of resources. Attendees will form relationships that bloom into cultural content,  import/export agreements, thought partnership, and real estate development.

Interested? Click Here for more information

UPDATED July 2019