Meet the SJA participants from our first cohort!

Watch GLIDE’s video interview with SJA participant Demetria Gigante about her reasons for applying to the program.

The Social Justice Academy is an 18-to-24-week project-based fellowship through which academy fellows

• learn and implement the tools of community-based research,
• engage in community organizing, and
• advocate to positively influence public understanding of and government investments in pressing social issues.

The Social Justice Academy curriculum focuses on understanding and implementing community engagement and systems change processes that center impacted communities’ strengths and specific needs. Fellows gain the skills to advocate for evidence-based policies and practices that interrupt cycles of marginalization, poverty, and oppression. Justice Academy workshops cover:

• systems change models,
• California’s legislative and budget processes,
• advocacy through traditional and social media,
• And so much more!

Fellows dive deep into a policy issue area of their choice and design a community-based research project addressing a problem in that issue area. Employing a variety of data collection methods such as surveys, focus groups, interviews, and secondary data analysis, the fellows gain insights into community needs and develop their own policy recommendations.

Fellows then use their own lived experiences and the community-based research that they have conducted to develop narratives and share them through public speaking and community advocacy. At the end of each cohort, fellows participate in a graduation and receive a Community Advocacy, Organizing, and Research certificate.

Systems Strategy Feedback from cohort members is utilized to improve future cohort experiences, creating a situation in which the cohort is effectively co-creating the fellowship model. Training a contingency of fellows provides GLIDE an invested cadre of community advocates to partner with on future advocacy efforts.