Regional Advocacy and Organizing Training
Research Study
Working with researchers from the Pitt School of Social Work, Equitable and Just Greater Pittsburgh is hosting a Regional Advocacy and Organizing Training and Research Study. This project is funded by the AmeriCorps National Service and Civic Engagement Research Project to work with residents to increase civic engagement around equity and equitable development issues.
Goals
Through this project, our Steering Committee want to:​
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Develop new leaders who can advocate for their communities and connect their communities with issue advocates and resources
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Connect participants to wider-scale equity and justice conversations, advocates, and resources.
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Connect participants with residents from other communities.
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Change and improve policies, practices, or programs related to equity, justice, and equitable development that affect communities across Allegheny County.
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Lift up participants’ and community groups’ existing work
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What will participants be asked to do?
This project has two main parts:
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Advocacy and organizing training sessions: Participants will attend training sessions to learn about the importance of community advocacy, some core organizing skills, the Allegheny County political landscape, and various topics, such as affordable housing. Experienced advocates and organizers from the EJGP network will share their wisdom with the participants.
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Project implementation: During the training, participants will identify an issue that affects all of their communities. In this part of the project, participants will be asked to work together to improve that issue by advocating for positive changes to policies, programs, or practices.
Participants will also be invited to attend EJGP full network and cross-community network meetings during the training and project implementation.
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Group 2
Applications for our second group have closed. We are currently inviting the selected applicants to participant. We look forward to starting with our new group on Wednesday, August 5th!
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Who is this for?
We invite up to 15 Allegheny County residents who want to become better advocates for their communities and connect with ongoing efforts and other advocates across the county. Participants are compensated for their participation in the training, project implementation, and related activities; for completing surveys; and for participating in focus groups.
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We will hopefully run this training and project implementation again in 2025 (assuming our funding is renewed). If you aren’t selected this year, please consider applying again next year!
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When and where?
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For Part 1, we hold seven Advocacy and Organizing Training sessions. In 2024, they will run weekly between the beginning of August and the beginning of October. There will be three in-person and four virtual sessions. For in-person sessions, dinner (not pizza!) is provided. In-person sessions are located in different locations throughout the county. Transportation and childcare are supported in coordination with the project team.
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Part 2, the Project Implementation, follows the training sessions. We schedule meetings for this part at the end of the training sessions. This year, they will most likely be held every-other-week into early 2025.
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More details will be added as we have them!
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​​Group 1 (Complete!)
Our first group of training participants completed the Advocacy and Organizing Training in March 2024. They focused their advocacy efforts on housing. Click here to read more about the actions they took for their project. We're excited to continue working with many of them - now as part of our year 2 steering committee!
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