Leadership Institute
The Alphabet Institute is an opportunity for QTBIPOC to increase their leadership skills. By facilitating mentorship relationships, the Institute helps connect community members with each other in non-hierarchical and reciprocal ways, with an understanding that we can all learn from each other. These transformational relationships support people in growth toward their own radical visions and goals.
Next Alphabet Institute:
June - December 2024
Click below for more information about what is happening during this year’s Institute.
About the Institute
Art: Jiéyì 周杰意
The Alphabet Institute lasts from Summer to December, starting with a summer intensive program (typically 10-12 weeks). The Alphabet Institute, and specifically the summer program, offers mentees and mentors a chance to dig deep into how to thrive as leaders in community. Summer program participants also attend AAoC General Membership Meetings.
After completing the summer program, mentees and mentors are matched. They then meet at least four times over the course of the year. AAoC staff are available to support these relationships, both through a mid-program check-in and by request.
Participants must identify as queer or trans and as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color. They must also live and/or work in the Puget Sound region. All ages and levels of experience are welcome to apply. Mentors and mentees will receive stipends for participation, based on attendance. Participants will receive GrubHub Gift cards for workshops and sessions (but not one-on-one meetings with mentors).
Summer Workshops
During the summer we invite folks from QTBIPOC communities to offer 6 – 8 weekly workshops for program participants on topics like: conflict mediation; unpacking imposter syndrome; implementing disability justice; managing burnout; embodying leadership; and engaging with advocacy.
Sessions are typically on weekday evenings after 5pm and are held virtually.
Mentorship Program
In order to match mentors and mentees, we take into account application materials, references, and participant preferences. These pairings are focused on growth for both mentees and mentors, so we encourage folks to establish their own areas of focus during their four monthly meetings. Pairs have joined collectives, read books, shared resources, participated in a regular writing practice, and engaged in care together.
After the Institute
After the program, participants are considered part of the AAoC community and are welcome to participate in other aspects of our programing, including our General Membership Meetings!
We hope to also host alumni events in the future, to connect participants across cohorts.
Art: Kalu
Past Workshops
Work With Us, Not Against Us: Creating Inclusive and Accessible Spaces for All
Participants gained practical tools and resources to make their space(s) more accessible, the ability to address accessibility through the intersecting lenses of economic, disability, racial, queer and gender justice, and the skills to work with the deaf and disabled communities and disability service organizations to enhance accessibility services for all of their events and spaces.
Imposter Syndrome
Onteractive talk on imposter syndrome and why it’s not the boss of you!
Conflict Mediation
Steps to mediate conflict and supported participants in transforming conflict through a scenario.
Fired Up and Burned Out
This session explored the role and impact of burnout, walking participants through a self-assessment and tools for addressing burnout with a Healing Justice and Disability Justice framework.
Advocacy
Leo led participants through a process of understanding different types of advocacy, examining systems of advocacy for their potential and limitations, and practicing power mapping to develop an advocacy strategy.
Past speakers:
Naa Akua
devon de leña
Nyema Clark (Nurturing Roots)
Ely Rangel and Mina Aira (Uprooted and Rising)
Amber Barcel (Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence)
Melissa Kelley Colibrí
Topher Gonzalez
Anastacia-Reneé
Stacy Torres and Matthew Murphy (Collective Justice)
Antoinette and Augustina (Fireweed Collective)
Leo Segovia (Seattle Office for Civil Rights)
Art: Eileen Jimenez
Mentee Reflections
Mak Ndamele - 2022
I have a greater sense of the folks I connect well with and want to be in community with. It’s often challenging to find radical QTBIPOC who embrace differences and similarities alike—this was a space where that challenge became smaller for me. This was a space where I was able to bring all of me and practice showing up authentically. I learned how to better balance my abolitionists and community centered values with the white cis-heteropatriarchal capitalist society I’m operating under. I also made friends and connections that I know I’ll have/revisit throughout my life.
Ziya Joy Ahmed - 2023
I've gained a sense of community and connection. I learned a lot from all the different workshops. AAOC has really modeled for me how to do hybrid events, facilitation, COVID safety, and intentional curation of space. It's been really amazing to witness and be a part of. I also just feel more confident in myself as a leader and organizer having gone through the program and been in an environment where folks appreciate me.
MENTORSHIP SPOTLIGHT:
Nathan Silkapit
On his relationship with his mentee:
I appreciated the opportunity to connect with a mentee and cultivate that relationship. It helped to combat the imposter syndrome I feel sometimes being able to share my skills and perspective with someone going through similar struggles.
On the Institute as a whole:
It’s been wonderful! We’ve learned so much from each other and discovered that, while we do very different work when viewed from the outside, our shared passion for creating space for healing and skill building placed our work in a similar space in the overall movement for liberation. Healing and skill building work are often not seen as organizing in the same way direct action is so it was nice to be able to connect with someone with a similar mission and support each other.
Biography:
Nathan Silkapit (he/him/his) is the child of Thai immigrants, a behavioral health professional, and a partner dancer. His social justice lens is informed by his family’s Buddhist practice, an undergraduate education in American Ethnic Studies and Gender Women and Sexuality Studies, and the radical wisdom of the QTBIPOC community he has found in Seattle.
His organizing began as a community college student advocating for funds to grow a Diversity and Equity Center and hosting DiversiTea drop-in hours for students to share their struggles while sharing a pot of tea to build solidarity and cultivate community. Nathan currently works at Asian Counseling and Referral Services (ACRS) overseeing the Youth Substance Use Disorder Treatment program providing care to youth struggling with drug and alcohol use. At ACRS, Nathan was a part of a group of staff and interns who worked with agency leadership to formally adopt and fund the Queer Vision Access Program to increase agency competency around working with the LGBTQ community.
In his free time, Nathan is an avid gamer, from PC and console video games to board games and tabletop roleplaying games. He is also a tea enthusiast and would love to have you over for an afternoon tea sometime.
MENTORSHIP SPOTLIGHT:
Ely & Andrea
Ely Rangel
On becoming a mentor:
Build community.
Bio:
Ely is P’urhépecha, a child of immigrants from Mexico and an artist. They are inspired to nurture and grow leadership through the lens of someone who has worked on the ground as a community organizer centering healing, disability and racial justice. They carry the tenderness and determination of their people to fight for a future of inclusion and liberation. The work Ely has done in the past has been uplifting communities knowledge in Food Sovereignty and creating a culture of learning around social change.
Andrea
On becoming a mentee:
I am interested in taking part in this mentorship program because I would like to be in community with lesbian folx of color that are older than me because I do not know many people from different generations that are Queer POC. I would love to have people in my life that have more life experience, thus knowledge in working as a QTBIPOC, being in community & relationships as a QTBIPOC, and healing as a QTBIPOC.
Biography:
My name is Andrea Isabel Diaz (she/her) and I am a lesbian, Boricua woman. I am an abolitionist and wannabe connoisseur with a preference for local, BIPOC art. I am dedicated to educational equity and dream of an education system that is decolonized. I currently work for the UW Dream Project and hope to become an educator in a high school or community college setting. My biggest fears are cats and the effects of capitalism & my greatest loves are my partner, spending time exploring Duwamish, and sipping wine watching the sunset.