About Us
We are WA-BLOC, a community-based organization rooted in south Seattle with a mission to build and nurture intergenerational leaders through transformative education and revolutionary social action. We envision South Seattle as an epicenter where Black and brown youth and families thrive and our school communities are joyful, restorative spaces of high quality learning. Our programming is designed to build strong, literate, and empowered scholars prepared to make a difference in themselves, their families, communities, nation and world. WA-BLOC partners with southeast Seattle Public Schools, community partners, and most importantly, our students and families, to create a collective vision for equitable education that is culturally responsive, trauma-informed and restorative.
Since launching our organization in the summer of 2016, we have served thousands of BIPOC K-12 scholars, employed 90+ Black and brown college-aged leaders from our south Seattle neighborhood, trained hundreds of educators and administrators in Restorative Justice practices, cultivated the foundation for school-wide Restorative Practices in multiple schools, supported student-led direct action leading to significant policy change, and provided transformative summer programming for hundreds of Black and brown scholars and families.
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Our mission is to build and nurture intergenerational leaders through transformative education and revolutionary social action.
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Our vision is for south Seattle to be an epicenter where Black and brown folx thrive. We achieve this vision through year-round educational programming that re-engages students in school, dismantles systemic racism, and disrupts the school to prison pipeline for Black and brown youth.
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We primarily serve K-12 Black and brown youth with an emphasis on elementary-age scholars in Seattle Public Schools. We work with educators, school communities, and families to support educational justice for scholars.
OUR VALUES AND APPROACH
Anti-Racist
We believe in the liberation of all oppressed beings. We strive to actively recognize, acknowledge, and resist racism in historic and present forms in order to dismantle systemic barriers so that all can experience freedom, joy, and ease.
Healing
We value self-love and healing so that we can come together to support collective healing in our schools and community. We use circle practice as a powerful tool that allows for full expression of emotions, reflection, and unhurried pace while reinforcing positive listening.
Joy
We cannot pursue justice without sharing joy. We cultivate joy through being our authentic selves, nurturing our relationships, and being grounded in creativity and imagination.
Community-Connected
We believe in “nothing about us without us.” In our work and in our partnerships we take time and take care to move at the speed of trust, as that is the only way forward- together. We also believe in the value and importance of being place-based and having roots and trust in the communities we serve.
Youth-Driven
We believe that young people are comrades in building the liberatory future we all deserve. We are committed whole-heartedly to children and youth, to their capacity, creativity, and vision for the future.
Our History
WA-BLOC was born in April 2016 through fierce student-activism, determination, and enthusiasm of youth and their young adult mentors and community leaders. When a beloved summer program at Rainier Beach High School, “Freedom Schools,” (which had been launched the previous summer) was at-risk of being cancelled by a host organization, students, families, educators, and youth leaders banded together and raised 50K in several short months to ensure the Freedom Schools program could continue for 50 rising 9th and 10th graders in summer of 2016.
At the time, RBHS students and mentors were in the middle of leading a powerful campaign for transportation equity in Seattle Public Schools. Scholars and young adult community leaders felt so much momentum, connection, and belief in the power of youth to transform their schools and communities that we continued to pull funds together to continue organizing and supporting students at Rainier Beach High School - and thus became “WA-BLOC” - Washington Building Leaders of Change.
During WA-BLOC’s tenure at Rainier Beach High School, we co-created powerful programming with students including the continuation of Freedom Schools Summer program, which expanded to Emerson Elementary in 2019, (and also had sites at South Shore K-8 and Summit Sierra in 2018), BLOC Party (whole-school day of social action and conference with over 100 organizer workshops, student performances, and powerful action) that ran for six years, an after school Homework Center, and Restorative Justice programming and systems-change work.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures, we rapidly pivoted to support food access through our Feed the Beach program which ran for 18 months and partnered with local Black/brown owned restaurants and businesses to provide meals to our community and also help the businesses stay open. Feed the Beach also provided rent relief for Rainier Beach youth and families totaling over 50K, weekly groceries and enrichment programming.
Returning to in-person school in 2021-22, WA-BLOC honed it’s Elementary programming and Restorative Justice implementation with Emerson Elementary School resulting in 90% reduction in suspension rates and dramatic increase in student and staff culture/climate surveys. With the support of new institutional partners like the City of Seattle, we have expanded our restorative justice programming to included district-wide training opportunities, expanded school partnerships and more, all while maintaining our cornerstone Freedom Schools summer program for K-12 scholars for eight consecutive years.
In 2018, WA-BLOC joined RVC Seattle’s fiscal sponsorship program, which has been a pivotal and key aspect of our organizational wellness and sustainability.
