In early September we held a one-day workshop on the intersections of wages, wealth, and immigration during this global pandemic.

The team here at UFE believe that the economy is too important to be left to the economists. At our trainings, we build an economic analysis from the ground up. And we don't limit "economics" to the stock market or what you might find in the pages of the Wall Street journal. We all have an experience of the economy: as consumers, as workers and as community members. At our trainings, participants see what their own experience says about the economy and inequality, while learning how we can come together across race and class to transform our economy for the better.

At this one-day training, we engaged in essential conversations on race, the root causes of migration, and the economy. Participants from across North Carolina learned new facilitation techniques, and practiced leading activities themselves. At the end of the day, we had built community, collective knowledge, and new connections across issue areas. To make the training accessible to all, we provided stipends to those who needed them.

The event was facilitated by two of our North Carolina staff members:

David Dixon, the North Carolina Training Network Coordinator at UFE, helps train our partners and their organizers on using popular education methodologies.	Fernando Martínez is a longtime collaborator of UFE, and helps support our work in NC. Born in El Salvador, he began organizing in the 80’s during the country's civil war. Now he continues his fight for social justice with community-based groups in the US.

PHOTO STORY

We hope you'll take a moment to enjoy these photos and captions from the event!

At our trainings, we provide simultaneous two-way interpretation through headphones like the one worn here. That means when someone is sharing in Spanish, the translator interprets to English. And vice versa.	Participants were recruited from a wide array of groups and organizations local to North Carolina, with many issue areas and campaigns represented.	Here staff are directing participants in our classic walking quintiles activity. In it, participants physically model changes in income over the last four decades, where most gains have gone to those at the top.
In the foreground of this picture, training attendee James Thomas is seen listening to a facilitator. James is a youth board member of Fayetteville Police Accountability Community Taskforce (Fayetteville PACT), a group working to end mass incarceration, racial profiling, selective enforcement, and use of excessive force in policing.	We provided individual hand sanitizers to participants, for them to use at the workshop and beyond. We put our logo on it, and made it bilingual as we always do with training materials!	The event took place outdoors as a precaution to help keep our communities safe during this global pandemic. Masks were provided, and social distancing was used.