We Are Power: Community in Action Conference

As the Department of Social Work continues to reflect, grow, and learn, our MSW student planning committee realized we needed to change the title from Diversity Day to a name that better reflected our ongoing efforts to enact an intersectional praxis. In dialogue with CSUN MSW alumni Yaotl Mazahua (class of 2016), he recommended we consider using the phrase "We Are Power" which was coined by Native activist and poet John Trudell. Following discussion between students and faculty, we agreed that Trudell’s words embodied our intentions to honor and remember our ancestral connections to knowledge and land, while actively reclaiming our power and responsibility to build community through action. Thus, we are excited to begin this new chapter as We Are Power: Community in Action Conference. We Are Power is

an annual student-led conference bringing students, teachers, social workers, community leaders, scholars, and activists into community to raise critical consciousness, learn strategies to disrupt and resist oppressive structures, and empower us to take action.

Previous conferences focused on: borders and settler colonialism, post-traumatic slave syndrome and trauma stewardship, disability justice, decolonizing environmental justice, critical race theory, and woring with LGBTQ+ communities.

This year's title is: (Re)imagining Public Safety: Building Community Healing.

 Inquiries please email esepp@csun.edu.