Our home is under attack
Across the greater Southwest, we see the beginnings of climate catastrophe such as megadrought and deadly wildfires. The air in our cities has become unbreathable, our forests are burning, and our river beds are drying. We do not know if the places we call home will remain livable and healthy.
Vision: Climate justice
Through creative grassroots organizing, we foster a livable future with clean air, clean water, renewable energy, regenerative food systems, and liberated peoples. We transcend capitalist economic systems and create new ways of being that center equitable communities, deep relationships, and a healthy earth. In this future, everyone has access to play, pleasure, healing, and authenticity.
principles
We believe young people are powerful! In our visions of a just and joyful future, we know that young people have the wisdom and imagination needed to implement new systems. We bring passion and commitment to our work, knowing we will grow into the future we are creating.
We value intersectionality, solidarity, and cross-pollination between movements. We know our issues are interconnected and liberation must happen collectively. Our fight for climate justice is inextricably intertwined with other struggles for justice worldwide.
We center frontline community leadership. We are accountable to the communities and identities most impacted by the climate crisis. We strive to center these identities within our leadership and we strive to be reliable accomplices to frontline communities in our partnerships.
We value regional and local community power. Change starts at the grassroots. National and international movements must be accountable to local and regional struggles. Our region is united by shared experiences of extraction. We are powerful when we organize our communities at local and regional scales.
We prefiguratively build the world in our vision. As we dismantle unjust systems we actively work to construct alternative systems of care and justice. We have a strong vision for a joyful world where all are free from oppression. We work to manifest that world every day.
We believe in non-hierarchical and decentralized leadership. We value the inherent wisdom in each person. We listen to each person’s ideas, we make decisions together, and we take collective responsibility. We openly reflect on earned and unearned power dynamics that show up in our movement.
We practice anti-oppression in all dimensions of our work. We actively resist the ways in which systems of oppression manifest within our lives at multiple scales. We fight oppression within ourselves, our interactions with one another, and our communities.
We keep challenging ourselves to grow as organizers. We acknowledge that we are constantly learning and unlearning, which is a lifelong process. We keep a critical eye on our work while creating a supportive environment for learning and accountability.
We respect diversity of tactics. We recognize that folks may choose various ways of making change, ranging from direct action to policy work, etc. We focus on tactics that address root causes and tackle systems of oppression and challenge ourselves to think critically about who our tactics serve.
We stay flexible to meet the changing needs of our movement. We will not limit ourselves to one structure or tactic forever, but will allow ourselves space for change and growth.
Healing is a process that we take on both individually and in our communities. Healing is key to meeting our vision for climate justice. Self care is community care and taking care of ourselves is taking care of our community.
Our history
After some years under the leadership of the Grand Canyon Trust and Landscape Conservation, Uplift decided, alongside our parent non- profits, to become our own autonomous youth group.
Throughout 2019, Uplift transitioned out of its parent nonprofits, the Grand Canyon Trust and Northern Arizona University’s Landscape Conservation Initiative, to become a fully youth-led grassroots climate justice organization. This transition was led by an Advisory Council consisting of past Uplift organizing fellows and community partners. During this transition year, the Uplift community engaged in strategic planning and imaginative exercises to outline a bold and transformative vision for climate justice across the Colorado Plateau and greater Southwest.
Now, Uplift is a small grassroots collective of Indigenous, Immigrant, and Immigrant-descended peoples. We believe in mutual aid, direct action, abolition, and the end to all forms of oppression.