Highlander’s Mission
Highlander serves as a catalyst for grassroots organizing and movement building in Appalachia and the South. We work with people fighting for justice, equality and sustainability, supporting their efforts to take collective action to shape their own destiny. Through popular education, participatory research, and cultural work, we help create spaces — at our center and in local communities — where people gain knowledge, hope and courage, expanding their ideas of what is possible. We develop leadership and help create and support strong, democratic organizations that work for justice, equality and sustainability in their own communities and that join with others to build broad movements for social, economic and restorative environmental change.
Highlander will contract a Documentation Team to follow the orientation, residencies, institute and evaluation phases of the Zilphia Horton Cultural Organizing Project. This team shall use creative documentation practices to demonstrate the strategic use of art and culture to move progressive policies and practices with marginalized communities by shadowing three Cultural Organizers and key Highlander staff as they engage in learning exchanges with the placement communities. These activities shall take place in the U.S. South and Appalachia.
Highlander nurtures the skills of authentic grassroots leadership and helps to build the capacity of marginalized communities across the South. We believe in the power of communities and their ability to identify and address the challenges they face. We also believe in the power of art and culture as tools to dramatize injustice, to visualize freedom and justice for all, and to actualize that vision. Over the course of the next few months, we will match three Cultural Organizers with communities that will result in four-week residencies to support local organizers in the development of cultural tools to help take their current issue campaign to another level.
We are actively soliciting proposals from a Documentation Team with experience in film and photography, and superior interview skills. Preference will be given to those living and working for social justice primarily in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Applicants must be available to start no later than October 1, 2012.
The goals of the Zilphia Horton Cultural Organizing Residency Project and partnerships include:
The Documentation Team should submit a proposal with three letters of reference including
Please let us know the following about you:
Highlander’s Education Team screens proposals and presents a slate to our Community Partners. The Community Partners decide with whom they shall collaborate as a Cultural Organizer. Proposals must be emailed or received in the Highlander office by September 28, 2012 at 12:00pm EST for consideration. Only complete applications including the following will be considered:
Applications will be received any one of the following ways:
Marquez Rhyne
Zilphia Horton Project
1959 Highlander Way, New Market, TN 37820
Fax – 865-933-3424, ATTN: Marquez Rhyne, Zilphia Horton Cultural Organizing Project
E-mail – marquez@highlandercenter.org
September 2012 Cultural Organizer Selected/Notified
October 2012 Orientation @ Highlander (1 week)
October 2012 – February 2013 Residencies (Actual dates TBD with max. 28 days in Residence)
March 2013 Evaluation @ Highlander
If you have any additional questions regarding the Zilphia Horton Cultural Organizing Project in general, the budget and logistics, or this request for proposals specifically, then please contact Marquez Rhyne 865.935.4402.
1959 Highlander Way
New Market, TN 37820
(865) 933-3443
hrec@highlandercenter.org