Popular Education and Community Organizing is a core leadership training for member who are interested in taking on leadership roles within CIF. This training also provides participants with the opportunity to become Escuela facilitators and to gain a deeper understanding of the principles, strategies, and different examples of community organizing and popular/liberatory education.

Communities in Action is a training that focuses on specific issue areas and concrete skills that further the campaigns/initiatives that grow out of the Escuela. These trainings engage members in more detailed issue analysis, campaign development, and the development of concrete organizing skills. Some of our trainings have included the history of segregation in the U.S., and violence against women of color, as well as theater of the oppressed, and engaging with the media.

Escuela Popular de Mujeres/Women’s Popular Education Program
The Escuela Popular de Mujeres/Women’s Popular Education Program is the “heart” of CIF’s work and the source from which all of our projects and campaigns develop. The Escuela nurtures a strong community dedicated to working together for justice, and is the primary program through which women from the community become connected to CIF. As part of the Escuela, CIF has developed trainings where all of us are able to build our skills and analysis around popular education, participatory action-research, community organizing and approaches to social change, and facilitation and co-facilitation.

Supporting and Building Critical Leadership
CIF recognizes that the voices of low-income immigrant women of color are critical to understanding the challenges facing our communities and to furthering efforts for social justice. Through CIF’s holistic approach, we build upon our multiple identities and the roles we play – as caregivers, economic providers, and essentially, as the glue that holds our communities together – as we work to address the root causes of oppression and organize together for justice. CIF’s Leadership Facilitation programs build upon and strengthen the process of individual and collective leadership that begins in the Escuela Popular de Mujeres and are designed for CIF members who are interested in developing organizing projects and initiatives, becoming Escuela facilitators, and/or taking on other leadership roles within CIF.