The Summer Institute is WILD's signature program.
Every year in June, it brings together over 100 women from unions and and social and economic justice community organizations across Massachusetts for a weekend of leadership development and fun. The Institute includes skills training, introductory and advanced leadership workshops, an anti-oppression workshop, topic-based plenaries and caucuses.
A full-day childcare program allows mothers to fully participate.
Since we set up the weekend with interpretation in Spanish and Portuguese, we have women from immigrant organizations and union women who don’t have access to union training programs because of the language barrier. Women also come from our partner organizations such as MassCOSH and Jobs with Justice.
Many women come back year after year.
2019 WILD Summer Institute
With the theme, "Using Our Voices, Building Our Power", the WILD 2019 Summer Institute was held June 21, 22 and 23 at Worcester State University.
Our 2019 Summer Institute was one of our most successful ever. Over 130 women attended, from close to 20 different unions and several non-profit organizations, workers centers, and community groups.
There were workshops in English, Spanish and Portuguese. In addition to Leadership Development (introductory and advanced), workshops included "Public Speaking: Speaking Up! Speaking Out!", "Internal Organizing ion thee Workplace", "Bullying and Sexual Harassment", "Working Women Build Power", "Developing an Effective Communications Strategy", Organizing for the Common Good", and "Labor, Trafficking and Immigration in the Global Economy". Excellent trilingual interpretation was provided by Mass Translations.
Inspiration and food for thought were given by our invited speakers, Kim Marshall from UNITE HERE Local 26 (Marriott striker), Shauna Manning from CSU/MTA at UMass Boston and MTA President Merrie Najimy.
The Saturday evening program included reports from the caucuses and a wonderful open mic session that showcased the many talents of our participants, followed by a rocking dance party.
Here are some photos: