Register Today for V4C!

The Training Institute for Leadership Enrichment (TILE), the non-profit arm of Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA), is excited to announce its newest initiative: Vision for Change (V4C)

Vision for Change was designed with YOU in mind!

We are looking for highly motivated, mid-career African-American women who are genuinely interested in and ready to take the next step towards pursuing local, state, and federal elected or appointed offices.

Vision for Change offers many great opportunities: Build your confidence and your knowledge of political mechanics. Gain the necessary tools and acumen to navigate Bay Area politics. Put together a winning campaign team. Speak knowledgeably and passionately about your personal vision for change.

Participants need not be experts in policy areas.  Vision for Change will identify gaps in participants’ knowledge of local community and policy issues. Based upon the responses, Vision for Change will include in its curriculum, components for participants to achieve maximum proficiency in campaign and governance through mentorship sessions, interactive informational forums, and one-on-one coaching.

Vision for Change will collaborate with a network of leaders from across the country that include public, private, and non-profit sectors to recruit, mobilize, train, and mentor African-American women.

V4C will provide resources and inspirational guidance so that the confident leader within can be harnessed, necessary skills will be honed in order to win elections and appointments.

With a goal of creating a defined pathway to public leadership, Vision for Change will begin in the Bay Area, and then replicate its collaborative initiative throughout the region, state, and nation one candidate at a time.

What would our communities look like if everyone worked together for a shared vision?   TILE invites you to join the movement to create a world in which African-American women are formally engaged in the political process, where they can craft policy for social change that will benefit African-American and other communities of color.

By minimizing the notion of “us versus them,” our commonalities become greater than our differences. We are all made better when we have a shared stake in the discussions, solutions, and visioning of the future.

Why Now?  As our nation’s demographics continue to shift towards communities of color, Vision for Change understands the pressing need to identify, select, and develop the next generation of African-American women elected/appointed officials. African-American women come from a history of marginalization based on race, ethnicity, and gender and are uniquely situated to represent the vanguard to increase common understanding between diverse communities and expanding the voices of women in the political process.

These women will carry the knowledge and needs of their communities into the halls of power. In so doing, they will play a critical role in transforming urban policies designed by many who do not truly reflect the communities they represent into policies that directly benefit urban communities. Vision for Change is a call-to-action for African-American, mid-career women considering elected/appointed office.

This is the initiative that was designed with you in mind – with its individualized assistance and mentorship to make your dreams to provide public service through holding public office a reality. Most, importantly, the training is doable within a nine-month time frame.

Register today at http://www.v4c2012cohort.eventbrite.com for more information and an application to become a Vision for Change 2012 cohort.