Welcome
Resources for Organizing and Social Changing (ROSC) is here to nourish the landscape of social change work that grows power from the grassroots up.
Our goal is to share resources and support people in “Maine” who want to engage in social change work, particularly those who are the most affected by oppressive systems. We strive to build infrastructure and strengthen cross-issue, statewide movement building by increasing leadership development for grassroots organizers, promoting democratic practices within organizations, and supporting work that gets to root causes of injustice.
Our mission is to build and support a movement for nonviolent social change that will educate, activate, & empower people in “Maine” through grassroots community organizing.
**Please note that we’ve placed quotations around the name “Maine” because that is the colonial name given to the land we do our work on, which is unceded Wabanaki territory. European settlers have violently colonized this continent for hundreds of years, while the labor of Black people was forced and exploited to build the wealth of white families for generations. The work ROSC does is rooted in collective liberation, and we recognize that there is power in language. This land is unceded Wabanaki territory, colonially known as “Maine.”
Please click here to find ways you can support the work of Wabanaki and Black-led groups in this region.
Projects
All ROSC projects are funded from community support. See below for a list of our projects and their descriptions. If you like the work of any of these ventures please consider volunteering or donating to support them. You can register for any of ROSC’s upcoming events by contacting us or filling out applicable registration forms.
MUTUAL AID RESOURCES GATHERED BY ROSC
During the onset of the COVID-19 global crisis, ROSC got hard to work gathering up resources and tools that could be used by organizers and others to create safety and support through community-based, mutual aid projects. Additionally, we researched campaigns and tools being used by people who are trying to create cultural shifts that push us toward a more equitable world through means of direct action and other types of community organizing. At the link above you will find a non-exhaustive, collaborative list of these resources, which we invite you to add to!
There are a lot of ways to create change, and there are a lot of great organizations that are currently working to push our elected officials to do the right thing. Where we see ROSC fitting into this conversation is through offering resources that build collective power through community resilience and people power. While we do believe that pushing structural change through exerting political pressure is an essential task of the day, we also believe it is equally important that we organize with one another to create alternatives to the top-down approach of our current systems. The crisis we’ve faced with COVID-19 is not just a crisis of health, it is also equally, if not even more so, a crisis of system. If we had the mechanisms in place already to care for each other and to honor approaches like housing as a human right, healthcare as a human right, paid sick leave as an essential right of workers, land and food justice that connected us to place and gave us autonomy in procuring the nourishment we need, we would likely be seeing a totally different scenario than the crisis we’ve been witnessing since the onset of the pandemic.
Black Lives Matter
Black Lives Matter. Because this is true, Resources for Organizing and Social Change (ROSC), is unequivocally in support of the grief-based actions we see sweeping the nation in response to the recent murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police, including the powerful action at Lincoln Park organized by BLM Portland. ROSC is deeply committed to the liberation of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, and we grieve with the countless families who’ve lost people they love by the hand of America’s violent culture of white supremacy…[see full statement here].