Gatherings
With decades of leadership across multiple movement sectors, Because We Need Each Other is in a unique position to continue to tend to and transform destructive trends. We have strong relationships with leaders engaged in front-line direct action work across many issue areas, restorative and transformative justice facilitators, policy advocates and those engaged in conflict transformation work. Each of us having been deeply embedded in these movements for decades, we believe that we have the trust necessary to create the space for much needed conversations.
In 2022, Sonya Shah, Celia Kutz, Brooke Lehman and Kazu Haga, well-established movement leaders, trainers and facilitators, began a discussion around the need to address the increasing cases of “cancel culture.”
In response, Because We Need Each Other brought together 20 leaders from across various sectors in May of 2023 for a first of its kind three-day facilitated gathering to address these dynamics head-on. Participants quickly found two commonalities. First was a shared analysis of the pervasiveness of these harmful dynamics across our movement spaces, and how debilitating it has become for progressive causes. Almost all participants have directly experienced these dynamics, or supported others who had.
The result of creating a safe container to discuss our experiences around this was incredibly cathartic, healing and instructive.
Secondly, despite the prevalence of these dynamics and the significant impact it has had on our movements, none of the participants had ever been to a gathering where this was being openly discussed. We all shared some amount of fear and hesitation, that even discussing these dynamics in the open might trigger an avalanche of criticism.
The message was clear. The need for more spaces where movement leaders can openly discuss these dynamics and develop an organized response to them is absolutely necessary - and is not happening enough.
Founding Gathering, May 2023
Watershed Retreat Center
In March of 2026, Because We Need Each Other hosted our second in-person retreat, bringing together 30 leaders from the Restorative Justice, Transformative Justice and various Social Justice movements.
There was a lot of interest in decentralizing the next steps, with different groupings of people taking on leading different action items and future projects. Those ideas include:
Addressing Frozen Fractures: Most participants were connected to at least one community who experienced a cancellation where the relational fractures resulting from it had not been healed or even touched upon for multiple years. Small teams were identified to reach out to individuals involved in at least two specific cancellations that had a large impact on our movement’s ecosystem - the person(s) who was cancelled, the people who did the cancellations, the community around them who were impacted, etc. - to see what is necessary to begin to mend those relationships.
A Gathering of People who have been Cancelled: While both of our in-person retreats have had participation from individuals who have experienced cancellations, this has not been an explicit topic of focus. There was some interest in organizing a gathering focused on supporting the needs of those who have been cancelled, and learning from their perspective about what our movements need.
Additional Writing: Four articles have been published under the umbrella of Because We Need Each Other, with at least two more articles in the pipeline. There was growing interest to continue to add to this series, offering more perspectives, stories, tools and frameworks. The Forge Organizing, one of the publications who hosted the article series, had a representative at our retreat and they (as well as Convergence Magazine, our other co-publisher) have expressed ongoing interest.
Historical Research: At the retreat, we began creating a historical timeline that maps public cancellations that have happened in our movements along with world events/trends and social movements to begin to understand the connections. This was incredibly insightful, and was very clearly just the beginning. There was a lot of interest in following up on this as a research project.
Second Gathering, March 2026
Ahimsa Collective Retreat Center
