The Undoing Racism and Community Organizing Workshops are in collaboration with the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB), a national non-profit based in New Orleans that leads 3-day trainings that are required for all our staff and volunteers. CGHC organizes trainings with community members, patients, providers, and staff through out the year. Go to www.pisab.org for more information.

Through clinic sponsored “Undoing Racism” workshops provided by the People’s Institute for
Survival and Beyond, the volunteers and staff of Common Ground Health Clinic became
actively involved with a newly formed group known as the Algiers Community Collective
(ACC). The main goal of the ACC is to inform the Algiers community of current redevelopment
plans and to be the steering group that brings all members of the Algiers Riverview area to
participate in the redevelopment of their community.

An initial informational workshop for the steering group was held in October 2007.
From this training, the group embarked on a door-to-door community awareness campaign,
collecting signatures of those interested in being informed about changes in the community.
To date the ACC has collected over 250 signatures of community members who feel that they
are interested in participating in these community meetings and redevelopment processes.
The ACC is currently working on several projects aimed at preserving the history or the people
of Algiers as well as learning other models of collaboration at the grassroots level. Members of
the Collective attended the Workers Coop conference and later had two-day follow-up session with representatives from the conference. These conferences and workshops are part of the
collaborative process of involving community participation in all aspects of CGHC work.