Social Justice Initiative

Vision Statement

Every individual, organization, and community will have equitable access to life-long resources required to reach their highest potential within a peaceful and just world.

Mission Statement

Co-create space and dedicate time for dialogue, reflection, relationship-building, and action to dismantle the structures and systems of injustice that perpetuate social inequities and disparities, honoring inherent interconnections and interdependencies.

Core Beliefs

• All life is interconnected and deserves to be valued.

• Everyone has the capacity to lead and be a teacher-learner.

• Acts of injustice are learned behaviors.

• The components of social justice can be taught, learned, embodied, and enacted within and among individuals and communities.

• Healing and reconciliation within and among individuals and communities are steps on a journey toward liberation from vengeance, violence, destruction, and turmoil.

Four Pathways to Justice

These four pathways are most powerful when used together to activate socially-just individuals, families, organizations, communities, and policies. They are all active processes, not end states. Each pathway requires that we avoid passivity and are active participants in Life. Collectively, these pathways urge risk-taking with intention, and genuinely seeking connections within, between, and among individuals and others. 

The Social Justice Initiative pathways are defined as follows:

• Forgiveness: Acknowledging injustices as we transform from identifying as victim to identifying as survivor and from perpetuating harm to practicing social justice

• Cultural Humility: Remaining grounded in our own unknowing as we continue to come to know others

• Courage and Compassion: Facing fear and choosing to move forward anyway, and commitment to remaining desirous of supporting others though suffering

• Radical Love: Recognizing the Good in others simply because they exist

Upcoming SJI Events

To stay up to date on SJI news and events, please send an email to sji@brynmawr.edu to join our Community Email List!!

Navigating Amidst Turbulence & Uncertainty: Moving Along The Four Pathways Of Social Justice

Jan 23 & Jan 25, 9am-12pm EST, Zoom

SJI Facilitators Darlyne Bailey and Sarah Spath will offer a two-part workshop, hosted by SJI Coordinating partner The Bucks-Mont Collaborative, that focuses on both “how to be” socially just during times of injustice, and “how to do” the work along a continuum. Participants will be introduced to the Four Pathways of Social Justice, a framework developed by the SJI. While best utilized together, each workshop part is designed to stand alone:

• Part I: Cultural Humility & Courage and Compassion
• Part II: Forgiveness & Radical Love

Register here.