Seeding Stories / Sembrando Historias

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Seeding Stories / Sembrando Historias Nest Egg

Seeding Stories / Sembrando Historias is a bilingual storytelling, narrative building and organizing collaboration helmed by Natacia Knapper and Veronica Mosqueda, two long-time community organizers based in Washington, DC, with 24 years of combined grassroots and cultural organizing experience. We are grounded in values of racial and economic justice, cultivating spaces that prioritize accessibility and creating the conditions needed for each space to meet the needs of all participants, and community. 

Thanks to the generous support we received from our Kickstarter campaign earlier this year, we raised the funds to begin the work of creating the infrastructure for this new business endeavor but in order to do this work effectively and meaningfully - and to meet our material needs while doing so - ongoing support is needed. 

This is hard work that is already emotionally taxing compiled with taking this on during an incredibly fraught and dangerous political landscape - and the first year for any project like this will be filled with uncertainty. While we are not new to this work nor are we new to working under deeply oppressive circumstances, we are new to creating this work in this way... outside of traditional nonprofit structures that have restricted how we are able to use our vast years of experience. 

Specifically, this looks like: 

  • Developing cultural organizing trainings that focus on storytelling and how controlling our narrative is ESSENTIAL to building people-powered strategies to fight oppression 
  • Supporting the relaunch of two of Washington DC's flagship coalitions, one focused on overhauling and re-envisioning DC's crisis response system and the other on decriminalizing poverty, through a shared effort 
  • The creation of an organizing body for Black immigrants across the DMV
  • The development of "Grief in Action" curriculum for organizing and advocacy collectives 

The labor of doing this very necessary work requires growing a community of donors to keep us sustained! 

While we do have a deep and diverse support system to help us navigate all of this and we are deeply skilled, dedicated, and committed, we are going into this with our eyes open and we know even deeper levels of support will be needed to ensure that we can meet this moment and show up fully. We invite folks to join us on this journey and make a contribution as we do the work that will build power as we create the world we want to live in. 

Testimonials for Seeding Stories:

“We are honored to partner with Seeding Stories to support our community outreach efforts. Veronica and Natacia are trusted messengers with a history of thoughtful, dedicated, and deeply-rooted commitment to justice and equity in Washington, DC. With so many interconnected issues at play, we are confident that Seeding Stories is the partner to help us navigate the current environment while building the possibility and capacity for a better future for us all.” - Benjamin Brooks, Whitman-Walker Health (WWH)

"Seeding Stories held a powerful daylong retreat for the Excluded Worker Coalition to mark the end of our campaign work together. It made space for personal and collective reflection and appreciation. I would definitely work with them again." - Elizabeth Falcon, DC Jobs with Justice Executive Director
 
"I love working alongside and following the leadership of Seeding Stories! Natacia and Veronica are phenomenal facilitators, organizers, leaders, teachers, and co-laborers for economic and racial justice. I have learned so much from them and I have witnessed them facilitate meetings with care, wisdom, expertise, discernment, and deep empathy. When considering the times we are living in, the Festival Center is an enthusiastic supporter of Seeding Stories as we see Natacia and Veronica leading the struggle to ensure the stories of those directly impacted by injustice are shaping the ways we work towards justice and liberation." - Bill Mefford, Executive Director of The Festival Center

Organized by Seeding Stories / Sembrando Historias