"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

- African Proverb

​OurVision

​A sustainable world where all communities have ​
​culturally-centered spaces in which to live and thrive

OurMission

Cooperatively educating, organizing, and supporting squads of land stewards and Earth healers

OurApproach

Helping systematically disadvantaged farmers, builders, healers and educators attain sovereignty and sustainability. 

Ancestral Wisdom + Cooperatives + Partners + Land Stewardship = thriving communities

OurStory (in brief)

​OurSpace was started in 2011 by the grandson of a sharecropper, and OurSpace Acupuncture was our first community initiative. For six years, this thriving community acupuncture clinic was a member of The Peoples Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA) Cooperative, and created a space dedicated to stress relief and healing, providing affordable care to those for whom allopathic health care and pharmaceuticals were insufficient. Treatments were provided on a sliding fee scale and no one was turned away for inability to pay. In the 6 years it was active, the clinic provided close to 400 treatments/month and supported economic mobility by employing several student interns. During that time, OurSpace helped 9 women, (4 of whom identified as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color [BIPOC]), further their careers in natural and alternative medicine, and also provided shelter for an unhoused Black resident of the community. Recognizing that food, environment, and lifestyle were root causes of illnesses treated in the clinic – particularly for clients who identified BIPOC, OurSpace shifted focus in late 2017, taking a 2-year hiatus period for exploration, research, and training on farming and building skills (encompassing the Washington DC Neighborhood Farm Initiative’s Mamie D. Lee garden, the University of the District of Columbia’s College of Agriculture Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences Ward 5 aquaponic demonstration project, the ECO City Farms Beginning Farmer Training Program, and the Earthship Biotecture Academy). In 2018, OSW started farming and gardening initiatives and building projects for members of the community who wanted to work in these trades. Since early 2019, OSW has started several satellite community farms/gardens and provided several hundred hours of hands-on education and consulting around small-scale farming, ecological building, and cooperatives.

 

OurWork

OurSpace supports the work of Black cooperators and educates+trains those of the Black Diaspora in the skills of growing food, basic ecological building and community organizing. Our work upends existing systems upholding capitalism, white supremacy and exploitation by taking a holistic intergenerational approach to creating health and building community. We create new narratives around thriving and abundance by spreading knowledge and skills around land stewardship, growing food for ourselves and working cooperatively with each other. OurSpace fosters healing from racial trauma and enables access to healthy culturally-rooted plant-based diets/lifestyles by facilitating our reconnection to stolen land and to each other. We facilitate reparations by funneling resources/technical assistance to existing grassroots collectives doing crucial work. Finally, OurSpace addresses Black land loss and its far-reaching consequences by scaling an intergenerational model of community land stewardship,