Welcome to UACT!
Social Justice in the Pioneer Valley
Want to keep up on social justice news and action happenings in the Pioneer Valley (and beyond)? UACT staff and leadership now maintain a blog for you! Check it out! Also, feel free to send us relevant news and events to post, link to our blog from your web site, and let us know if you are an social justice organization and want us to post a link to your site!
What We Do
UACT's collaborations with communities in Massachusetts and beyond are built around curricular Alternative Breaks designed with a focus on community organizng and social justice.
UACT is coordinated by student leaders, all of whom are alumni of UACT alternative breaks. These leaders work together with a faculty and staff advisor to manage all aspects of UACT programs from curriculum design to leadership training, to classroom facilitation to fundraising. Students participate in UACT for at least one academic semester, but there are opportunities for them to remain involved in the organization for three or more years.
UACT works with community partners to evaluate ongoing collaborations and to design new programs and partnership activities. We strive to engage in work that transforms our classrooms, our institutions, our communities and ourselves by rejecting the constraints of the conventional classroom and by making the roles that we play as students, teachers, citizens and activists more seamless.
UACT Principles
- Build a practical understanding of community organizing as a tool for social change
- Develop and practice critical and liberatory pedagogies and popular education while building learning communities
- Explore concepts of privilege, oppression, and identity on individual and structural levels
- Develop student leadership through student facilitation and overall programmatic participation
- Build student commitment toward social justice
- Build mutually beneficial partnerships with community groups organizing for social change
Mission
UACT is a unique partnership of UMass students, faculty and members of grassroots community organizations. We work together to design programs that build community, promote social and economic justice, advance cross-cultural understanding and serve the educational and civic objectives of our Land Grant University.