At the end of July 2010, Western States Center will be holding their annual conference, Community Strategic Training Initiative (CSTI). This 3 day conference has served progressive leaders for the past 2 decades, with innovative trainings, thoughtful workshops, and inspiring plenaries.

During this year’s CSTI conference, Basic Rights Oregon’s Standing Together cohort of leaders will also attend, in order to deepen their political analysis and to strengthen their organizing skills. The Standing Together cohort is a group of LGBT people of color and straight allies of color, who are committed to increasing the leadership of people of color in Oregon’s LGBT and social justice movement at large. Through their work, they hope to support both the LGBT movement and the racial justice movement. In 2011, the cohort will launch and lead their own exciting project to further this mission.

Standing Together will also be collaborating with Western States Center’s Uniting Communities cohort during CSTI on Saturday July 31st. The Uniting Communities cohort of leaders has a related mission, which is to work to proactively bring the mainstream LGBT community and mainstream communities of color together, to work for social justice. On July 31st, the Standing Together cohort and the Uniting Communities cohort will collectively build their skills and find ways to meaningfully support each other’s work.

Both Standing Together and Uniting Communities are excited to work together at CSTI. We know that by working together, we will build a broad-based multi-racial movement that can win effectively and create true justice.