OUR NAME AND LOCATION
We are the official group called “The Equality Coalition”. We use the letters, “EqC” to abbreviate our name. We were founded on July 29th, 2015 in Center City, Philadelphia, PA. We're an LGBTQIA Straight Alliance (GSA/QSA) for social change through social justice. Daniel Curcio and Yeremiah Hardt are still the Founding Organizers of it today. Any other group using the s
ame name(s) are not official groups. OUR MISSION AND CULTURE:
Our mission is to strategically execute initiatives that produce immediate and lasting improvements within our local communities. We follow the motto which says, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” We want you, as an individual, to be the change you want to see in the community in which you live. In our culture, we celebrate advocacy to serve and empower others, activism to demonstrate our values, education to open minds to new ideas, and outreach to create partnerships. We are the message of ground-breaking and radical change for the mutual benefit of the people, by the people, and for the people. As a group, we do not focus on or participate in party politics. As a group, we do not focus on or participate in electoral politics. We are a “helping hands” volunteer run and driven organization. We fight for social change for the mutual benefit of the people, by the people, and for the people. We chose to combat the Social Revolution with social justice. We define a social revolution as a movement aiming to reorganize all of society to empower people over profit, pride over insecurity, celebration over tolerance, and as an LGBTQIA Straight alliance over personal endeavors. OUR PHILOSOPHY AND VISION:
A progressive social and political movement has grown for years. Having been supported and magnified by a long-term fight that started during the Civil Rights Movement inspired by FDR, our function is to push local and national societal change to address the urgent social needs of this nation’s residents. Leading by example, we work to organize initiatives in major cities by charting a course to a lasting social revolution. Each initiative’s goal would be to bring immediate change to the community in which we live. We envision affiliations with both individuals and groups who both support us and those who oppose us, focusing on how we can move forward together with what we have in common, instead of arguing our differences. At the same time, we will remain a safe space for all of our members. We will continually reinforce the road ahead beyond the advancement of one leader’s legacy and incorporate supportive progressive voices. By having everyone’s voice heard we will amplify our efforts through each social-equality based initiative. Our purpose is not resisting, but allowing for us and others to integrate with us to see goodness when we all work together in harmony. We believe that resistance is the opposite of harmony. We see value in resistance, when it means the refusal to accept or comply with something or even an attempt to prevent something by action or argument. Harmony means taking that opposition and blending it into our own rhythm, sound, or beat of our drum so that we synthesize out what is detrimental and create something beautiful for everyone involved. We do not believe in violence in any of our actions. We believe in peace and working with the opposition to acquire what we totally want. We come together to see what we agree on and use that to move into the steps we need so that we move forward in unity where we don’t agree. Is the question, can we move forward together with someone who does not agree with us? Or is the question, can we move forward knowing that we are more powerful together than as one? We see justice as simply that. OUR UNIQUE FOUR CULTURAL PILLAR SYSTEM
The Equality Coalition’s mission, vision, and philosophy are based on four pillars that help in producing immediate improvements for the lives of residents living in our nation.
1. The Activism Pillar is developed to maintain vigorous action or involvement with other groups as a means of achieving social goals. This means that we can join other groups that support the specific social change we agree with as that specific group to show unification. Additionally, we can create our own direct actions where we can invite other groups to join us for an Equality Coalition action. This would mean that members of other groups would identify as Equality Coalition members to demonstrate solidarity. We practice activism to demonstrate our values.
2. The Advocacy Pillar is developed to execute campaigns that are used for supporting a cause where we can serve and empower others to help themselves. We define “others” in this case as social conscious organizations or a specific population we want to advocate for. So, we can join an organization to help them with a specific campaign they are working on to increase their numbers. We can also design a campaign of which the objective would be to plead for making that specific populations’ situation better. We practice advocacy to serve and empower others.
3. The Education Pillar is developed to inform others of an experience or point of view to broaden their knowledge base. This experience or point of view would be based in social justice and awareness to ensure that what we are teaching is done not through indoctrination but shared experiences. We can create projects for our local school system or simply give lectures at safe spaces for those attending that specific lecture. We practice education to open minds to new ideas.
4. The Outreach Pillar is developed to create partnerships between our organization and other organizations and community groups that are fighting for social change. We can develop partnerships with members of the religious or secular community organizations. The purpose of the partnership would be to see where their needs are and to see if they might be able to connect us with those who may be able to assist our cause or their cause. This is how initiatives are developed in this pillar. We practice outreach to create partnerships. OUR PRINCIPLES ARE ABOUT EQUAL AND FAIR...
Work Ethics to combat Gender Influenced Pay ending all forms of Sexism and Cisheteropatriarchy
Human Rights to combat Unjust Prejudice by ending all forms of Ignorance, Need, Misogyny and Tokenism
Community Development to combat Disproportionate Gentrification by ending all forms of Civil, Economic, Political, and Social Privilege
Family Values to combat Conditional Based Love and Compassion by ending all forms of Religious Imperialism
Product Consumption to combat Large Corporation Growth by ending all forms of Corporatism
Housing Practices to combat Homelessness by ending all forms of Classism, Kyriarchy and Kleptocracy
Wages to combat Unsatisfied Living by ending all forms of Crony Capitalism
Treatment of Immigrants to combat Ethnic Discrimination by ending all forms of Jingoism, Ethnocentrism, and Nationalism
Celebration of Indigenous People to combat continued systemic repression by ending all forms of Colonialism and Nativism
Police Conduct to combat Racial Profiling and Brutality by ending all forms of Racism and Colorism
Equal and Fair Education Policies to combat Unwarranted Incarceration by ending all forms of Intellectualism and Mentalism
Climate Initiatives to combat Environmental Pollution by ending all forms of Anthropocentrism
Accessible Healthcare to combat Unreasonable Health Care Costs by ending all forms of Clinical and Rehabilitative Deniability
Disability Integration to combat Nursing Home Integration by ending all forms of Ableism, Mentalism, and Genocide
Behavior toward Those Struggling with Addiction to combat Stigma by ending all forms of Apathy
Love of Others to combat Selfishness by ending all forms of Xenophobia, Transphobia, Homophobia, and Orientationism
OUR ETHICS:
All members of The Equality Coalition are accepting to everyone and not just looking for a particular set of skills because we believe that everyone is valuable. Therefore...
1. We reject instrumentality as no one should be a tool for another’s purpose.
2. We reject the denial of inertness as everyone should have their own autonomy, agency, and self-determination.
3. We reject ownership as no one will be treated as if they are owned by another member.
4. We reject fungibility, because we do not believe that anyone is interchangeable or replaceable.
5. We reject violability as no member should in any way be damaged, hurt, or fractured by another member.
6. We reject subjectivity as all members’ feelings, experiences, skill-sets, and ideas should be celebrated and incorporated into our community, state, and national initiatives.
7. We reject asset destruction and support assets protection and loss prevention and conservation.
8. We reject NFP Status of any of our initiatives as we are a volunteer run and driven group, although we do can work with NFP Organizations.
9. We reject unfair role assignments on our work we contribute as a team.
10. We reject being overly critical on any other member as this creates unwanted stress in our lives, destroys our character and hurts the “The Equality Coalition” in general.
11. We reject the idea of “no limitations”. We believe in a permission affirmative environment and understand that our members have the right to let others know their boundaries
12. We reject contamination. By this we meant that if any member is any way unethical, dishonest, corrupt and fraudulent, another has the right to stop that behavior immediately, including but not limited to removal.
