Family Forward’s mission is to build economic and political power for all Oregon moms and caregivers. Our work is about making connections between current care systems and their history, which is rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism—all of which have caused care work, and caregivers, to be chronically undervalued and exploited.
We believe in a comprehensive approach to equity, one that ensures people from all races, genders, classes, languages, sexual orientations, abilities, religions, and non-religions have the tools to access power so that just outcomes are possible. To us, equity means not leaving behind any segment of our community for short term gains for others. It means naming and working to dismantle systems of oppression, like white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism. It means being able to name how caregivers living at the intersections of race, gender, class, sexual orientation, ability, and other identities are impacted most, and act in ways that center this intersectional work.
If we are to achieve our mission of building economic and political power for all mamas and caregivers, it is not enough to address systems of oppression broadly; we must also call out and work to dismantle the anti-Black racism that permeates this country and state. This requires making direct commitments that can be measured over time, so we can hold ourselves accountable to this ongoing work.
Our commitment to equity, inclusion, and addressing anti-Black racism also requires us to critically evaluate our organization, looking inward at our internal practices and policies, and outward at our external impact. It requires ongoing analysis of how dominant culture—the white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy—shows up in our work, and doing the work to learn more and do better to dismantle those systems of oppression.
We know that without multi-racial and multi-lingual transformational organizing and leadership development work, and the intentional amplification of historically oppressed voices, we cannot remove barriers and create systems change. Doing so is imperative to our work of building economic and political power for mothers and caregivers. We know that care work has been built on the backs of Black and Brown women’s lives, and by advocating for increased investments in care work, we are calling on lawmakers and society to finally value Black and Brown lives.
This work is never done. It has been and will continue to be a priority for our work as individuals, as activists, and as an organization until we live in a truly just society. We hope you will join us on this journey and engage with us here.