ISSUES:

Home Daycare Justice

Police Accountability

Project GREEN

Youth Programs

 

MORE INFORMATION:

How to Support DARE

Organizing Resources

What's Happening
 

DARE's mission is to organize low income families in communities of color to win economic, social and political justice. As a multilingual and multiracial organization, DARE is a dynamic national leader in carrying out innovative campaigns that hold government and cooperate institutions accountable. A key to DARE's success is the understanding these campaigns built of the ways racism and sexism are a fundamental part of oppression in low income communities.

DARE's opening day Grassroots organizing is a fundamental aspect to creating community unity.

Founded by five people around a kitchen table in 1986, DARE's strategy of organizing techniques that focus on leadership development and direct confrontation with the institutions that maintain oppressive conditions, DARE members have won exciting victories, including:

• Making Rhode Island the only state in the nation to offer health insurance for family childcare workers in the state's subsidy program.
• Organizing a youth driven campaign that forced the Providence School Department to adopt multicultural curriculum designed by high school students.
• Reducing the threat of environmental hazards by winning major land reform policies that take land from speculators and give it to neighbors.

DARE's dues paying membership of over 800 families approximately 45% Black, 35% Latino, 10% white, 5% Native and 5% Asian.  Nearly all DARE members are low income.  Ages range from youth to elders, and all meetings and materials are in Spanish as well as English.  The majority of DARE members and leaders are women.
Leaders in DARE generally arise from a committee where they have caught an experienced leader's eye through commitment and skill, shown by doing turnout calls to meetings, speaking at planning sessions and actions, recruiting members and raising money.  To develop leaders, DARE provides a combination of experience, formal training and mentorship from experienced leaders.