Category: Leadership Development

[Image: Three queer and trans APIs in the middle of chanting at a protest emerge from purple flames. Text above them reads “Are you ready to transform hope into action?”. Text layered in front of them reads “RISE UP: A Lavender Phoenix Program To Develop Incoming Members”. ]

Rise Up: Building Foundations for Lavender Phoenix Membership – Apply by Wednesday, 8/9! 

Do you want to organize with trans, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pasifika communities? Are you committed to social justice, liberation, and collective transformation? Are you ready to learn concrete organizing skills and build movements for change? The APPLICATION for Lavender Phoenix’s Inaugural New Member Cohort is OPEN! 🔥 Applications are due Wednesday, 8/9! 🔥

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Image description: A crowd of 30 trans and queer APIs face the camera.

Introducing: 2023 Rise Up

We have an exciting announcement! In June 2023, we will temporarily pause accepting new members into our membership, as we prepare to welcome our first-ever cohort of new members. As our base, power, and responsibility grows, we need time to develop stronger structures for member and leadership development so members are prepared to sustain our

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Image Description: a group of 9 QTAPIs face the camera, making peace signs and smiling at each other.

At APIENC, I learned to lead with love.

Dear APIENC Community, I started organizing around my identity as a queer kānaka maoli from a place of great anger. I was angry that my lāhui lived in such dire poverty in our own homeland. I was angry that the university I attended actively contributed to the desecration of our ‘āina. I was angry that

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Image description: A group selfie of APIENC staff, a sunflower, and summer organizers smiling outdoors.

I am reminded I am enough

When my time as an APIENC Summer Organizer came to a close, I brought ink to skin, tattooing a representation of my transformation this summer. Now, on my right arm is an abstract person whose head is exploding, three bold eyes flying in different directions. If I could encapsulate this summer with APIENC in a

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Image Description: a Zoom photo of 16 QTAPIs, including Nisha. Everyone is smiling at the camera, and making hearts and peace signs with their hands.

We need to extend humanity to ourselves.

I sat in a Zoom room with 30 other people—most, I didn’t know, and all, I had never actually met in-person. It was our first weekend of LEX—APIENC’s API Queer Justice Leadership Exchange—and I felt a mix of anxiety and excitement. Just over a year ago, I first joined APIENC. At the time, the COVID-19

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