Episode 86: Blue Heart & APIENC

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APIENC Member Assembly, March Teach-In Group, SOP 10 Cohort, Climate Strike Contingent, Rice Breakers, Needs Assessment Launch and the Blue Heart Annual Giving Guide

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“If there is anything that I've seen transformed in the past 19 months, is that more and more people are unwilling to accept what we previously accepted as normal”- Yuan Wang

In this episode, our featured voices are the co-founder and director of Blue Heart Lindley, Mease, and co-director of APIENC Yuan Wang.

This episode is focused on sharing the work of two grassroots organizations Blue Heart which empowers individual funders through their efforts of identifying and funding under-resourced organizations such as APIENC [API Equality - Northern California] who works with our Asian American and Pacific Islander Trans, Queer & working-class BIPOC [Black Indigenous and People of Color] community members.

Yuan Wang, APIENC(API Equality - Northern California)

Yuan (she/they) is a transgender, non-binary Chinese-American organizer. She was born on Ohlone land in Fremont, California, and raised on Lenape land in New Jersey. Yuan was shaped by organizing in New York City, where she supported housing justice campaigns at CAAAV, coordinated volunteer organizers at the Laundry Workers Center, and provided language justice support to the Sex Worker’s Project and local campaigns. She brings experience developing the leadership of young people, from leading queer-inclusive sex-ed at the Masakhane Center and organizing after-school programs for Asian immigrant youth at the Teen Resource Center. After starting at APIENC as a Summer Organizer apprentice, Yuan served as APIENC’s Trans Justice Community Organizer and will become APIENC’s Executive Director in December 2021. Their role as Director involves supporting APIENC’s staff team, sustaining abundant resources for our organizing, and rooting APIENC’s long-term culture and strategy in our evergreen values. Her community at APIENC has taught her what interdependence looks like in practice and reminds her every day to lead with care and vulnerability. Outside of her organizing work, Yuan finds joy in playing guitar, climbing rocks, and cooking for her friends.

Lindley Mease, Blue Heart

Lindley is dedicated to nurturing networks of solidarity for grassroots leaders advancing just and regenerative solutions to climate change. She directs the CLIMA Fund, mobilizing funders to collaboratively give to Indigenous, women, peasant, and youth-led climate justice movements globally. She is also the Co-Founder and Director of Blue Heart, an organization that organizes millennial donors to give to frontline organizations in the U.S. In addition to teaching at Stanford University’s Design School and being an active member of LeftRoots, a national formation of social movement activists, Lindley is an avid watercolorist, salsa dancer, backpacker, and amateur beekeeper. Lindley has an M.S. in Earth System Science and a B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University. Her roots run deep beneath the Cascades of Washington State and have now spread to the Sierras and the Redwoods that surround her home of Oakland.

APIENC(API Equality - Northern California)

APIENC builds transgender, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pacific Islander (TQAPI) power in the Bay Area to amplify our voices and empower our communities. Through organizing, we inspire and train grassroots leaders, transform our values from scarcity to abundance, and partner with organizations to sustain a vibrant movement ecosystem.

Since 2004, APIENC has trained hundreds of leaders to organize intersectional movements focused on racial justice, trans justice, community safety, and healing justice. Our work speaks to the unique experiences of those living at the intersection of transgender, queer and API identities, filling a key gap across our API and LGBTQ+ movements. Connect with us: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Youtube

Blue Heart

Our Story
We created Blue Heart out of fear and hope. We are scared. We are scared of how climate change, poverty, and discrimination will perpetuate and amplify long legacies of systemic oppression. And we are hopeful. We hope that awakening our collective imagination will light new pathways for transforming our economy, our policies, and our relationship with each other and the Earth. Blue Heart is our honest effort to examine the root causes of societal problems, kindle new imaginings for a better world, and inspire sustained action.

Our Mission
Blue Heart elevates the stories and solutions of communities on the frontlines of today’s most entrenched social challenges.

What We Believe
Frontline leadership is imperative. The people who have been pushed to the margins of society have the widest perspective on how it can be transformed - as well as the agility and discernment necessary to design solutions that will work on the ground.

Y(our) money is not y(our) own. We must proactively redistribute the wealth and resources that have been consistently and unjustly extracted from working-class communities and communities of color.

Cultural change catalyzes political and economic change. To transform systems, we must first ignite a shift in cultural narratives, perceptions, and social relationships.

Millennials are uniquely positioned to move resources. Millennials are a progressive and purpose-driven generation. They are looking for new models of philanthropy that upend traditional hierarchies. Connect with us: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Website

Donation/Volunteer

Blue Heart - You can become a member here, give to under-resourced grassroots organizations across the U.S. via our Grassroots Giving Guide and get your donations matched two times until the end of the year, follow our Instagram to learn about kickass grassroots organizations, read amazing interviews with our grassroots partners on our medium here. Support Blue Heart’s work by becoming a volunteer and filling out this application. Donate to Blue Heart

APIENC - You can become a member and volunteer by filling out this form. You can Donate and support APIENC's work with the transgender, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pacific Islander community members so they can continue to grow strong interdependent relationships, equalize power through popular education, and provide space to explore our identities and histories.

APIENC Resources Links

o “Up to Us”: Trans API Bay Area Needs Assessment
o Dragon Fruit Podcast on QTAPI Histories
o Dragon Fruit Project Museum
o Queer Possibilities Video & Learning Guide
o Donate to APIENC

Videos

Check out these videos to find out more about APIENC and Blue Heart’s Work

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