Collective Care

QWOCMAP builds intentional spaces where our communities can gather, create, and celebrate in safety and joy. This guide describes the practices and agreements that make that possible. A longer, more comprehensive guide will come later this year.

These aren't practices handed down from above. They are views and practices developed through years of community leadership, input, and feedback from hundreds of volunteers, Community Partners, audience members, QWOCMAP staff, Board members, and Crisis Counselors. They are a living document, and they continue to evolve.

What We Stand For

Our Principles in Practice

These principles ground everything we do. They come from 25 years of practice, reflection, and community leadership.

Native Sovereignty and Black Liberation: The Braid

Native Sovereignty and Black Liberation are two parts of the same braid.

We are peoples who have had our lands stolen and we have been stolen from our lands. We are Indigenous peoples disconnected from our lands through occupation and kidnapping. Our solidarity is crucial to dismantling the foundation and centuries-long legacy of oppression in the Americas, from settler colonialism and enslavement to ongoing systemic oppression. Our focus on sovereignty and liberation calls into question imperialism and global systems of capitalism. Our Black Native and Afro Indigenous relatives, our traditions and worldviews, adaptive capacities, and ways of being, and relating to each other, to humanity, other beings, and the planet are the key to our shared survival and that of everyone and every being

Native Sovereignty

Gender and sexual diversity are woven into the spiritual practices of Indigenous cultures. Reclaiming these expansive understandings of LGBTQIA+ people are important to healing our communities. Sovereignty and stewardship - including traditional and evolving forms of governance and economics - honor the sacredness of the earth - protecting land, water, air, and other beings. Native people in the Americas lead struggles that are key to ending the occupation of, and extraction from, Indigenous territories and people the world over. QWOCMAP seeks to contribute and support the sovereignty of Native peoples here and Indigenous peoples around the world. This shapes how we share resources, how we approach our work, and seek to move with cultural humility as good relations.

Black Liberation

As Combahee River Collective wrote, the liberation of Black lesbians — transgender Black people and queer Black people, and all Black people — necessitates dismantling all forms of oppression. Black liberation is rooted in the history and present joys, struggles, and experiences of Black communities in the Americas and through the Diaspora, it is global in its solidarity. It is a collective body of thought and practice, which include decolonialism, and ending imperialism and capitalism. It is intersectional, interconnected, and multi-dimensional, grounded in the feminism and womanism of queer and transgender Black women. It seeks to understand and analyze systems, including environmental racism, drawing from radical traditions of justice, abolition, and healing. It affirms and celebrates Black culture and history, while its futurism imagines new possibilities through a combination of spirituality, activism, and creativity. Black liberation is our organizational foundation, not a program area. It shapes how we view leadership and joy.

Food Justice

We believe that food nourishes both the body and the soul. In celebration of the vital role that food plays in our communities, cultures, and histories, we offer a free reception with delectable delights during our events.

We Keep Us Safe

Our framework for community safety: why we don't call law enforcement, and what our roles are and aren't.

  • How we define justice for ourselves
  • Our law enforcement boundary
  • What's in our scope, and what isn't
Learn more
All festival venues are wheelchair accessible, with step-free entrances, accessible restrooms, and reserved seating. Let us know in advance and we'll make sure your needs are met.
We provide wider, sturdy seating and additional seating options, and we create enough space for people to move freely.
Service animals are welcome at all of our programs. Please reach out ahead of time so we can support you and your animal.
Designated areas are available outside our venues. We ask everyone to keep entrances and gathering spaces smoke-free.
Many of our programs are also available to stream. Captions and described options are provided wherever possible.
How We Work

Working Agreements:
Why They Matter

Originally developed by QWOCMAP volunteers and partners, the six working agreements guide our collaborations. They might look simple. They're not. Each agreement reflects years of community practice and hard-won wisdom about what it takes to create together across difference.

Listen fully, be mindful of space, address power dynamics openly. We say hello and welcome everyone. We are present with one another and check in if we need to be less present. We take time to get to know each other as people and are thoughtful about different needs.

Offer solutions with feedback. Trust the process. Avoid gossip. We believe in direct, caring feedback because it serves growth. Talking about someone instead of to them undermines the trust our community depends on.

Use “I” statements, distinguish intent from impact, and stay respectful. We focus on the factors, problems, and challenges we can control and communicate our needs, limitations, expectations, and successes openly. We agree to own our part in creating and implementing solutions.

Follow through is a form of respect — for other people’s time, for the work, and for the community depending on us. When we can’t meet a deadline, we communicate early and find solutions together rather than letting things slide.

We do what we say we are going to do. We do everything with QWOCMAP values in mind. We agree to actively listen, be open to feedback and room for improvement. We will be accountable for our mistakes and learn from them. We will give one another the opportunity to change and improve over time.

We have a good sense of humor and find fun in our work. Social justice work needs joy, pleasure, and lots of love. Art and social justice need compassion, curiosity, and the willingness to take creative risks in a supported environment.

See working agreements on the About page

Acknowledgments

These statements were created through the leadership, input, and feedback of hundreds of QWOCMAP staff, Board members, interns, volunteers, Community Partners, and audience members. This is a living document that incorporates community expertise, as well as QWOCMAP's ongoing learning about how best to meet the needs and support the dreams of our community.

We are grateful to the organizations and individuals whose work has informed our practices, including Sins Invalid, San Francisco Women Against Rape (SFWAR), and Community United Against Violence (CUAV).

Share feedback on this guide
testimonial-overlay
Testimonials

What Our Community Says

Hear how QWOCMAP's trainings and festivals transform LBTQIA+ BIPOC filmmakers, audiences, and communities.

Kristin Wygal
Candy Guinea
Christine Liang
Kristin Wygal

Filmmaker

quote

QWOCMAP gives communities of people that do not typically have a voice in mainstream media a chance to find their voice and be heard. QWOCMAP opens doors. And those of us that have somehow managed to be so lucky to make it in are opening up more doors.

Candy Guinea
Kristin Wygal
Christine Liang
Candy Guinea

Filmmaker

quote

I recently became a recipient of a Princess Grace Award in Film and I think that has so much to do with how QWOCMAP is able to shape artists and lmmakers to tell their own truth and to believe in their work. Those are very powerful lessons to learn.

Christine Liang
Kristin Wygal
Candy Guinea
Christine Liang

Filmmaker

quote

Having had that community of queer women of color filmmakers has been the foundation of my resolve to face the sexist, racist, and homophobic perspectives of the larger filmmaking community. It is very easy to become lost within the confines of one’s present world, and I always think back to QWOCMAP to find my way back to me.

testimonial-overlay
Testimonials

What Our Community Says

Hear how QWOCMAP's trainings and festivals transform LBTQIA+ BIPOC filmmakers, audiences, and communities.

Kristin Wygal
Kristin Wygal
Filmmaker
quote

QWOCMAP gives communities of people that do not typically have a voice in mainstream media a chance to find their voice and be heard. QWOCMAP opens doors. And those of us that have somehow managed to be so lucky to make it in are opening up more doors.

Candy Guinea
Candy Guinea
Filmmaker
quote

I recently became a recipient of a Princess Grace Award in Film and I think that has so much to do with how QWOCMAP is able to shape artists and lmmakers to tell their own truth and to believe in their work. Those are very powerful lessons to learn.

Christine Liang
Christine Liang
Filmmaker
quote

Having had that community of queer women of color filmmakers has been the foundation of my resolve to face the sexist, racist, and homophobic perspectives of the larger filmmaking community. It is very easy to become lost within the confines of one’s present world, and I always think back to QWOCMAP to find my way back to me.