A typical day for me in the community and at WeCanMake differs. However, reflecting on attending Re:Assemble, a 3-day summit hosted by Civic Square at the Centre for Alternative Technology, affirmed my commitment to community development and organizing. It taught me a range of things: from being curious and embracing doubt, to practicing collective care and radical imagination. Sessions on regenerative organizing, like those with the “Good Ancestor Movement” and Doughnut Economics Action Lab, showed me that this work isn’t just about physical structures. It’s about trust, reciprocity, and healing in the very reality of our homes and streets.

The conference resonated powerfully with the quote:
"How can the diaspora relink these flows of care and channel them towards this project of land justice—land that sustains and supports lives at the scale of the home, street, and neighborhood?"
I saw this come alive in the stories of community land trusts like WeCanMake, East Marsh United, and City Island Lab. They are not just legal entities but living examples of how collective ownership, self-built housing, and place-based governance can root us in care and long-term stewardship. At the WeCanMake retrofit demonstrator we hosted, I was struck by how powerfully one of our community residents shared her story--her bravery to say she wanted more for herself, to risk what she knew to pursue self-built housing. For her, it was about reclaiming her agency and making space for every voice in the neighborhood’s future. She is our community connector.

Throughout the weekend, the language of doubt kept coming back to me—echoing Indy Johar, Executive Director of Dark Matter Labs reminder of Descartes: “I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am.” He shard that doubt isn’t a deficit; it’s an opening to tenderness, care, and relationality. This was echoed by Brandon Sturdivant, Co-Founder of The Mass Liberation Project, who reminded us that “to build differently, we have to be differently. To transform at scale, we must transform ourselves.” The work of community organizing, especially in housing and land justice, demands that we constantly reshape ourselves, in practice and in relationship.

Another session held was on Community Health Impact Assessments, and the powerful work of Downham Health CLT and the Portland Inn Project, teaching us how we can show up for each other, in both spatial and racial justice. I’m carrying forward the idea that community health means centering neighborhoods as living ecosystems.

One of the most transformative ideas for me was the “forage mentality” shared in our retrofit sessions, looking for what’s already around us and scaling it with care and reuse in mind. For example, the Palestinian screening on censorship demonstrated that conversations around land justice, materials, and violence must also acknowledge the machinery of displacement and the imperial legacies of control. It was a call to witness, to hold grief and accountability, and to see how these systems of extraction and dispossession play out globally and how we can change them.

Since starting this work, I’ve found that my focus has narrowed in the best possible way: how can we risk together and relink these flows of care and sustain life here, now?