Every week for the past two years, the Northwestern Women’s Center’s Liberation Learning Collective has provided a safe space for students to discuss books, complete crafts and foster community working toward learning about and building capacity for action for liberation.
In February, the Women’s Center announced that LLC is “sunsetting” this quarter, due to dwindling turnout and shifting student needs. Facilitating weekly programming has been a “heavy lift” for work-study students, and the closure of the project will allow them to focus their efforts elsewhere to better support student needs, Women’s Center Program Manager melisa stephen said.
“I think we always understood LLC as response to the needs of students, and political climate, and anything that’s been happening, and creating a space that supports it,” Weinberg senior and Women’s Center Graduate Programming and Research Coordinator Sana Nanlawala said. “It’s a continued space, also a place of growing and learning.”
LLC began in Winter Quarter 2024 as part of the Women’s Center’s Women’s History Month symposium and programming. The center organized a book club around “Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care” by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, providing a space for students to discuss the book’s themes of social justice organizing and movement building.
Women’s Center work-study students Nanlawala and SESP junior River Kim said continued interest in conversations stemming from the book club inspired them to launch consistent programming through LLC.
“In the beginning, it was very head-heavy, very intellectual, but moving to something hands-on was very fun,” Kim said. “(The workshop) was a highlight, because we were learning something together in a new way, like embodied learning.”
LLC has grown to include more book club meetings, skill-share workshops, quarterly community potlucks, zine-making and more.
One of Kim’s favorite LLC events was a workshop co-hosted with NU Tatreez Circle, where attendees learned how to make traditional Palestinian embroidery called tatreez.
For Nanlawala, exploring the idea of collective liberation through these events is tied to hope.
“It’s also tied to imagining futures that you can’t possibly fathom in a real world,” Nanlawala said. “It’s sort of breaking down like a pessimistic, jaded outlook on life, and I think there’s a lot of love and empathy that’s going to be involved in that.”
Kim said the idea is grounded not only in dismantling systems of oppression but in building new ones of care and consistently showing up for each other while working toward that shared goal.
Nanlawala said LLC has been one of their “most fulfilling” experiences at NU.
“It’s going to be something for sure that I keep with me post-grad,” Nanlawala said. “I think I found my footing here more than elsewhere.”
Looking back on their time with LLC, stephen reflected on documentaries they watched, like “¡Las Sandinistas!” directed by Jenny Murray and “The Weather Underground” directed by Sam Green and Bill Siegel, about past liberation struggles. From these films and books, LLC members learned about the successes and pitfalls of past movements and applied these learnings in a series of LLC-hosted movement skill-building workshops.
Although weekly programming will stop, staple events such as the annual Abolitionist Valentine’s Day, where students write letters to LGBTQ+ people who are incarcerated, and one-off skill-building workshops, will continue.
The quarterly potluck, which encourages community and coalition building across student groups, will also continue. This quarter’s potluck will be held on March 11.
As LLC comes to a close, programmers are collecting materials for an archive and a zine to commemorate LLC’s work.
Continuing these select events will preserve LLC’s spirit, Kim said.
“It’s been a good breath of fresh air for me to have this space every week, because it’s hard to find a lot of places here on campus where it’s open to talk about anything,” they said. “To have that trust built over the last few years, I think has built a really strong base.”
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