Want to Build?

The Writing and Rhetoric Program provides a range of opportunities for undergraduate students to explore how their writing skills can support local, national, and international efforts for social justice and human rights. Through these opportunities, students can gain direct experience in how academic and professional writing can link to self-defined community goals and aspirations. In the process, students also can gain direct and extensive experience in print/digital publishing, community buidling strategies, and international human rights work.

If you are interested in joining any of the projects below, please write using the Contact form.

Community Partners

The Federation of Worker Writers and Community Publishers (FWWCP) originated in the late 20th century as a network of working-class writing groups, beginning in the United Kingdom but eventually spreading into Europe and the United States. During its 30-year history, the FWWCP circulated over one million publications. It was a long-term goal of the organization to create an archive that would ensure that the work of FWWCP writers and publishers could serve as a lasting record of working-class life in the late 20th century. The dream of an archive became a necessity, however, when the FWWCP was forced to close during the period of the 2008 recession. In response, an international network of studnets, scholrs, and universities worked with the organization to create an archive of over 2,500 publications. Currently, there is work to develop digital/augmented reality access to the collection which is housed in the Trade Union Congress Collection, London Metropolitian University.

Interns will be provided the opportunity to work on digitizing the archive, developing special collection areas, produce archive guidebooks, and work with FWCCP authors on acquiring publications. The intern will also have the opportunity to plan the annual Festival of Writing held annually in England.

The Haven is motivated by radical hospitality, we strive to be the point of entry for people seeking stable housing. We open the doors wide for any and everyone, no matter their circumstances. Every day, our trained staff and dedicated community volunteers come together, working side by side to make homelessness rare, brief, and nonrecurring for our neighbors.

Loaves and Fishes is a local food pantry whose mission is to give food with kindness and compassion to those seeking assistance while providing an opportunity for volunteers to serve their neighbors in Charlottesville and the surrounding communities. 

New City Community Press understands it mission as working with local communities to represent themselves by telling their stories in their own words. NCCP document stories of local communities because we believe their voices matter in addressing issues of national and global significance. The press values these stories as a way for communities to reflect upon and analyze their own experience   through literacy and oral performance. NCCP is committed to working with communities, writers, editors, and translators to develop strategies that assure these stories will be heard in the larger world. Publications include: I Witness: Perspectives on Policing in the Near Westside (Kuebrich); No Restraints: An Anthology of Disability Culture in Philadelphia (Ott); Espejos y Ventanas: Oral Histories of Mexican Farmworkers and their Families (Lyons). NCCP also supports Reflections, a journal focused on social justice work by teachers and community activists, and SPARK, a journal focused on political activism.

Interns will be provided the opportunity to work on a community publication, including developing writing groups, editing/design of manuscript, public events with authors, and, where possible, engaging in activist rights campaign linked to the publication.

PB&J Fund empowers children and families through culinary and nutritional education, while improving access to affordable, healthful food for under-resourced community members. 

Piedmont Virginia Community Garden is a volunteer-led organization that grows produce and donates it to feed the local hungry through The Haven, The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, and The Salvation Army. 

The UVA Food Pantry

The Food Collaborative

Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ) believes that human rights are basic rights deeply rooted in all humans and every individual shall be entitled to their own human rights equally without any discrimination. All these rights are interlinked, mutually reinforcing, indivisible and inseparable. To this end, STJ is a Syrian-led organization that aims to promote human rights for all Syrians, including equality, dignity, freedom, and justice – indivisibly, correlated, and complementary to each other. STJ believes that uncovering the truth behind violations, rendering justice to victims, and the promotion of human rights are all key to achieving a genuine and lasting peace in Syria. We believe this can only be accomplished through a period of real “transitional justice”, which involves rebuilding the Syrian state based on the rule of law, justice, human rights, and equal citizenship for all Syrians as a guarantee for a future free from violence and conflict. STJ realizes that professional and highly accurate documentation according to human rights standards is the first step to uncovering the truth behind violations and achieving justice for victims and their families. 

Interns will be provided the opportunity to work on human rights reports, support creation of human rights workshop materials, develop press releases for international media, and work on presentations to United Nations as well as International Criminal Court. In addition, interns will be able to help develop the digital infrastructure of STJ.

تويزة/Twiza is defined as the act of a community coming together to collaboratively build a material structure, such as a house or barn, to support a neighbor. The تويزة/Twiza project is a collaboration of seven universities and three non-government organizations that supports over 500 youth participants in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America to engage in transnational dialogues about the meaning of civic society and human rights in response to a global rise in extremism and intolerance. Twenty of these individuals will ultimately be chosen as تويزة/Twiza Fellows to take part in a five-day workshop where they will build (then implement) civic society projects focused on human rights in their home communities. From the dialogues and workshops, educational materials will be developed for use at additional universities and non-government organizations.

Interns will be provided the opportunity to work with international faculty/students developing dialogue topics, background materials, and digital infrastructure. Where possible, students will work with Twiza Fellows on local human rights campaigns.