Let’s Flip the Script

Traditional approaches to development aren’t working.

The numbers are staggering. Over 90% of unaccompanied migrant minors are boys. LGBTQ youth are up to 5 times more likely to attempt suicide. People with disabilities are more than twice as likely to experience violence, and an estimated 1 billion children experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence each year worldwide.

Behind these statistics are the vulnerable and forgotten - marginalized groups falling through cracks in systems failing to protect their basic rights and dignity.

The up! Collective exists to fill these gaps by flipping the script on traditional top-down approaches. We put power back into the hands of impacted communities, amplifying their calls for change.

Because we believe a simple but radical truth:

“The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power to solve it.”

This principle guides the up! Collective as we challenge the broken status quo of international development. We connect grassroots groups and marginalized communities to address the systems allowing injustice to persist.

How? By flipping norms and putting communities in the driver's seat. We make space for unheard voices to shape priorities based on lived realities. Then we amplify their calls for change rather than speak on their behalf.

Our role is to walk beside communities as partners, not in front as unelected "experts." We advocate for reforms and resources so they can develop solutions that work in local contexts. And we bring raw experiences from the margins into decision-making rooms dominated by the privileged and powerful.

For example, the up! Collective partners with a network of organizations in Southeast Asia addressing issues affecting LGBTQ youth. We provide research training so LGBTQ community members can lead interviews and focus groups. Their firsthand insights shape reports informing policies and resources to meet expressed needs.

This collective power holds vital solutions overlooked by those in offices and boardrooms. We embrace shared responsibility across lines of difference to tackle complex problems too big for any one group alone.

Another world is possible when we invert dynamics that breed inequality. The surest path to justice and dignity for all comes from following the lead of those denied basic rights. This is the future the Collective pursues.

The path ahead is long, but step by step, together, we can build a more just world that leaves no one behind. Stay engaged with the up! Collective as we turn up the volume on community calls for justice worldwide. The future starts when we join in solidarity and the world we seek starts from within.