Behind Thousand&One: A Community-driven Approach
At Thousand&One, our mission is to design solutions that support women of colour to thrive in their professional lives through community, healing, and growth.
In this blog, we’ll talk about the how behind our enterprise, our research method, and how we turn to you – our community, to inform our solutions.
Illustration by Liu Liu
Our Why
As womxn of colour, we face a set of unique challenges that impact our experiences in the workplace, regardless of the sector. Research shows that the barriers that stand in our way are due to both gender and racial discrimination. Our community faces a “concrete ceiling” - impenetrable, fully opaque, and impossible to shatter.
Even though at times, we haven’t had the language to describe our experiences, we’ve known all along in our core that something isn’t right. As we seek to find a path forward, it’s clear to us that our solutions must be founded on our community’s experiences and voices. It’s because of this that we believe our stories need to be documented, quantified, and recognized.
This community is about real solutions to very real problems. We hope to provide and equip women of colour with tailored resources, toolkits, mentorship, and programs that can help us navigate complex systems, to thrive in our professional lives and realize our full potential.
“Your voice and your experiences are at the forefront of our solutions. Where the community leads, we follow.”
Our Approach
Our approach is the backbone to our enterprise – it’s integral to our ethos, and we believe it to be at the core of Thousand&One. It’s also what sets us apart. We do this in three ways:
Community-driven
Real change and impact can be achieved when we feel safe to share, heal, and create together. Our community is at the heart of our solutions, and we aim to build with and for you. We value collaboration and engagement; this means participatory methods, hands-on activities, community calls, campaigns, and workshops. Your voice and your experiences are at the forefront of our solutions. Where the community leads, we follow.
Equity-focused
We make sure that all our solutions are made with inclusivity, intersectionality, and equity in mind. While we stand together as a community and a collective, we acknowledge our unique differences and our positionality. There is no one size fits all – instead, we are intentional about designing programs and services that honour individual cultures and identities.
Evidence-based
Numbers, stories, reports, testimonials – at Thousand&One, every solution is driven by research. For too long, our stories, experiences, and voices have been absent from public discourse. We will engage with you to bring it to the forefront, through surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Measuring impact, testing solutions, and tracking results are our priority. We recognize the power of documentation.
It is with you that we can find the right solutions to our collective challenges. We’ve created a short survey to better understand your experiences, barriers, and needs. Fill out the survey, and don’t forget to share it with your circle!
Coming up Next
As you’ve noticed, we have chosen “women of colour” to reference our community. We’re fully aware that this term isn’t loved by all, and certainly has its limitations. But we also believe that it has the potential to bring us together. Tune in next month to join the conversation.