OUR PHILOSOPHY

Participatory Democracy

The SpiritHouse Project operates on three fundamental principles of participatory democracy:

1. Let the People Decide - SpiritHouse recognizes that ordinary people and grassroots communities are not powerless. They possess the capacity and power to make decisions about their lives at home, and in the nation.
   
   
2. Strong Leaders Emerge Out of the Body of Strong Communities - They set a discourse and develop a plan of action that emerge out of communities' collective struggle, consciousness, and vision. Authentic leaders do not make decisions; they facilitate decisions that communities make.
   
   
3. Authentic Struggle for Liberation is Intergenerational - In an intergenerational struggle, generations work in harmonious debate that allows each generation to bring its knowledge and experience to the common table as resources to be valued. They draw on their resources and experiences to fashion a common dream, where they are bound together as a collectivity with common interests.

Spirituality

SpiritHouse recognizes that justice is both a spiritual and social concept that are interconnected to each other. Injustice and violence are signs of deep spiritual malformation. They spread a national cancer that eats away at our national unity and potential.

The SpiritHouse Project's work is a spiritual call for us to reconcile our relations with God, each other, and all aspects of creation, by building and sustaining what Paulo Freire calls intimate democratic spaces that cut across the social, economic, and religious prides in our lives.

SpiritHouse recognizes that injustice breeds and spreads lies that distort our images of God, ourselves, and others. SpiritHouse believes that the truth sets us free. Therefore, truth-telling plays a major role in our work. SpiritHouse Project helps unveil the truth through research, the arts, spiritual reflections, stories of ordinary people, action, education and community building, sacred texts, broadsides, and community formation.