Silicon Valley De-Bug

ABOUT SV DE-BUG

Silicon Valley De-Bug is a community organizing, advocacy, and a multimedia storytelling organization based out of San José, California. Since its’ inception in 2001, De-Bug has been a platform for Silicon Valley's diverse communities to impact the political, cultural, and social landscape of the region, while also becoming a nationally recognized model for community-based justice work.

STORYTELLING:

De-Bug believes story-telling and media creation is a vehicle for individual transformation and can shape the way issues and moments are understood, conceptualized, and imagined by the larger public. To facilitate this process, De-Bug produces a bi-lingual magazine, a multimedia website, and a multitude of other media products drawing upon the creativity, analysis, and innovation of our community. And though our media products are delivered through numerous forms (such as articles, videos, books, music, art, and design) — De-Bug’s story-telling is driven by a guiding principle that those most proximate to the issue can share the most powerful, captivating, and insightful story.

ORGANIZING:

De-Bug believes people are stronger together than alone, and that collective action can challenge systems and institutions that oppress, while also modeling the possibility of a world that exists from our values. Our organization is part of a larger, long-standing tradition of communities of color organizing to fight for and create a society that is inclusive, liberatory, and provides an opportunity for all. De-Bug’s organizing approach is guided by the call, strategy, and vision of the lived experiences of our community. As such, we organize around criminal justice reform, immigrant rights, police accountability, racial justice, and economic justice. Our organizing and community-building work comes in many forms — all aimed at how the collective can protect, support, and lift up the aspirations of those who are part of our community. This means our organizing takes the form of direct action, healing circles, other initiatives that allow the group to support an individual's needs and ambitions. A particular community organizing initiative that was created through this approach is called “participatory defense” — a model for families and communities to impact the outcome of cases in the court system, as well as transform the landscape of power in the criminal justice system.

ADVOCACY:

De-Bug’s advocacy work is an expression of our community organizing directions, and often where our story-telling work is applied. Our advocacy work comes in the form of goal-oriented campaigns aimed at making system-wide changes that can measurably change the lives of those within De-Bug as well as the larger community. Our campaigns have been local policy-setting, state legislation, and moving the national political landscape. In 2017 we are we have active campaigns in bail reform, jail reform, police accountability, housing rights, and challenging the immigration and criminal justice nexus. 2016’s campaigns and their outcomes can be found at debugsanjose.org

Read the New York Times profile of Silicon Valley De-Bug, entitled: Silicon ValleyGroup Gives Voice to Voiceless.

Over the years, De-Bug’s work has received numerous awards including:

• “Best Youth Media Award” from the Independent Press Association
• “Immigrant Advocate of the Year Award” from the Services for Immigrant Rights and Education Network
• “Building a Better Community Award” from the Silicon Valley NAACP
• “Sundiata Acoli Freedom Award” from Youth United for Community Action
• “Justice Ally Award” from Students for Justice
• “Community Leadership Award” from the Human Agenda
• “Patriot Award” by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee
• “"Silver Heart Award" from the Society of Professional Journalists "for giving voice to the voiceless"
• "Cutting Edge Champion of Change" from Working Parterships
• Community Change Agent from COPE