Emergence Initiatives

While we showcase women, transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, and genderfluid people in high-quality Ultimate, we use our platform to also share knowledge and create spaces for conversation. We work to influence individual-level awareness that will reverberate into our communities, and back into our city and our sport in the future. We bring in players from the Southeast Ultimate community into a flat organization, dedicated to anti-oppression, that is constantly listening and improving. We link rising stars with a team that will include and empower them to grow both as players and as people. We provide a stage for our team, and youth who we hope will be on the team one day, to play in front of supportive fans.

The logo for Emergence Initiatives is a tree, reminiscent of Atlanta's reputation as the "city in a forest." The canopy of leaves is growing out of two arms that make up the trunk. The arms and hands signify the personal action, the movement of liberating ideas, questions, and connections from the internal to the external. There is a heart between the two hands to represent the passion, the Soul at the center of working for change. The leaves signify our actions growing and manifesting into change in the systems and environment around us.

“Emergence” is meant to provoke a hopeful skepticism of the permanence of oppressive systems. It is about creating something new and bringing into view something that has been concealed. As long as we are paying attention, we are never stuck. Individuals and institutions, through their will and action, will cause new things to emerge, and societies will adapt and progress. With critical awareness of what is happening, we can contribute to this progress. As the environment becomes more liberating, new functions, collective behaviors, and structures can emerge which were not possible, or sometimes even imagined, in the more oppressive environment. Emergence both requires and creates momentum, and we plan to contribute to this momentum.