WHO WE ARE
ASE Cooperative is not just another initiative, it's a movement for liberation grounded in the belief that the radical act of reclaiming our history and our knowledge is a vital part of the healing process. We are a decentralized community centric model, an answer to the timely call to build a world where community care, sustainable practices ARE the work.
What is ASE?
AṢE (Ah-Shay) is a Yoruba word meaning "so it is," "the power to make things happen," and "life force." It embodies the sacred energy that flows through all things—our intentions, our actions, and our collective movements toward liberation. ASE is the power of manifestation, the breath of our ancestors, and the affirmation of our resilience.
We channel this energy into our work—building pathways for food sovereignty, sustainability, and communal well-being. We invoke ASE in our kitchens, our gardens, our healing spaces, and our organizing efforts, knowing that our liberation is not just a vision but a reality we are actively creating.
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Fawohodie: A Symbol of Liberation
At ASE, we embrace the Fawohodie symbol—an Adinkra representation of freedom, emancipation, and independence—as a guiding principle in our work toward community care, food sovereignty, and Black and Brown reclamation. Rooted in the Akan tradition, Fawohodie speaks to the right to self-determination, a concept deeply embedded in our mission to reclaim and redefine relationships with land, food, and collective well-being.
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Why Fawohodie Matters to Our Cooperative
By embracing Fawohodie, we collectively affirm that our work is more than food, it is a movement toward self-sufficiency, autonomy, and the restoration of our cultural inheritance. We honor the wisdom of our ancestors while forging new paths toward liberation, ensuring that future generations inherit a world where food is a right, not a privilege, and where our communities flourish on our own terms.
Community Care & Collective Liberation
Fawohodie reminds us that true liberation is communal. It thrives when we build sustainable systems that nourish and uplift each other. Our cooperative fosters spaces where knowledge, resources, and traditions are shared, ensuring access to healing, sustenance, and economic autonomy for our communities.
Food Sovereignty & Ancestral Reclamation
The fight for food justice is inseparable from the fight for freedom. As a cooperative, we recognize the historical disconnection of Black and Brown communities from land and food systems due to colonization, enslavement, and systemic oppression. Fawohodie calls us to reclaim ancestral agricultural practices, rebuild local food economies, and center Indigenous and African diasporic foodways as acts of resistance and self-determination.
Black & Brown Reclamation
In a world that often commodifies and erases our cultural knowledge, Fawohodie stands as a call to reclaim what is ours—our histories, our stories, our herbal and culinary traditions, and our ability to define our own futures. Our cooperative serves as a living, breathing manifestation of this reclamation, reinvesting power into the hands of our communities through education, resource-sharing, and mutual aid.
