RadGram’s Story
Radical Grandma Collective is an international and intergenerational solidarity effort supporting environmental justice activists in Northeast Thailand.
Radical Grandma Collective started, like many good things do, with a simple request and a bold refusal.
In a small village in Northeast Thailand in 2008, a community started organizing. After a gold mine poisoned their fields, their water, and their bodies, they picked up megaphones, gathered neighbors, blocked roads, and launched a community-led resistance to defend their land. But organizing isn’t free, so they started weaving to fundraise for the movement.
Mae Rote (Ranong Kongsaen), one of the community’s most respected leaders and fiercest protectors, kept asking us—a small group of American educators and friends of the community—if we could sell their weaving in the U.S. We kept saying no. We didn’t know anything about business. But we knew something about solidarity. And we knew that if grandmas could fight a multinational gold mining company, we could probably figure out how to sell a scarf.
Who can say no to grandma?
We became Radical Grandma Collective and launched in 2016 with a simple idea: sell woven goods to support a grassroots environmental justice movement. We didn’t imagine then that we were planting the seeds for something much bigger. But over time, our purpose grew. The movement evolved. And so did we."
Today, RadGram works alongside many mine-affected communities to build what we call restoration—of ecosystems damaged by mining, as well as community relationships, local economies, and safety in our home environments. That means creating livelihoods rooted in local knowledge, ensuring families have safe food and water, and reclaiming the right to define their future.
Our partners are fighting for the right to thrive on their land, not just survive on it. We support that fight through funding, enterprise, and education—and by inviting others to join us.
RadGram is guided by grandmothers, led by women human rights defenders, powered by solidarity, and grounded in relationships. We're still selling scarves. But now we’re also sustaining a movement.
In Solidarity,
The Radical Grandma Collective