July 6-17, 2020

A collaboration between Project NIA and EFA Project Space

Organized by Mariame Kaba and Alison Reba (Project NIA)

Facilitators: veronica bohanan, Jazmine Catasus, Donnay Edmund, Ebonée Green, Crystal Vance Guerra, Benji Hart, Kelly Hayes, Paul John, Essye Klempner, Santera Matthews, Pamela Quintana, Justin Sanz, Nelini Stamp, Adaku Utah, Bilphena Yahwon.

ABOUT

This summer, EFA Project Space will present a series of programs around the interwoven questions of abolition, justice, equity, transformation, and reparation.

At the core of the Abolitionist Institute program is the Abolitionist Youth Organizing Institute. Co-presented with Project NIA and organized by Mariame Kaba and Alison Reba, the AYO is a virtual space for 50 young people ages 16 to 24 to engage in creative resistance towards a liberated future together. Students will explore themes throughout the sessions in social justice, anti violence, leadership, organizing, campaign development, direct action, mutual aid, creative resistance, Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), harm, and healing. The Institute will meet daily from July 6 - 15, 2020.

The training will introduce participants to the concepts of organizing, campaign development, direct action, mutual aid, creative resistance, prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition and transformative/healing justice. The institute will cover the basics of organizing from an abolitionist framework, with the goal of helping participants find/define & sustain their role within movements for social justice and change. By the end of the institute, participants will see themselves as agents of positive change in their communities and develop some meaningful skills to drive their organizing work. 

A note: while COVID-19 may have changed our original plan for an in-person series of workshops this summer, we are excited to offer the Institute (AYO, NYC!) online! We received over 160 applications from interested youth across the country and will virtually host 50 participants the first week of July to build power and community through organizing, creative resistance, mutual aid, and more. 

The AYO program was organized via a crowdfunding campaign – fiscally sponsored by Flux Factory.

RESOURCES

Abolitionist Institute Padlet - Readings, Resources and Session Notes: bit.ly/ayonycpadlet

DEDICATION

The Abolitionist Youth Organizing Institute this year is organized in memory of Janine Soleil, a social worker and activist and mother to Project Space Program Director Dylan Gauthier who passed away from COVID-19 earlier this year.

ABOUT PROJECT NIA

Project NIA offers a new way of thinking about crime and violence. We use the principles of participatory community justice – often called restorative or transformative justice – which has been shown to meet the needs of victims, reduce recidivism, and improve satisfaction with the legal system. Project NIA offers a new way of thinking about crime and violence. Community-based justice models redefine the goals of the criminal legal system to include the prevention of crime as well as community member involvement in addressing crime. We believe that communities are strengthened when local citizens participate in responding to crime, delinquency and violence because they are more likely to tailor responses to the preferences and needs of victims, perpetrators, and their neighbors. For more info: http://project-nia.org/

ABOUT THE ORGANIZERS

Mariame Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. Prior to starting NIA, I worked as a program officer for education and youth development at the Steans Family Foundation where I focused on grantmaking and program evaluation. Kaba co-founded multiple organizations and projects over the years including the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, the Chicago Alliance to Free Marissa Alexander and the Rogers Park Young Women’s Action Team (YWAT) among others. She has also served on numerous nonprofit boards. Kaba has extensive experience working on issues of racial justice, gender justice, transformative/restorative justice and multiple forms of violence. She has been active in the anti gender-based violence movement since 1989. Her experience includes coordinating emergency shelter services at Sanctuary for Families in New York City, serving as the co-chair of the Women of Color Committee at the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network, working as the prevention and education manager at Friends of Battered Women and their Children (now called Between Friends), serving on the founding advisory board of the Women and Girls Collective Action Network (WGCAN), and being a member of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence. Kaba co-founded and currently organizes with the Survived and Punished collective and is a founding member of the Just Practice Collaborative. For Abolitionist Institute, Kaba is the lead organizer and will provide research as well as practical guidance on the composition of each workshop/learning session and serve as lead mentor for youth participants.

Alison Reba is a Black Trans butterfly, sibling, community organizer and healing practitioner who centers relationship building as a means to transform ourselves and our communities. They believe in the radical imagination and power of young people to transform our world, and carry with them over 10 years of experiences co-learning from their brilliance. Alison is deeply committed to a practice that interweaves storytelling, dreams, and soul + ancestral medicine as tools for collective liberation.

At the conclusion of the week-long AYO program, Project NIA and Project Space presented a Mini-Institute that invited young people to a 2-day training on abolitionist issues.

On July 16 & 17, we invited young people ages 14 to 24 to participate in training that will introduce them to the concepts of restorative justice, safety planning without cops, and mutual aid.

Introduction to Restorative Justice — July 16 from 1 to 4:30 pm (EST)

Restorative Justice challenges us to recognize each other's humanity and to concern ourselves with accountability rather than punishment. It is a way of being that is reflected not just in the political but also the personal. We are restorative, we don't do restorative. This workshop will review the restorative practices continuum, the three paradigms (retributive, restorative, transformative), its indigenous roots (African + Native American), and the proactive work required through restorative practices. We discussed community conferencing, an accountability process on the restorative practices continuum.

Facilitator: Bilphena Yahwon – on Twitter @GoldWomyn

Bilphena Yahwon is a Baltimore-based writer, abolitionist and restorative practices specialist born in Liberia, West Africa. Yahwon is the co-creator of For Black Girls Considering Womanism Because Feminism Is Not Enuf and a core member of publishing initiative Press Press. Her online library, The Womanist Reader, is dedicated to archiving free texts from Black women across the diaspora. Bilphena’s work uses a womanist approach and centers women’s health and well-being, intersectionality, and abolition.

Care Not Cops: Youth Safety Planning in a World Without Policing — July 17 from 1 to 2:30 pm (EST)

For this session we will engage in a safety planning skill-share by focusing on how to use the Bay Area Transformative Justice Pod-Mapping Tool. We will also collectively strategize how to cultivate safety without relying on policing, child protective services, or other healing barriers created by mandated reporting laws. This session will be as interactive as you like - join in on the conversation or listen in as others share their ideas - all are welcome.

Facilitator: Santera Matthews is a queer mixed indigenous (Keewenaw Bay Ojibwe) organizer born and raised in Milwaukee, WI. Her work focuses on supporting people who are criminalized for acts of self-defense, facilitating and supporting restorative and transformative justice processes, and supporting LGBTQ people who are incarcerated in Wisconsin with her work as an organizer with Black and Pink.

Introduction to Mutual Aid — July 17 from 2:45 to 5 pm (EST)

This session will address the following questions: What is "mutual aid," and how is it different from charity, philanthropy, and state social services? How is mutual aid part of current and historical freedom, liberation, and self-determination struggles of different peoples? How are mutual aid efforts responding to the COVID-19 pandemic? How can people participate in mutual aid projects now?

Facilitator: Mariame Kaba