Gumbo YaYa Celebrates Women's History Month
with Love is Radical:
Approaches to Mother(ing), Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing):
Creative Arts Workshops, Performance, and Panel" (2:00-5:00)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com
www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Feb. 26, 2009
Gumbo YaYa, ushers in Women's History Month with a series of creative arts workshops, performances, and community-wide discussions about the beautiful complexity of relationships among women of the African diaspora.
Gumbo YaYa Dates of Importance:
March 1: Alt(a)rations: Building Sacred Space in Community with SpiritHouse (this session will begin at CAARE and move to other sites.)
March 8: The Aesthetics of Intimacy: Daughter(ing) as Communal Performance with Ebony Noelle Golden
March 15: Love is Radical: Performing Mother(ing), Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing) with Gumbo YaYa Sister Circle
March 22: Performance Rehearsal
March 29: Community Performance and Panel Discussion with the Gumbo YaYa Sister Circle (this performance is open to the entire community)
Nancy (Nia) Wilson, executive director of SpiritHouse-NC, shares, "Thank you to our sponsors: The North Carolina Humanities Council, Healing with CAARE, Inc., betty's daughter arts collaborative, and everyone who has supported this process by providing child care, cooking a meal, or attending a session. Gumbo YaYa is such a wonderful way to begin or continue building a healthy relationship between women and girls in our communities."
Ebony Noelle Golden, creative director of Gumbo YaYa, is over-joyed by the response. "Our sessions have been generously attended every week. Mothers have brought their daughters and granddaughters. I can't wait to see what the final performance brings, and what the lasting effect of this 12-week session will be."
The "sista circle" uses improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships among black mothers, daughters, and sisters.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa provides child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
--
Ebony N. Golden, MFA, MA
Creative Director
bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Hire Betty's Daughter for your arts consulting needs!
"creating radical expressiveness in community"
Check out...Gumbo Yaya/or this is why we speak in tongues
"Creative Healing and Expression for Women of the Diaspora"
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Friday, February 27, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Gumbo YaYa Continues Feb. 22
with "Meditation and Creative Visioning:
Building Intergenerational Bridges Among Black Women and Girls" led by Kenya Harris (3:00-5:30)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com
www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Feb. 17, 2009
The North Carolina Humanities Council and SpiritHouse-NC sponsor a creative healing and expression process for women and girls of the African diaspora in Durham, NC. We are pleased to announce that Kenya Harris, Gumbo YaYa's Intern, will lead this session along with two youth participants Bryonna and Nadirah.
The 12-week process, Gumbo YaYa, began January 4 and as is now gearing up to enter its third month with a series of performance workshops that will lead up to the final performance, March 29. Gumbo YaYa continues to incorporate methods for growth,expression, and community-building to actualize individual and artistic processes. The theme of this session is "Love is Radical: Approaches to Mothering, Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing)".
The "sista circle" uses improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships among black mothers, daughters, and sisters.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa will provide child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director of Gumbo YaYa thanks the North Carolina Humanities Council, SpiritHouse-NC, and Healing with CAARE, Inc. for their generous sponsorship.
Nancy "Mama Nia" Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "We are really looking forward to hosting Gumbo YaYa. This process will definitely help to continue conversations black women and girls are having about how we relate to each other. We hope this process helps mothers, daughters, and sisters strengthen their relationships with each other and the larger communities."
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
--
Ebony N. Golden, MFA, MA
Creative Director
bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Hire Betty's Daughter for your arts consulting needs!
"creating radical expressiveness in community"
Check out...Gumbo Yaya/or this is why we speak in tongues
"Creative Healing and Expression for Women of the Diaspora"
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
with "Meditation and Creative Visioning:
Building Intergenerational Bridges Among Black Women and Girls" led by Kenya Harris (3:00-5:30)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com
www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Feb. 17, 2009
The North Carolina Humanities Council and SpiritHouse-NC sponsor a creative healing and expression process for women and girls of the African diaspora in Durham, NC. We are pleased to announce that Kenya Harris, Gumbo YaYa's Intern, will lead this session along with two youth participants Bryonna and Nadirah.
The 12-week process, Gumbo YaYa, began January 4 and as is now gearing up to enter its third month with a series of performance workshops that will lead up to the final performance, March 29. Gumbo YaYa continues to incorporate methods for growth,expression, and community-building to actualize individual and artistic processes. The theme of this session is "Love is Radical: Approaches to Mothering, Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing)".
The "sista circle" uses improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships among black mothers, daughters, and sisters.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa will provide child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director of Gumbo YaYa thanks the North Carolina Humanities Council, SpiritHouse-NC, and Healing with CAARE, Inc. for their generous sponsorship.
Nancy "Mama Nia" Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "We are really looking forward to hosting Gumbo YaYa. This process will definitely help to continue conversations black women and girls are having about how we relate to each other. We hope this process helps mothers, daughters, and sisters strengthen their relationships with each other and the larger communities."
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
--
Ebony N. Golden, MFA, MA
Creative Director
bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Hire Betty's Daughter for your arts consulting needs!
"creating radical expressiveness in community"
Check out...Gumbo Yaya/or this is why we speak in tongues
"Creative Healing and Expression for Women of the Diaspora"
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Gumbo YaYa "Sista Circle" Continues with Feb. 15
with "Dancing with Our Spirits: Understanding Our Lives Through Rhythm" with
Mabinti Shabu (3:00-5:30)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Feb. 12, 2009
The North Carolina Humanities Council and SpiritHouse-NC sponsor a creative healing and expression process for women and girls of the African diaspora in Durham, NC. We are pleased to announce that Mabinti Shabu of The Magic of African Rhythm will lead the Gumbo YaYa Sisters in a 4-session choreolab that will inform and enhance the participants individual lives and craft the choreography for the final community performance, March 29.
The 12-week process, Gumbo YaYa, began January 4 and as is now in its second month. Gumbo YaYa continues to incorporate methods for growth,expression, and community-building to actualize individual and artistic processes. The theme is "Love is Radical: Approaches to Mothering, Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing)".
Up-coming Sister Circles Include
Feb. 22, "Meditation and Creative Visioning: Building Intergenerational Bridges Among Black
Women and Girls"
The "sista circle" uses improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships between black mothers, daughters, and sisters. The "sista circle" series culminates in multimedia theater performance March 29.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa will provide child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director of Gumbo YaYa thanks the North Carolina Humanities Council, SpiritHouse-NC, and Healing with CAARE, Inc. for their generous sponsorship.
Nancy "Mama Nia" Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "We are really looking forward to hosting Gumbo YaYa. This process will definitely help to continue conversations black women and girls are having about how we relate to each other. We hope this process helps mothers, daughters, and sisters strengthen their relationships with each other and the larger communities."
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
with "Dancing with Our Spirits: Understanding Our Lives Through Rhythm" with
Mabinti Shabu (3:00-5:30)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Feb. 12, 2009
The North Carolina Humanities Council and SpiritHouse-NC sponsor a creative healing and expression process for women and girls of the African diaspora in Durham, NC. We are pleased to announce that Mabinti Shabu of The Magic of African Rhythm will lead the Gumbo YaYa Sisters in a 4-session choreolab that will inform and enhance the participants individual lives and craft the choreography for the final community performance, March 29.
The 12-week process, Gumbo YaYa, began January 4 and as is now in its second month. Gumbo YaYa continues to incorporate methods for growth,expression, and community-building to actualize individual and artistic processes. The theme is "Love is Radical: Approaches to Mothering, Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing)".
Up-coming Sister Circles Include
Feb. 22, "Meditation and Creative Visioning: Building Intergenerational Bridges Among Black
Women and Girls"
The "sista circle" uses improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships between black mothers, daughters, and sisters. The "sista circle" series culminates in multimedia theater performance March 29.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa will provide child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director of Gumbo YaYa thanks the North Carolina Humanities Council, SpiritHouse-NC, and Healing with CAARE, Inc. for their generous sponsorship.
Nancy "Mama Nia" Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "We are really looking forward to hosting Gumbo YaYa. This process will definitely help to continue conversations black women and girls are having about how we relate to each other. We hope this process helps mothers, daughters, and sisters strengthen their relationships with each other and the larger communities."
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
In Your Hands
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Introducing In Your Hands: A Letter Receiving Project
Since love is not scarce, our ancestors bathe us in it every moment that we dare to receive.
I have learned that there are sources of nurturing that are older than us and swifter than our bodies. I am noticing that those who are no longer here in physical form are teachers in the wind, showing us how we must relate to each other, if we want to survive longer than our bodies and longer than a system that denies us.
I have been writing urgent letters to my ancestors since before I knew they were watching and on the cusp of this new year they whispered a suggestion to me. “How about for this new year, as a gift to yourself, you receive some letters from us, the spirits of women that love you from eternity?”
As ever, my answer was yes. These daily letters from the most beloved of my known and chosen ancestors on behalf of all of the ancestors who have sent us love with their lives and dreams without us knowing came at exactly the right time. When I was afraid to trust myself, I was not afriad to trust their guidance for me. I re-learned a shifting methodology of loving myself firstly as their vessel and secondly as their recipient
Here is a letter I received from Pat Parker:
Alexis, girl,
There is nothing like being at home, huh? In your skin, with your work, in the universe, with us. Nothing like it. You have this question of finding, needing your own space while valuing radical socialization. You need other people somehow. But sometimes you really need your solitude (so you can socialize with us!) You and your older women!
Ask yourself how much stability and routine you need. Where are your boundaries? Where are your shared spaces? Where is your “room of ones’ own”? Are those many rooms? What is your practice? As you know, your own clarity and diligence around these things will free you from resenting the other people you invite into your life. Being your word also means being honest about what you need. As you are learning, your very body depends on it. But your body is not the only thing worth saving.
There are these children, and your relationships to them is crucial. It’s also a relationship to yourself. Your work to move towards intimacy is ultimately on their behalf. And ironically your boundaries (and waking up early) are what will allow you to be intimate and generous with yourself. Think about Maura. This intentional self-care and intimacy is a queer practice that allow intimacy that is not “self-sacrifice.” And we have yet to fully achieve it. And we are watching you.
Love and then some,
Pat
And my ancestors are socialist, so of course they would ask me to share these intimate insights and gifts with you. Of course they would want me to bring their messages to your waiting ears, but more than that I want to share this practice and encourage that you engage it for yourself.
I don’t know what ancestors speak to you or why and when they do, but I have been asked to ask you to listen, lovingly for what the universe wants you to know.
Can you join me? Think of the people who have influenced you, while they were living or through their written, or retold legacies. Just think about them and let your mind relax, let their energy surround and fill you. Create quiet times in your days in case they have something to say.
I encourage you to add your insights here on the “your letters” page if your feel that what you have received could provide healing and wisdom for the rest of us. I encourage you keep your writings for yourself if you feel that they should remain private. The messages of our living dead are sacred. They transcend the norms of intellectual property, and they should be treasured by your best impulse.
My intention here is to share with you an abiding sustaining faith in presence of those who have gone before and their participation in our everyday.
I invite your observance or participation with love.
Always,
alexis
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Get Hip and Get Some Free Poetry in Your Life!
Greetings lovers of poetry, art, and culture!
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative is now accepting poetry, residency, and performance bookings for Black History, Women's History, and National Poetry Months.
If your organization, non or for profit, is located in New York and California, as well as in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Seattle, New Orleans, Tucson, and Washington D.C, you are in luck! Poets & Writers, an organization dedicated to bringing literary arts to communities across the country, will help pay the honorarium. Just visit http://www.pw.org/funding for more information.
Here is a short list of what I can offer:
1. Residencies: Poetry, Spoken Word, Performance Poetry, Experimental and Community-Based Performance
2. Readings: Poetry, New Works, Performance Works (original works)
3. Workshops: 1 hr, 1 1/2 hrs
4. Combos: Performance and Workshop
5. Teacher/ Artist Trainings: 1 hr, 1 1/2 hrs
Visit
http://bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com/a-poetics-of-process.php for teaching philosophy and sample lesson plan.
Bio:
Ebony Noelle Golden is the daughter of Pearl Glover, Bertha Sims and Betty Sims. She is a native of Houston, TX. Ebony holds a BA in English Literature and Poetry from Texas A & M University an MFA in Poetry from American University and a MA in Performance Studies from New York University. Ebony is an artist and cultural worker who has been awarded grants from the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Fund for Southern Communities, North Carolina A & T University and New York University. She has been published by Black Issues and Books Review, American Book Review, Obsidian, Pluck, and Third World Press. Ebony serves as the creative director of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, a boutique arts consulting group, based in NYC and NC. Her current projects include, “Gumbo Ya/Ya or This is Why We Speak in Tongues”, Images: for Younger SiStars, The Community Writing Intensive, i hear you breathing for me/ an embodied blues for meagan williams (multi-media performance) and “again, the water carriers” (a full length book of poetry). Ebony’s work is informed by her ancestral and spiritual family, guides, and homes, primarily. She can be reached at bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com or ww.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com.
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative looks forward to working with you to create "radical expressiveness in community".
Yours truly in the arts,
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Greetings lovers of poetry, art, and culture!
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative is now accepting poetry, residency, and performance bookings for Black History, Women's History, and National Poetry Months.
If your organization, non or for profit, is located in New York and California, as well as in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, Seattle, New Orleans, Tucson, and Washington D.C, you are in luck! Poets & Writers, an organization dedicated to bringing literary arts to communities across the country, will help pay the honorarium. Just visit http://www.pw.org/funding for more information.
Here is a short list of what I can offer:
1. Residencies: Poetry, Spoken Word, Performance Poetry, Experimental and Community-Based Performance
2. Readings: Poetry, New Works, Performance Works (original works)
3. Workshops: 1 hr, 1 1/2 hrs
4. Combos: Performance and Workshop
5. Teacher/ Artist Trainings: 1 hr, 1 1/2 hrs
Visit
http://bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com/a-poetics-of-process.php for teaching philosophy and sample lesson plan.
Bio:
Ebony Noelle Golden is the daughter of Pearl Glover, Bertha Sims and Betty Sims. She is a native of Houston, TX. Ebony holds a BA in English Literature and Poetry from Texas A & M University an MFA in Poetry from American University and a MA in Performance Studies from New York University. Ebony is an artist and cultural worker who has been awarded grants from the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Fund for Southern Communities, North Carolina A & T University and New York University. She has been published by Black Issues and Books Review, American Book Review, Obsidian, Pluck, and Third World Press. Ebony serves as the creative director of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative, a boutique arts consulting group, based in NYC and NC. Her current projects include, “Gumbo Ya/Ya or This is Why We Speak in Tongues”, Images: for Younger SiStars, The Community Writing Intensive, i hear you breathing for me/ an embodied blues for meagan williams (multi-media performance) and “again, the water carriers” (a full length book of poetry). Ebony’s work is informed by her ancestral and spiritual family, guides, and homes, primarily. She can be reached at bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com or ww.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com.
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative looks forward to working with you to create "radical expressiveness in community".
Yours truly in the arts,
Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Where is the Love?: Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind Session II
In 1978 at the 4th Annual Conference of Afro-American Writers at Howard University, June Jordan facilitated a historic and controversial panel on "Black Women Writers and Feminism." The talk that she presented "Where is the Love?" defined black feminism as a crucial act of love. Met with some hostility and homophobia from the audience, the talk was later published in Essence Magazine and remains a generations primary interface with what black feminism might mean.
More than 30 years later we are still working through what it means to create community and transformation through a radical understanding of love. Join BrokenBeautiful Press and SpiritHouse for a discussion of this important essay!
In Durham we will be gathering at 1pm on Saturday February 7th.
The essay is available for free download at :http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/where-is-the-love-session-ii/
Feel free to read along and gather wherever you are!
love,
lex
More than 30 years later we are still working through what it means to create community and transformation through a radical understanding of love. Join BrokenBeautiful Press and SpiritHouse for a discussion of this important essay!
In Durham we will be gathering at 1pm on Saturday February 7th.
The essay is available for free download at :http://blackfeministmind.wordpress.com/2009/01/29/where-is-the-love-session-ii/
Feel free to read along and gather wherever you are!
love,
lex
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Gumbo YaYa "Sista Circle" Continues with
"Mother. Ourselves" Interactive Workshop led by Alexis Pauline Gumbs and
Zachari Curtis (3:00-5:30)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Jan. 28, 2009
The North Carolina Humanities Council and SpiritHouse-NC sponsor a creative healing and expression process for women and girls of the African diaspora Durham, NC. The 12-week process, Gumbo YaYa, began January 4 and will continue to March 29 with a creative performance. Now in its second month, Gumbo Yaya continues to incorporate methods for growth,expression, and community-building to actualize individual and artistic processes. The theme is "Love is Radical: Approaches to Mothering, Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing)".
Up-coming Sister Circles Include
Feb. 1, "Mother. Ourselves." with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Zachari Curtis.
Feb. 8, "In The Beginning Was Her Word: Empowering Women One Story At A Time", with Dr. Anjail Rashida Ahmad.Feb. 15, "The Healing Practice of Dance"
Feb. 22, "Meditation and Creative Visioning: Building Intergenerational Bridges Among Black
Women and Girls"
The "sista circle" uses methods such as improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships between black mothers, daughters, and sisters. The "sista circle" series culminates in multimedia theater performance at the end of March.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa will provide child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director of Gumbo YaYa thanks the North Carolina Humanities Council, SpiritHouse-NC, and Healing with CAARE, Inc. for their generous sponsorship. Nancy "Mama Nia" Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "We are really looking forward to hosting Gumbo YaYa. This process will definitely help to continue conversations black women and girls are having about how we relate to each other. We hope this process helps mothers, daughters, and sisters strengthen their relationships with each other and the larger communities."
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
--
Ebony N. Golden, MFA, MA
Creative Director
bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Hire Betty's Daughter for your arts consulting needs!
"creating radical expressiveness in community"
Check out...Gumbo Yaya/or this is why we speak in tongues
"Creative Healing and Expression for Women of the Diaspora"
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
"Mother. Ourselves" Interactive Workshop led by Alexis Pauline Gumbs and
Zachari Curtis (3:00-5:30)
Contact: Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative
Media Alert
bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com www.bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Durham, NC- Jan. 28, 2009
The North Carolina Humanities Council and SpiritHouse-NC sponsor a creative healing and expression process for women and girls of the African diaspora Durham, NC. The 12-week process, Gumbo YaYa, began January 4 and will continue to March 29 with a creative performance. Now in its second month, Gumbo Yaya continues to incorporate methods for growth,expression, and community-building to actualize individual and artistic processes. The theme is "Love is Radical: Approaches to Mothering, Daughter(ing), and Sister(ing)".
Up-coming Sister Circles Include
Feb. 1, "Mother. Ourselves." with Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Zachari Curtis.
Feb. 8, "In The Beginning Was Her Word: Empowering Women One Story At A Time", with Dr. Anjail Rashida Ahmad.Feb. 15, "The Healing Practice of Dance"
Feb. 22, "Meditation and Creative Visioning: Building Intergenerational Bridges Among Black
Women and Girls"
The "sista circle" uses methods such as improvisation, dance, journaling, meditation, storytelling, photography, theater, poetry, and music to explore the intergenerational relationships between black mothers, daughters, and sisters. The "sista circle" series culminates in multimedia theater performance at the end of March.
All sessions, materials, performances, and discussions are free for participants and audience members. Gumbo YaYa will provide child care and dinner during every "sista circle". Participants do not have to be students, or affiliated with any particular institution to participate.
Ebony Noelle Golden, Creative Director of Gumbo YaYa thanks the North Carolina Humanities Council, SpiritHouse-NC, and Healing with CAARE, Inc. for their generous sponsorship. Nancy "Mama Nia" Wilson, Executive Director of SpiritHouse-NC said, "We are really looking forward to hosting Gumbo YaYa. This process will definitely help to continue conversations black women and girls are having about how we relate to each other. We hope this process helps mothers, daughters, and sisters strengthen their relationships with each other and the larger communities."
For more information about Gumbo YaYa visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com, or email bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com.
--
Ebony N. Golden, MFA, MA
Creative Director
bettysdaughterarts.synthasite.com
Hire Betty's Daughter for your arts consulting needs!
"creating radical expressiveness in community"
Check out...Gumbo Yaya/or this is why we speak in tongues
"Creative Healing and Expression for Women of the Diaspora"
www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Greetings Gumbo YaYa Supporters,
Last week's session "Brilliant Tomorrows: Sister(ing) as Communal Creative Performance" was a success! We had 20 women in attendance as we engaged diverse ways of practicing sisterhood.
This sunday features an extended gourd making and percussion workshop, HandWork to HeartWork" led by Connie Leeper of Kannapolis, NC. The session will begin at 2:30 and end 6:30. All programs happen at Healing with CAARE, Inc on 214 Broadway St in Durham, NC.
We are also pleased to announce that two of our youth, Nadirah and Bryonna, will lead us in a meditation and visualization activity to start the workshop.
As always, dinner and child care will be provided.
Additionally, please see the link to more pictures of the Everlasting Life workshop from our second week. Thank you sister Courtney Powell-X for the photography work.
http://picasaweb.google.com/sis.courtney/GumboYaya?authkey=vLMkbfNO_IU#5293620404058243410
Please visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com and leave us a note!
Last week's session "Brilliant Tomorrows: Sister(ing) as Communal Creative Performance" was a success! We had 20 women in attendance as we engaged diverse ways of practicing sisterhood.
This sunday features an extended gourd making and percussion workshop, HandWork to HeartWork" led by Connie Leeper of Kannapolis, NC. The session will begin at 2:30 and end 6:30. All programs happen at Healing with CAARE, Inc on 214 Broadway St in Durham, NC.
We are also pleased to announce that two of our youth, Nadirah and Bryonna, will lead us in a meditation and visualization activity to start the workshop.
As always, dinner and child care will be provided.
Additionally, please see the link to more pictures of the Everlasting Life workshop from our second week. Thank you sister Courtney Powell-X for the photography work.
http://picasaweb.google.com/sis.courtney/GumboYaya?authkey=vLMkbfNO_IU#5293620404058243410
Please visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com and leave us a note!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Greetings Gumbo YaYa Supporters,
Below you will find upcoming Sister Circle information. Please forward to Black women and girls you think may be interested in coming.
As with all circles, refreshments and child care are provided.
For more information, visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com or bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com
Jan. 18. “Brilliant Tomorrows: Sister(ing) as Communal Creative Performance”
Ebony Noelle Golden
Workshop Description- How are black women taught to sister? What are the some of the rites, rituals, and performances of sistering? How can we honor the space and practice of sistering? In this session, participants will engage in poetry, performance, music, and movement activities that help us create a vocabulary for active, present, and radical sistering.
The workshop is informed by the work and scholarship of Alice Coltrane, Romare Bearden, Ntozake Shange, Augosto Boal, Anna Deveare Smith, Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Soyini Madison, among others.
Jan. 25 “HandWork to HeartWork” Gourd Making & Percussion Connie Leeper
On the surface, this workshop is about music and gourd making. On a deeper level, it is more about connection…connection to ourselves, playfulness, imagination, culture, health and community. No experience necessary. Must be willing to be open, welcoming & ready to learn and teach. This workshop only requires that you bring your whole self into a process of intentional creativity.
Feb. 1 “Mother. Ourselves.” Alexis Pauline Gumbs & Zachari Curtis What happens when a life’s work stretches to include many lifetimes and multiple bodies? What models of communication allow those of us living in the flesh on this plane to access the imperatives of ancestors and the unborn? This exploration of the practice of spiritual daughterhood demonstrates and investigates radical connection as a calling and a strategy for healing and action.
Presented by three spiritual daughters of Durham visionary artist, educator and now ancestor Nayo Watkins, “Mother. Ourselves.” is both a performative tribute to Mama Nayo’s life and energy and a model for communication across the presumed limits of life itself. Mama Nayo understood the necessity of the creative process to radical political struggle and healing. This is how she lives with us now; reaching forward and back, moving away and drawing us together.
Time, distance, dis(ease), death, scarcity if asserted as essential, linear, terminal, logical, confine individuals and disrupt communication across seemingly impermeable barriers. What we know already is that we already have everything we need in order to reclaim, remember, revision ourselves, together, free. As Nayo put it, “You already know all you need to know… It’s in your bones.”
Feb. 8 “In The Beginning Was Her Word: Empowering Women One Story At A Time”
Dr. Anjail Rashida Ahmad
Over the millennia, women have held societies together word of mouth, hand to hand and vision by vision simply by the words issued from their tongues. The word or the power of one’s intention spoken into existence is the essence of who we are and can be a force that drives the unfolding of our life experiences. This speaking often takes the shape of stories both narrative and poetic. It’s the power of one’s own story articulated and shared that can have a most transforming effect throughout our societies both private and public.
In this workshop, Dr. Ahmad will lead us in uncovering the essence of the words lying at the bottom of our own hearts and use them to formulate our stories/poems/womanifestas-what desires to be spoken that has not yet been uttered.
Participants should bring a photograph of themselves preferably from the remote past. Use black and white if you have it or copy with a black and white copier. Together we will write autobiographically/biographically, herstorically inspired poems. Come prepared to be reaffirmed, to search-out the words and images, to gather and shape them and to share that which has the power to make us whole.
Below you will find upcoming Sister Circle information. Please forward to Black women and girls you think may be interested in coming.
As with all circles, refreshments and child care are provided.
For more information, visit www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com or bettysdaughterarts@gmail.com
Jan. 18. “Brilliant Tomorrows: Sister(ing) as Communal Creative Performance”
Ebony Noelle Golden
Workshop Description- How are black women taught to sister? What are the some of the rites, rituals, and performances of sistering? How can we honor the space and practice of sistering? In this session, participants will engage in poetry, performance, music, and movement activities that help us create a vocabulary for active, present, and radical sistering.
The workshop is informed by the work and scholarship of Alice Coltrane, Romare Bearden, Ntozake Shange, Augosto Boal, Anna Deveare Smith, Nina Simone, Zora Neale Hurston, Soyini Madison, among others.
Jan. 25 “HandWork to HeartWork” Gourd Making & Percussion Connie Leeper
On the surface, this workshop is about music and gourd making. On a deeper level, it is more about connection…connection to ourselves, playfulness, imagination, culture, health and community. No experience necessary. Must be willing to be open, welcoming & ready to learn and teach. This workshop only requires that you bring your whole self into a process of intentional creativity.
Feb. 1 “Mother. Ourselves.” Alexis Pauline Gumbs & Zachari Curtis What happens when a life’s work stretches to include many lifetimes and multiple bodies? What models of communication allow those of us living in the flesh on this plane to access the imperatives of ancestors and the unborn? This exploration of the practice of spiritual daughterhood demonstrates and investigates radical connection as a calling and a strategy for healing and action.
Presented by three spiritual daughters of Durham visionary artist, educator and now ancestor Nayo Watkins, “Mother. Ourselves.” is both a performative tribute to Mama Nayo’s life and energy and a model for communication across the presumed limits of life itself. Mama Nayo understood the necessity of the creative process to radical political struggle and healing. This is how she lives with us now; reaching forward and back, moving away and drawing us together.
Time, distance, dis(ease), death, scarcity if asserted as essential, linear, terminal, logical, confine individuals and disrupt communication across seemingly impermeable barriers. What we know already is that we already have everything we need in order to reclaim, remember, revision ourselves, together, free. As Nayo put it, “You already know all you need to know… It’s in your bones.”
Feb. 8 “In The Beginning Was Her Word: Empowering Women One Story At A Time”
Dr. Anjail Rashida Ahmad
Over the millennia, women have held societies together word of mouth, hand to hand and vision by vision simply by the words issued from their tongues. The word or the power of one’s intention spoken into existence is the essence of who we are and can be a force that drives the unfolding of our life experiences. This speaking often takes the shape of stories both narrative and poetic. It’s the power of one’s own story articulated and shared that can have a most transforming effect throughout our societies both private and public.
In this workshop, Dr. Ahmad will lead us in uncovering the essence of the words lying at the bottom of our own hearts and use them to formulate our stories/poems/womanifestas-what desires to be spoken that has not yet been uttered.
Participants should bring a photograph of themselves preferably from the remote past. Use black and white if you have it or copy with a black and white copier. Together we will write autobiographically/biographically, herstorically inspired poems. Come prepared to be reaffirmed, to search-out the words and images, to gather and shape them and to share that which has the power to make us whole.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Please Sign!
To: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesThis petition has been launched to object to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' announcement that it will give Jerry Lewis its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscar Awards ceremony on February 22, 2009.
During his decades of hosting the Labor Day Telethon, Jerry Lewis has helped to perpetuate negative, stereotypical attitudes toward people with muscular dystrophy and other disabilities. Jerry Lewis and the Telethon actively promote pity as a fundraising strategy. Disabled people want RESPECT and RIGHTS, not pity and charity.
In 1990, Lewis wrote that if he had muscular dystrophy and had to use a wheelchair, he would "just have to learn to try to be good at being a half a person." During the 1992 Telethon, he said that people with MD, whom he always insists on calling "my kids," "cannot go into the workplace. There's nothing they can do." Comments like these have led disability activists and our allies to protest against Jerry Lewis. We've argued that he uses the Telethon to promote pity, a counterproductive emotion which undermines our social equality. Here's how Lewis responded to the Telethon protesters during a 2001 television interview: "Pity? You don't want to be pitied because you're a cripple in a wheelchair? Stay in your house!"
Jerry Lewis has also made derogatory comments about women and gay men. His outdated attitudes and crude remarks are dehumanizing, not humanitarian.
Therefore, we the undersigned support the actions and arguments of the coalition group The Trouble with Jerry. We protest the Academy's characterization of Jerry Lewis as a "humanitarian." And we ask that the Academy cancel its plans to give Lewis the Hersholt Humanitarian Award.Sincerely,
View Current Signatures
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Get Hip and Get Your Necessary Dose of Gumbo YaYa!
January 5, 2009 –A New Year and new process to get the job done
On this new show in the New Year, we talk about upcoming events and setting goals for 2009.
Phyllis Coley, editor of Spectacular magazine and Ebony Noelle Golden creative director of Gumbo Yaya gives us a lot of new information to think about. Phyllis shares info on the upcoming Jan 31 celebration of Martin Luther King in Durham. Ebony tells us about the weekly sisterhood circles that she is guiding. Each of my guests use a process unique to them that I know you will find interesting and can be used as a guide to strengthen your own goals in 2009. Join the conversation and send me your goals that you have set for 2009.
Visit at www.richardbrownshow.com to listen to and download the podcast.
Visit Gumbo YaYa at www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
January 5, 2009 –A New Year and new process to get the job done
On this new show in the New Year, we talk about upcoming events and setting goals for 2009.
Phyllis Coley, editor of Spectacular magazine and Ebony Noelle Golden creative director of Gumbo Yaya gives us a lot of new information to think about. Phyllis shares info on the upcoming Jan 31 celebration of Martin Luther King in Durham. Ebony tells us about the weekly sisterhood circles that she is guiding. Each of my guests use a process unique to them that I know you will find interesting and can be used as a guide to strengthen your own goals in 2009. Join the conversation and send me your goals that you have set for 2009.
Visit at www.richardbrownshow.com to listen to and download the podcast.
Visit Gumbo YaYa at www.iamnotaproject.wordpress.com
Monday, January 05, 2009
Because We Still Are Here: Radical Women of Color in Solidarity with Palestine
Mai'a Williams and Alexis Pauline Gumbs invite you to participate in a new website documenting and continuting the solidarity of women of color in the United States with the people of Palestine.
email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com with any statements of solidarity or documentations of solidarity in action that you would like to share. below is an a excerpt from the site.
www.becausewestillarehere.wordpress.com
we still are here
with our words and with our actions.
on January 3rd, 2009 UBUNTU a women of color/survivor led coalition in Durham North Carolina organized a vigil in solidarity with the people of Gaza. Here are some captioned images from the event.
(photos by Ajamu Dillahunt)
Rachael Derello, the organizer who first voiced the need for a vigil in Durham, sings "We Shall Be Released"
Manju Rajendran, one of the main organizers who MC'd the event reminds the crowd of the need for aid and medical supplies inside blockaded Gaza.
Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Racheal Derello and Kriti Sharma (speakers from UBUNTU) listen as Laylah Haddad describes the violence her family is experiencing in Gaza due to the Isreali bombings.
Laylah Haddad told the crowd that her cousins witnessed children bombed to death while playing dice in front of their home in Gaza.
Theresa El-Amin formerly of SNCC and currently organizing with Solidarity reminded the crowd that the City of Durham had once divested from all connections to Apartheid South Africa and must now divest from the Isreali Aparthied state.
Nadeen Bir and Kifu Faruq hold signs reminding us that "Until Palestine is Free, None of Us Are Free"...and connecting the occupation of Palestine and the occupation of Iraq.
And the little ones raise their voices.
other coverage of the Durham event
http://raleighfist.wordpress.com/2009/01/04/durham-protests-gaza-bombings/
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Help!
After Katrina, the thought of finding a new place, a place I could trust, for gynecological care was overwhelming. I just couldn't bring myself to take that step. When the clinic opened, I knew I could get care in a place that was safe and accommodating of my whole self. It was my first exam in four years. I know there are thousands of women like me in New Orleans.
-Rosana Cruz, Board Member of New Orleans Women's Health Clinic and
Co-Director of Safe Streets, Strong Communities
December 2008
Dear Friends and Supporters,
With 2009 rapidly approaching, the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic (NOWHC) and the New Orleans Women's Health & Justice Initiative (WHJI) would like to wish you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season, and thank you for all of your support this past year. Thank you.
As NOWHC and WHJI continue to work together to equip marginalized and underserved women with the means to control and care for their own bodies, sexuality, reproduction, and health, while developing community-based strategies to improve the social and economic health and well-being of women of color and low-income women, we ask you to support the ongoing efforts of our organizations by making a donation this holiday season. This appeal presents accomplishments of both of our organizations for your giving consideration.
New Orleans Women's Health Clinic
The women we serve at NOWHC are the women we stand with, the women we are – women of color and low-income women most affected by disasters (natural and economic), women whose bodies are blamed and used as decoys for systemic injustices. We recognize that the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic cannot simply end at addressing immediate needs through services delivery. NOWHC works to integrate reproductive justice organizing and health education advocacy into our clinic to address root causes of health disparities and sexual and reproductive oppression. Our programming acknowledges intersectionality and addresses the social and economic determinants of health disparities, while challenging punitive policies around social welfare, housing, and reproductive health.
With the support of hundreds of donors like you, in just 19 months, NOWHC provided safe and affordable comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care services and information to 3,040 women from throughout the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area as follows:
* 618 unduplicated women accessed direct medical services, 432 of which had repeat visits
* 820 additional women accessed health information and counseling services.
* Approximately 1600 referrals for service were provided over the last 5 months.
* Subsidized the cost of direct medical services for hundreds of women through the Women's Health Access Fund
* Partnered with the B.W. Cooper Housing Development Resident Management Corporation, enabling NOWHC to advocate and organize directly in the communities where many of our constituents live.
* Launched a Sexual Health Youth Advocacy program, focusing on comprehensive sex education, sexual violence prevention, sexuality and gender identity, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) education including HIV prevention justice advocacy
The women accessing and utilizing services at the clinic and the need for safe and holistic sexual and reproductive health services and resources, paint a portrait of the unique vulnerabilities that women of color, low income, and uninsured women face in accessing health care. Take for example, the demographics of our clinic patients:
* 65% of our patients who access care at the Clinic lacked health insurance. Without our support, most of these women would have gone months or even years without receiving safe, affordable, and unbiased care.
* 72% reported annual incomes of less than $24,999 –nearly 40% earned less than $10,000 a year
* 60% identifies as Black/African-American, and nearly 20% identifies as Latina/Hispanic – many of whom are undocumented. The Clinic provides a safe space to alleviate this fear of deportation for many undocumented women.
* 70% identified their housing status as 'renting' and
* 84% were between the ages of 18 to 40 years of age
With your continual support, NOWHC can expand our integrated approach by improving the sexual and reproductive health of low-income and underserved women and their families.
Women's Health & Justice Initiative
Much of the work of the clinic is done in concert with our sister collective, WHJI. WHJI impacts the reproductive and sexual health lives of women of color and low-income women, by mobilizing our communities to engage in racial, gender, and reproductive justice activism that challenges the legislation and criminalization of women of color and poor women's bodies, sexuality, fertility, and motherhood. As a predominately all volunteer collective, WHJI has:
* Launched organizing efforts to establish a Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center, to serve as a resource and organizing hub to nurture grassroots organizing and activism to end violence against women of color, linking struggles against the violence of poverty, incarceration, environmental racism, housing discrimination, economic exploitation, medical experimentation, and forced sterilization. The Center will house a Radical Women of Color Lending Library, a cluster of computers for community access, meeting space, and a host of movement building and leadership development programs and resources.
* Sponsored a series of Organizing Institutes, focused on examining and challenging gender and sexuality-based violence against women of color and queer and trans people of color. The Organizing Institutes have both facilitated community building conversations between grassroots social justice organizers and health practitioners, and created a space for developing grassroots strategies to equip those most disenfranchised by the medical industry in exercising their agency to take control of the their bodies, reproduction, and sexuality, while organizing for racial, gender, and reproductive justice.
NOWHC and WHJI COLLABORATIVE WORK
* Led a coordinated effort to respond to the particular vulnerabilities of women of color, low income women, and women headed households (including women with disabilities, seniors, undocumented immigrant women, and incarcerated women.) We made over 700 calls, assisting our constituency and their families develop and implement evacuation and safety plans as communities across the Gulf Coast region prepared for Hurricane Gustav. Ironically, this occurred on the eve of the 3 year anniversary of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent government negligence.
* Immediately following Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, WHJI and NOWHC took the lead in responding to the eugenic and racist legislative plans of Representative John LaBruzzo (R) of Louisiana to pay poor women $1,000 to get sterilized under the cloak of reducing the number of people on welfare and those utilizing public housing subsidies. Our organizational responses to Representative LaBruzzo's eugenic agenda, and the outcry of social justice organizations and community members around the country, resulted in LaBruzzo being removed from his position as vice chairman of the House Health & Welfare Committee.
Please help WHJI and NOWHC to continue prioritizing the needs, experiences, and leadership of women of color and low-income women in the region. We ask for a donation that will:
* Expand the Clinic's ability to continue to support and subsidize the cost of care and medication for uninsured women who access services at our Clinic through our Women's Health Access Fund.
* Build the Clinic's Sexual Health Youth Advocacy Institute – focusing on comprehensive sex education, sexual violence prevention, sexuality, and STI education, and HIV prevention justice advocacy
* Open the WHJI Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center to serve as a resource and organizing hub to end violence against of women of color and gender variant members of our community
* Develop our joint Action Kits and Toolkits, including informational pamphlets, posters, and fact sheets on safe forms of birth control, STIs, breast health, fibroids, environmental toxicants & reproductive health, gender violence prevention, alternative health and healing remedies
We are asking you to further our work this holiday season by giving a gift of justice.
A Gift of $50
* Subsidizes a well-woman annual exam, including a pap smear, to an uninsured low-income woman
* Funds the expansion of the WHJI Women of Color Lending Library
A Gift of $100
* Subsidizes the lab cost of uninsured patients at the Clinic, and
* Develops WHJI sexual and reproductive justice organizing tools and materials
A Gift of $250
* Supports the involvement of youth in the Clinic's Sexual Health Youth Advocacy Institute
* Contributes to the planning, coordination, and convening of WHJI Organizing Institutes
A Gift of $500
* Bolsters the Clinic's Women's Health Access Fund
* Supports the opening of the Initiative's Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center
A Gift of $1000
* Supports the salary of a full-time paid executive director and medical staff for NOWHC
* Strengthens the long-term sustainability of the Clinic's ability to provide safe, affordable, non-coercive holistic sexual and reproductive health services and information
Financial contributions should be made out to our fiscal sponsor: Women With A Vision, with NOWHC and WHJI listed in the memo line. All contributions will be split evenly between NOWHC and WHJI, so your donation will support the work of both organizations. Checks should be mailed to the:
New Orleans Women's Health Clinic
1406 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70116
Your gift is tax-deductible and you will receive an acknowledgement letter with the Women With A Vision Nonprofit EIN#.
The New Orleans Women's Health Clinic and the Women's Health & Justice Initiative warmly thank our network of donors and volunteers for your continued generous support. Please support this essential work with the most generous donation you can give. Our ability to provide needed services, maintain autonomy and organize to build power and a healthy community is made possible through the support of individuals and organizations in our community and nationwide.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
New Orleans Women's Health Clinic Board of Directors
Women's Health & Justice Initiative Collective
***
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
PO Box 226
Redmond, WA 98073
phone: 484-932-3166
incite_national@yahoo.com
www.incite-national.org
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and their communities through direct action, critical dialogue and grassroots organizing.
-Rosana Cruz, Board Member of New Orleans Women's Health Clinic and
Co-Director of Safe Streets, Strong Communities
December 2008
Dear Friends and Supporters,
With 2009 rapidly approaching, the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic (NOWHC) and the New Orleans Women's Health & Justice Initiative (WHJI) would like to wish you and yours a happy and healthy holiday season, and thank you for all of your support this past year. Thank you.
As NOWHC and WHJI continue to work together to equip marginalized and underserved women with the means to control and care for their own bodies, sexuality, reproduction, and health, while developing community-based strategies to improve the social and economic health and well-being of women of color and low-income women, we ask you to support the ongoing efforts of our organizations by making a donation this holiday season. This appeal presents accomplishments of both of our organizations for your giving consideration.
New Orleans Women's Health Clinic
The women we serve at NOWHC are the women we stand with, the women we are – women of color and low-income women most affected by disasters (natural and economic), women whose bodies are blamed and used as decoys for systemic injustices. We recognize that the New Orleans Women's Health Clinic cannot simply end at addressing immediate needs through services delivery. NOWHC works to integrate reproductive justice organizing and health education advocacy into our clinic to address root causes of health disparities and sexual and reproductive oppression. Our programming acknowledges intersectionality and addresses the social and economic determinants of health disparities, while challenging punitive policies around social welfare, housing, and reproductive health.
With the support of hundreds of donors like you, in just 19 months, NOWHC provided safe and affordable comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care services and information to 3,040 women from throughout the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan area as follows:
* 618 unduplicated women accessed direct medical services, 432 of which had repeat visits
* 820 additional women accessed health information and counseling services.
* Approximately 1600 referrals for service were provided over the last 5 months.
* Subsidized the cost of direct medical services for hundreds of women through the Women's Health Access Fund
* Partnered with the B.W. Cooper Housing Development Resident Management Corporation, enabling NOWHC to advocate and organize directly in the communities where many of our constituents live.
* Launched a Sexual Health Youth Advocacy program, focusing on comprehensive sex education, sexual violence prevention, sexuality and gender identity, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) education including HIV prevention justice advocacy
The women accessing and utilizing services at the clinic and the need for safe and holistic sexual and reproductive health services and resources, paint a portrait of the unique vulnerabilities that women of color, low income, and uninsured women face in accessing health care. Take for example, the demographics of our clinic patients:
* 65% of our patients who access care at the Clinic lacked health insurance. Without our support, most of these women would have gone months or even years without receiving safe, affordable, and unbiased care.
* 72% reported annual incomes of less than $24,999 –nearly 40% earned less than $10,000 a year
* 60% identifies as Black/African-American, and nearly 20% identifies as Latina/Hispanic – many of whom are undocumented. The Clinic provides a safe space to alleviate this fear of deportation for many undocumented women.
* 70% identified their housing status as 'renting' and
* 84% were between the ages of 18 to 40 years of age
With your continual support, NOWHC can expand our integrated approach by improving the sexual and reproductive health of low-income and underserved women and their families.
Women's Health & Justice Initiative
Much of the work of the clinic is done in concert with our sister collective, WHJI. WHJI impacts the reproductive and sexual health lives of women of color and low-income women, by mobilizing our communities to engage in racial, gender, and reproductive justice activism that challenges the legislation and criminalization of women of color and poor women's bodies, sexuality, fertility, and motherhood. As a predominately all volunteer collective, WHJI has:
* Launched organizing efforts to establish a Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center, to serve as a resource and organizing hub to nurture grassroots organizing and activism to end violence against women of color, linking struggles against the violence of poverty, incarceration, environmental racism, housing discrimination, economic exploitation, medical experimentation, and forced sterilization. The Center will house a Radical Women of Color Lending Library, a cluster of computers for community access, meeting space, and a host of movement building and leadership development programs and resources.
* Sponsored a series of Organizing Institutes, focused on examining and challenging gender and sexuality-based violence against women of color and queer and trans people of color. The Organizing Institutes have both facilitated community building conversations between grassroots social justice organizers and health practitioners, and created a space for developing grassroots strategies to equip those most disenfranchised by the medical industry in exercising their agency to take control of the their bodies, reproduction, and sexuality, while organizing for racial, gender, and reproductive justice.
NOWHC and WHJI COLLABORATIVE WORK
* Led a coordinated effort to respond to the particular vulnerabilities of women of color, low income women, and women headed households (including women with disabilities, seniors, undocumented immigrant women, and incarcerated women.) We made over 700 calls, assisting our constituency and their families develop and implement evacuation and safety plans as communities across the Gulf Coast region prepared for Hurricane Gustav. Ironically, this occurred on the eve of the 3 year anniversary of the devastation wrought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and subsequent government negligence.
* Immediately following Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, WHJI and NOWHC took the lead in responding to the eugenic and racist legislative plans of Representative John LaBruzzo (R) of Louisiana to pay poor women $1,000 to get sterilized under the cloak of reducing the number of people on welfare and those utilizing public housing subsidies. Our organizational responses to Representative LaBruzzo's eugenic agenda, and the outcry of social justice organizations and community members around the country, resulted in LaBruzzo being removed from his position as vice chairman of the House Health & Welfare Committee.
Please help WHJI and NOWHC to continue prioritizing the needs, experiences, and leadership of women of color and low-income women in the region. We ask for a donation that will:
* Expand the Clinic's ability to continue to support and subsidize the cost of care and medication for uninsured women who access services at our Clinic through our Women's Health Access Fund.
* Build the Clinic's Sexual Health Youth Advocacy Institute – focusing on comprehensive sex education, sexual violence prevention, sexuality, and STI education, and HIV prevention justice advocacy
* Open the WHJI Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center to serve as a resource and organizing hub to end violence against of women of color and gender variant members of our community
* Develop our joint Action Kits and Toolkits, including informational pamphlets, posters, and fact sheets on safe forms of birth control, STIs, breast health, fibroids, environmental toxicants & reproductive health, gender violence prevention, alternative health and healing remedies
We are asking you to further our work this holiday season by giving a gift of justice.
A Gift of $50
* Subsidizes a well-woman annual exam, including a pap smear, to an uninsured low-income woman
* Funds the expansion of the WHJI Women of Color Lending Library
A Gift of $100
* Subsidizes the lab cost of uninsured patients at the Clinic, and
* Develops WHJI sexual and reproductive justice organizing tools and materials
A Gift of $250
* Supports the involvement of youth in the Clinic's Sexual Health Youth Advocacy Institute
* Contributes to the planning, coordination, and convening of WHJI Organizing Institutes
A Gift of $500
* Bolsters the Clinic's Women's Health Access Fund
* Supports the opening of the Initiative's Women of Color Resource & Organizing Center
A Gift of $1000
* Supports the salary of a full-time paid executive director and medical staff for NOWHC
* Strengthens the long-term sustainability of the Clinic's ability to provide safe, affordable, non-coercive holistic sexual and reproductive health services and information
Financial contributions should be made out to our fiscal sponsor: Women With A Vision, with NOWHC and WHJI listed in the memo line. All contributions will be split evenly between NOWHC and WHJI, so your donation will support the work of both organizations. Checks should be mailed to the:
New Orleans Women's Health Clinic
1406 Esplanade Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70116
Your gift is tax-deductible and you will receive an acknowledgement letter with the Women With A Vision Nonprofit EIN#.
The New Orleans Women's Health Clinic and the Women's Health & Justice Initiative warmly thank our network of donors and volunteers for your continued generous support. Please support this essential work with the most generous donation you can give. Our ability to provide needed services, maintain autonomy and organize to build power and a healthy community is made possible through the support of individuals and organizations in our community and nationwide.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
New Orleans Women's Health Clinic Board of Directors
Women's Health & Justice Initiative Collective
***
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence
PO Box 226
Redmond, WA 98073
phone: 484-932-3166
incite_national@yahoo.com
www.incite-national.org
INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and their communities through direct action, critical dialogue and grassroots organizing.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind!!!
Due to the huge and affirming response to BrokenBeautiful Press's Summer of Our Lorde we are THRILLED to present the Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind, a portable progressive series based in Durham North Carolina in partnership with SpiritHouse, Southerners on New Ground, UBUNTU, the Land and Sustainability Working Group, Kindred Healing Justice Collective and more.
In 1977 the Combahee River Collective wrote a key black feminist manifesta groundbreaking in it’s assertion that the “major systems of oppression are interlocking. You are invited to the first session on the groundbreaking black feminist document The Combahee River Collective Statement. Download it at www.blackfeministmind.wordpress.com
and check out some radical exercises at www.combaheesurvival.wordpress.com
In Durham we'll be discussing it on January 7th. Email brokenbeautifulpress@gmail.com for details and feel free to read along wherever you are and comment here!
See you (t)here!!!!!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
SEWSA 2009
SEWSA '09
Southeastern Women's Studies Association Conference
at Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
Thursday - Saturday, April 2-4, 2009
WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENTS:
The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology
INFO & LINKS:
* Keynote speakers:
Elisabeth Lloyd
Chris Cuomo
Marilou Awiakta
Beverly Guy-Sheftall
* Workshop:
Starhawk
* Call for papers (doc)
* Lodging and transportation
* Registration info--registration is online only and requires a credit card
* Film series
* Food menus--gourmet all-natural lunches included for conference registrants
* Goat and cheese farm tour
$15/person to the first 25 people who sign up!
* Student scholarships
Topics might include:
*
Environmental racism
*
Development
*
Environmental policies
*
Frankenfoods
*
Naturalists
*
Localvores
*
CSAs
*
The Slow Food Movement
*
Pharmaceuticals
*
Ecofeminism
*
Eco-tourism
*
Women in pollution and waste management
*
The environment and women's health
*
Women's environmental activism
*
Gender and food history
*
Environmental toxins
*
The politics of space and place
*
Darwinism
*
Farm Workers
*
Women in environmental history
*
The female in nature
*
Women and animals
*
Green businesses
*
Ecological communities
*
Ecofeminist literary criticism
*
Feminist literary ecology
*
Women healers
*
Women naturalists and conservationists
*
Science, technology, and the environment
*
Post-humanism
*
Feminist vegetarianism and feminist hunting
*
Situated knowledges
*
Is feminism green?
*
Are women green?
IMPORTANT DEADLINES:
*
PROPOSAL DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JAN. 15, 2009!: Send to womens_st@appstate.edu with all contact information.
*
Feb. 1, 2009: All those with accepted proposals will be notified by this date.
*
Feb 15, 2009: Deadline for "earlybird" registration.
*
March 12, 2009: Deadline to reserve a hotel room for the SEWSA block discount rate.
Although the 2009 conference will center on this theme, submissions of non-thematic papers are also encouraged.
Click here to go to the SEWSA organizational website.
Click here to go back to the Appalachian Women's Studies Program homepage.
E-mail womens_st@appstate.edu with questions.
Southeastern Women's Studies Association Conference
at Appalachian State University, Boone, NC
Thursday - Saturday, April 2-4, 2009
WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENTS:
The Ecology of Feminism and the Feminism of Ecology
INFO & LINKS:
* Keynote speakers:
Elisabeth Lloyd
Chris Cuomo
Marilou Awiakta
Beverly Guy-Sheftall
* Workshop:
Starhawk
* Call for papers (doc)
* Lodging and transportation
* Registration info--registration is online only and requires a credit card
* Film series
* Food menus--gourmet all-natural lunches included for conference registrants
* Goat and cheese farm tour
$15/person to the first 25 people who sign up!
* Student scholarships
Topics might include:
*
Environmental racism
*
Development
*
Environmental policies
*
Frankenfoods
*
Naturalists
*
Localvores
*
CSAs
*
The Slow Food Movement
*
Pharmaceuticals
*
Ecofeminism
*
Eco-tourism
*
Women in pollution and waste management
*
The environment and women's health
*
Women's environmental activism
*
Gender and food history
*
Environmental toxins
*
The politics of space and place
*
Darwinism
*
Farm Workers
*
Women in environmental history
*
The female in nature
*
Women and animals
*
Green businesses
*
Ecological communities
*
Ecofeminist literary criticism
*
Feminist literary ecology
*
Women healers
*
Women naturalists and conservationists
*
Science, technology, and the environment
*
Post-humanism
*
Feminist vegetarianism and feminist hunting
*
Situated knowledges
*
Is feminism green?
*
Are women green?
IMPORTANT DEADLINES:
*
PROPOSAL DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JAN. 15, 2009!: Send to womens_st@appstate.edu with all contact information.
*
Feb. 1, 2009: All those with accepted proposals will be notified by this date.
*
Feb 15, 2009: Deadline for "earlybird" registration.
*
March 12, 2009: Deadline to reserve a hotel room for the SEWSA block discount rate.
Although the 2009 conference will center on this theme, submissions of non-thematic papers are also encouraged.
Click here to go to the SEWSA organizational website.
Click here to go back to the Appalachian Women's Studies Program homepage.
E-mail womens_st@appstate.edu with questions.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Audre Lorde Project looking for program coordinator
this like a wonderful opportunity
Program Coordinator: Organizing (TransJustice) - Temporary
The Audre Lorde Project, Inc.
http://www.idealist.org/en/job/320032-118
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Salary: 40,000-44,000
Program Coordinator: Organizing (TransJustice) - Temporary
The Audre Lorde Project, Inc.
http://www.idealist.org/en/job/320032-118
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Salary: 40,000-44,000
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Black Women in the Academy Conference
PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
Black Women in the Academy: Strategies for Survival, Success, and Transformation
January 30-31, 2009
William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
During January 30-31, 2009, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill will host the symposium, “Black Women in the Academy: Strategies for Survival, Success, and Transformation." This event is being organized by the Department of African and Afro-American Studies, the Carolina Women's Center, the Curriculum in Women's Studies, and the Institute of African American Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
The “Black Women in the Academy” symposium will continue the important dialogue that was begun during previous Black Women in the Academy conferences that were held at the national level in 1994 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1999 at Howard University . A regional conference on Black Women in the Academy was also held in 1995 at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Previous conferences have provided a public forum to focus on the experiences of black women in a variety of disciplines and at all ranks within academic institutions, from graduate school to the college presidency.
The Black Women in the Academy symposium will address topics of interest to undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty and administrators. The first day of the symposium will include a panel presentation by notable scholars contextualizing the unique sets of challenges that African American women face in academic institutions. The second day of the symposium will include workshops and break-out sessions that will provide participants with tools and strategies to move through academia at all levels. These sessions will address issues such as the graduate school process, tenure and promotion, the role of senior faculty, and administrative positions. These sessions will be open to members of the UNC community, as well as students, faculty, and administrators from colleges and universities throughout North Carolina, as well as other states.
The symposium schedule, registration, and hotel information are available at: http://www.unc.edu/iaar.
Online registration will be available in early December.
Questions may be sent to: bwacademy09@gmail.com
*Plenary Speakers: *
Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall (Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies and Director of the Women's Research and Resource Center, Spelman College)
Dr. Yolanda Moses (Professor of Anthropology, Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Excellence, and Vice Provost for Conflict Resolution at the University of California, Riverside)
Dr. Rhonda Sharpe (Assistant Professor, Economics, University of Vermont)
Dr. Monica Corbitt Rivers (Assistant Professor, Psychology, Winston Salem State University)
*Symposium Co-Sponsors: *
*UNC-Chapel Hill: *African & Afro-American Studies, Carolina Women's Center, Center for Faculty Excellence, College of Arts & Sciences, Curriculum in Women's Studies, Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, Institute of African American Research, the Graduate School, Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, Office of Postdoctoral Services
*Duke University: *African & African American Studies, the Graduate School, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality, Women's Studies Program
Black Women in the Academy: Strategies for Survival, Success, and Transformation
January 30-31, 2009
William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
During January 30-31, 2009, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill will host the symposium, “Black Women in the Academy: Strategies for Survival, Success, and Transformation." This event is being organized by the Department of African and Afro-American Studies, the Carolina Women's Center, the Curriculum in Women's Studies, and the Institute of African American Research at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
The “Black Women in the Academy” symposium will continue the important dialogue that was begun during previous Black Women in the Academy conferences that were held at the national level in 1994 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 1999 at Howard University . A regional conference on Black Women in the Academy was also held in 1995 at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Previous conferences have provided a public forum to focus on the experiences of black women in a variety of disciplines and at all ranks within academic institutions, from graduate school to the college presidency.
The Black Women in the Academy symposium will address topics of interest to undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, faculty and administrators. The first day of the symposium will include a panel presentation by notable scholars contextualizing the unique sets of challenges that African American women face in academic institutions. The second day of the symposium will include workshops and break-out sessions that will provide participants with tools and strategies to move through academia at all levels. These sessions will address issues such as the graduate school process, tenure and promotion, the role of senior faculty, and administrative positions. These sessions will be open to members of the UNC community, as well as students, faculty, and administrators from colleges and universities throughout North Carolina, as well as other states.
The symposium schedule, registration, and hotel information are available at: http://www.unc.edu/iaar.
Online registration will be available in early December.
Questions may be sent to: bwacademy09@gmail.com
*Plenary Speakers: *
Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall (Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies and Director of the Women's Research and Resource Center, Spelman College)
Dr. Yolanda Moses (Professor of Anthropology, Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Excellence, and Vice Provost for Conflict Resolution at the University of California, Riverside)
Dr. Rhonda Sharpe (Assistant Professor, Economics, University of Vermont)
Dr. Monica Corbitt Rivers (Assistant Professor, Psychology, Winston Salem State University)
*Symposium Co-Sponsors: *
*UNC-Chapel Hill: *African & Afro-American Studies, Carolina Women's Center, Center for Faculty Excellence, College of Arts & Sciences, Curriculum in Women's Studies, Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Economic Development, Institute of African American Research, the Graduate School, Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, Office of Postdoctoral Services
*Duke University: *African & African American Studies, the Graduate School, John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality, Women's Studies Program
Call for Submissions
!CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS!
Mujeres de Maiz
ZINE 2009
Calling all creative women of color! In honor of Women, let us publish your expressions in our annual community arts and poetry maga-ZINE!
Submissions should be centered around the following theme:
La Sagrada
(That Which is Sacred)
*** spaces are limited **
FINAL DEADLINE:
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13th, 2009
All languages welcome.
Although we will have an editing committee to oversee this project, please make sure all written entries are well edited including grammar, spell check, etc.
EMAIL SUBMISSION PROCEEDURES:
Each artist may email up to 2 submissions from
each category:
Category A:
POETRY, PROSE, ESSAY
Submission(s) should be related to this year's theme:
La Sagrada (That Which is Sacred).
Poetry, essay, or prose in 300 words or less.
All languages welcome.
1. Fill out POETRY SubForm Completely
(see attached form)
2. Save form JPEG FILE NAME:
ARTISTS FULL NAME
3. Send completed form as email attachment to Mujeresdemaiz@prodigy.net
Email Subject:
ZINE 2008 POETRY: ARTISTS LAST NAME
Category B:
VISUAL ART
Submission(s) should be related to this year's theme:
La Sagrada (That Which is Sacred).
Image(s) of original artwork only. Image(s) may be (color or black & white) photo, drawing, painting, etc.
1. Fill out VISUAL ART SubForm Completely
2. IMAGES: Submit up to TWO high-res, RGB images at 300 dpi, sized at approx 5 x 7 inches.
3. Save Image(s) as JPEG FILE NAME:
ARTISTS LAST NAME + TITLE
4. Send completed form with image(s) as attachments to Mujeresdemaiz@prodigy.net
Email Subject: ZINE 2008 ART: ARTISTS FULL NAME
for questions, concerns or any who wish to help sponsor this project, please contact:
Margaret Alarcon
Publication coordinator
mujeresdemaiz@prodigy.net
For more information about MdM's commitment to 12 years of creative volunteer community service and past projects:
www.mujeresdemiaz.net
Mujeres de Maiz
ZINE 2009
Calling all creative women of color! In honor of Women, let us publish your expressions in our annual community arts and poetry maga-ZINE!
Submissions should be centered around the following theme:
La Sagrada
(That Which is Sacred)
*** spaces are limited **
FINAL DEADLINE:
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 13th, 2009
All languages welcome.
Although we will have an editing committee to oversee this project, please make sure all written entries are well edited including grammar, spell check, etc.
EMAIL SUBMISSION PROCEEDURES:
Each artist may email up to 2 submissions from
each category:
Category A:
POETRY, PROSE, ESSAY
Submission(s) should be related to this year's theme:
La Sagrada (That Which is Sacred).
Poetry, essay, or prose in 300 words or less.
All languages welcome.
1. Fill out POETRY SubForm Completely
(see attached form)
2. Save form JPEG FILE NAME:
ARTISTS FULL NAME
3. Send completed form as email attachment to Mujeresdemaiz@prodigy.net
Email Subject:
ZINE 2008 POETRY: ARTISTS LAST NAME
Category B:
VISUAL ART
Submission(s) should be related to this year's theme:
La Sagrada (That Which is Sacred).
Image(s) of original artwork only. Image(s) may be (color or black & white) photo, drawing, painting, etc.
1. Fill out VISUAL ART SubForm Completely
2. IMAGES: Submit up to TWO high-res, RGB images at 300 dpi, sized at approx 5 x 7 inches.
3. Save Image(s) as JPEG FILE NAME:
ARTISTS LAST NAME + TITLE
4. Send completed form with image(s) as attachments to Mujeresdemaiz@prodigy.net
Email Subject: ZINE 2008 ART: ARTISTS FULL NAME
for questions, concerns or any who wish to help sponsor this project, please contact:
Margaret Alarcon
Publication coordinator
mujeresdemaiz@prodigy.net
For more information about MdM's commitment to 12 years of creative volunteer community service and past projects:
www.mujeresdemiaz.net
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