Project NIA Newsletter | December 2021 |
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“We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.”
- Gwendolyn Brooks
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December updates, resources and more! |
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One Million Experiments Podcast
Follow the One Million Experiments Podcast for monthly
releases that expand our ideas around safety!
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The One Million Experiments podcast explores how we define and create safety, wellness, and protection in a world without police and prisons.
1ME expands our ideas about what keeps us safe, and celebrates the work already happening to build solutions that are grounded in transformation instead of punishment.
Check out the second episode with Black Trans Travel Fund founder and Executive Director, Devin Lowe breaking down how the experiment emerged, how it has expanded, and more!
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Writers on their favorite books of 2021
We Do This 'Til We Free Us honored
by Elias Rodriques on Bookforum
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“…when asked about 2021’s best book, it’s hard to name anything other than Mariame Kaba’s compilation of essays WE DO THIS ’TIL WE FREE US, all of which are as clear as they are insightful in their portraits of the assaults of the prison industrial complex and of the radical potential of seeking accountability outside the State. That so many of the essays are coauthored is a testament to Kaba’s claim that abolition is a collective project, and reading the book enables us to engage with the movement more broadly as well as to join in the collective imagining of a world without prisons. If you have ever felt lost or confused in conversations about violence and prisons, seek this book; it is a compass.” |
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16 Axioms for Abolitionist Organizing
Don't miss out on a new zine from
Mariame Kaba and Lizzie Suarez
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"In February 2021, Haymarket published my book We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing & Transforming Justice. For the book launch event, I decided to distill the key themes of the book into “16 Axioms for Abolitionist Organizing.” My slide deck presentation was well-received so I decided to create a short illustrated publication. This is what you are now reading. I invited Lizzie Suarez, a Florida-based artist and organizer, to create the illustrations. She did a wonderful job. I commissioned this publication with young people in mind. But I think that it is accessible to anyone who is curious about prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition. For more information about PIC abolition, you can watch/listen to the following webinar that I created in 2020 as an introduction: https://bit.ly/PIC101webinar." -Mariame Kaba
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Interrupting Criminalization Help Desk
See how this new resource from IC can help you
and your community!
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Our sister organization, Interrupting Criminalization launched a Help Desk consultation service for folks working on projects and community-wide interventions to transform harm.
The Help Desk is available by appointment to offer thought partnership and one-on-one consultation to organizations/groups/individuals who are working on projects and community-wide interventions to end violence without using the police.
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California Coalition for Women Prisoners
celebrates 25+ years
Read about CCWP's 25th anniversary event
in the San Francisco Bay View
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Last month, the California Coalition for Women Prisoners hosted a special virtual event celebrating over 25 years of inside/outside organizing and the consistent publication of The Fire Inside newsletter. Around 200 people gathered for a dynamic program that featured Mariame Kaba as the keynote speaker and remarks from Angela Davis, Victoria Law, Hamdiya Cooks-Abdullah and Piper Kerman, as well as musical performances and poetry readings. Donate to support CCWP's critical work here: womenprisoners.org/donate-now/
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ICYMI: "In It Together:
A Framework for Conflict Transformation"
Check out our latest toolkit from November!
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The "In It Together" toolkit provides step-by-step diagnostic tools to asses conflict in movement-building organizations and groups, and strategies, tools, and resources to transform that conflict. It emerges from the decades of experience of the members of Interrupting Criminalization, Dragonfly Partners, and organizers and activists from around the country. The latest resource in the "Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox" series! |
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"Abolitionist Principles for Prosecutor Organizing: Origins and Next Steps"
New article by Rachel Foran, Mariame Kaba,
and Katy Naples-Mitchell for Stanford Law Review
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The authors of this article are intergenerational abolitionist organizers, who have worked on campaigns in their cities and states demanding that prosecutors wield their discretion to do less—fewer prosecutions, fewer charges, fewer convictions, less incarceration, smaller budgets—on the road to the end of prosecution altogether.
An abolitionist organizing strategy reduces the reach of the PIC; it shrinks the power, size, and scope of the prosecuting office without increasing its legitimacy.
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Preorder See You Soon Now!
New children's book from Mariame Kaba and Bianca Diaz
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See You Soon is a new children's book by Project NIA founder, Mariame Kaba (author of Missing Daddy and We Do This 'Til We Free Us). The story centers a little girl’s worries when her Mama goes to jail, and the love that bridges the distance between them.
Illustrated by Bianca Diaz (illustrator of Starting Over in Sunset Park and The One Day House. Learn more about her on her website, www.biancadiaz.com) and published by Haymarket Books.
You can register to receive a free 12 x 9 print of one of the interior images from the book when you pre-order See You Soon by follow this link and instructions. (1500 registrants max)
See You Soon comes out in March 2022!
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Year in Youth Training with Project NIA
Hear from former participants of our youth
training spaces in a brand new zine!
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Thank you to everyone who made both of our youth training spaces-- the Restorative Justice Imagination and Practice Space and Abolitionist Youth Organizing Institute (AYO, NYC!)-- possible this year!
"I went into this training thinking I knew a bit about RJ but came out with an entirely different perspective on what RJ is/was, how it is co-opted today and how it's practical use can truly be used with TJ." - Restorative Justice Imagination and Practice Space Participant
Our winter 2-day Restorative Justice Imagination and Practice Space led by Jodie Geddes and Bijon Barnes offered space for thirty-two young people ages 16-29 to dive into the implementation of restorative justice models as well as a concrete exploration of tools and tactics for bringing restorative justice practices into our daily lives with family, friends, community members, and comrades.
“I really loved how intentional everything was -- it was so clear that you all had thought nearly every, if not every, single detail through! Everything went so, so beautifully!! It was the best institute or multi-day training/etc that I've ever been to (and I've been to a lot). I also REALLY loved the centering of relationships, the value of connection, and how that is *central* to an abolitionist practice and world-building..." - AYO, NYC! Cohort Member
Our second year hosting our summer youth organizing institute, AYO, NYC!, brought together sixty young people ages 16-24 to explore PIC abolition, organizing, and restorative justice. With the support of our amazing design doula, mickey ferrara, we gathered participants' reflections on the institute and compiled them into a collective zine titled "Students of Abolition: A Time Capsule", which shares written and visual works as letters to future abolitionists, bending an abolitionist world into reality, and love letters to the future. Check out our institute zine on ISSUU by clicking the button below and don't forget to explore our
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