This month HOPE lost a very dear friend, Lee Brown. He was one of the first HOPE members and was well known on the street as a tough guy with a heart of gold, and someone you could count on to have your back. Lee served his country as a U.S. Marine, and in his later life, became a staple of the Binghampton community, where he could often be found conversing and making wisecracks at Caritas Village. Many of the health conditions that contributed too Lee’s deteriorated health were directly linked to the lack of care he was able to access due to his circumstances of poverty and lack of housing. “He was a kind hearted man,“ said Michael Krause, member of HOPE. The HOPE family would like to express our sincere condolences to Lee’s all of friends, family, and loved ones. Rest In Power, Lee. You will not be forgotten.

 

Greetings, transit warriors! MBRU is happy to announce our new TRANSIT SURVEY! We want to hear from riders all over Memphis about how you use MATA service in your neighborhoods. We’re working on making versions in Spanish and for people with visual impairments. Take the online version here, and we’ll have paper survey at all our town halls this year!

This summer the Juvenile Justice Center has been privileged to work with kids all over the city through our Know Your Rights Theatre Workshops. When you consider our country’s current political climate, compounded with stories of civilians being murdered by police every few weeks it becomes clear why it is important to arm young people with skills for surviving interactions with law enforcement.

We teach them to never run from police, how to use skills of de-escalation, and what their actual rights are when dealing with officers, so that they can navigate these interactions as safely as possible. We often invite participants to share personal stories where they dealt with police officers. Some offer antidotes about loved ones on the force,  police who have helped them when they were in trouble, or gave them a second chance when they made poor decisions. On the other hand, we often hear heartbreaking stories of children being harassed by police, parents being targeted for minor infractions, or friends being assaulted by those charged with keeping us safe. These stories represent the trauma afflicting communities of color and we’ve seen the effects this has on our young people. It is our goal that throughout this summer, we have been able to bring better understanding t the young people we have had the chance to encounter, and that they can have positive outcomes in their future interactions with law enforcement.

We have been busy this summer running Know Your Rights Theatre workshops with over 600 participants across the city. We have visited the Boys & Girls Club of Hickory Hill, Girls Inc, and almost every community center in the city! Each of these sites serves youth from elementary through middle school who have learned how to more safely navigate experiences with law enforcement. We use improv theatre to help them act out realistic scenarios with police, tell them how to safely exercise their rights (which we tie back to the constitution and case law), as well as teaching them deescalation techniques. We believe that when we approach law enforcement from a place of knowledge, instead of what we learned on Law & Order, that everyone is safer.

We have a busy summer ahead of us. We need food and beverage donations for our JJP Days of service (mostly snacks) and your financial support. Donate today at https://midsouthpeace.org/get-involved/donate-now/

10 for 10

We are raising 10K for G.O.T. Power, Grassroots Organizers Training for Power’s 10 anniversary!

10 Years
G.O.T. Power started in 2008 with a commitment to growing our community’s capacity through building skills in grassroots organizing, providing support to people doing community work and offering anti-oppression and liberation education. Using Popular and Direct Education methodology that directly confronts and challenges the current system of injustice and oppression. Direct Education is about liberation and empowerment and going to the direct source of wisdom: the community itself!

$10
We need your support, to continue offering affordable training opportunities for people who are doing great work in our communities. Your donation will help us provide scholarships for people of color, training materials, increase our reach, advertise, and more. We are asking you to give $10 in honor of our 10 years of training in the Mid-South.

10K
It’s our goal to get $10K, in the next six months, to make sure that this unique and affordable anti-oppression education continues.

Donate $10 or more!
https://midsouthpeace.org/10for10

Check the newsletter every week for curios details of this 10 years of G.O.T. Power
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Community Organizing Skills Training: November 2-4, 2018!

Join Mid-South Peace and Justice Center’s Community Organizing Skills Training on November 2, 3 & 4!

Our three-day Community Organizing Skills Training explores the foundational skills to be organizers and create systematic change in a group or community, keeping nonviolence as a foundation.

This training is fully interactive and has direct application in each session. We train use a combination of popular and experiential education, allowing participasnts to explore in a hands-on, direct manner, while also drawing out the expertise that the individual already has within.

Who should attend this Community Organizer Training?
Experienced and less-experienced organizers,  activists, community leaders and any one who wants to learn what ‘community organizing’ is all about.

Topics covered include:
Roles of Social Change, Campaign Planning, Facilitating Meetings, Working with Media and an intro to Nonviolent Direct Action.

Where: TBD
When: Friday, November 2:  6-9pm
Saturday, November 3:  9am-5pm
Sunday, November 4:   2-6:30pm

****** No partial attendance allowed ******

Cost: If your annual income is:
Less than $15,000             You pay: $30
$15,000-$25,000                             $50
$25,000-$35,000                             $100
$35,000-$45,000                             $150
$45,000-$55,000                             $225
$55,000 -$65,000                             $300
Over $65,000                                  $375
Organizational budget over $65K      $375

REGISTER HERE!

Sliding scale based on the individual’s income. If your organization is sending you to the training, use the organizational budget to determine the fee. Please consider that it costs MSPJC $200+ per person to do the training.
Fee includes 14+ hours of training, simple snacks, light breakfast and lunch on Saturday, materials and follow up support from a network of the mid-south best organizers and activists.
Some scholarships may be available, please request scholarship application by email.
Donations for workshop scholarships gratefully accepted!

Registration online or by phone is required for all trainings.
For more information call 901-725-4990, email to gio@midsouthpeace.org

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Upcoming *.*.* FREE Self-Care Workshop *.*.*
Self-Care with Movement and Sound  ::  August 23 @ 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm
This workshop is full, if you want to be added to the waiting list email gotpower@midsouthpeace.org or call 901-725-4990

———————————————————————————————-

Read more information about Grassroots Organizer Training for Power (GOT Power).

Please contact us to get more information and schedule a training in your group or community. Fees are negotiable, scholarships are available and donations for scholarships are greatly appreciated.

Trainings can be designed specifically for established groups, organizations, campaigns, coalitions, etc. Comprehensive weekend workshops on specific organizing skill sets, issue or community-specific formats are available.

Trainings in Spanish are also available. All trainings are offered in English or Spanish as requested. We work and collaborate with bilingual trainers and facilitators.
G.O.T Poder – Entrenamientos en Español

For more information visit G.O.T.Power or write to GotPower@midsouthpeace.org

                                 ≈• Please Let Us Know What You Think ≈•
The Training Department of the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center (G.O.T. Power) would like to hear from the movement community. We want to know what you think about us and how we could better support your work or group! Please take a couple minutes to complete this short survey. This survey is for everyone, whether you have attended a workshop or not! Feel free to list your name or remain anonymous.
G.O.T Power Survey

 The Juvenile Justice Project has been busy all summer teaching our young ones about their rights with our Know Your Rights Theatre Workshops and we’re not stopping! We are looking to visit classrooms, youth groups, clubs, and more this fall to teach more people how to safely navigate experiences with law enforcement. Our curriculum is flexible enough to be taught to people of all ages, although having participants grouped by age is very helpful. Please let us know if you want us to come to your organization to perform this FREE workshop.

 

Join Mid-South Peace and Justice Center’s Community Organizing Skills Training on November 2, 3 & 4!

Our three-day Community Organizing Skills Training explores the foundational skills to be organizers and create systematic change in a group or community, keeping nonviolence as a foundation.

This training is fully interactive and has direct application in each session. We train use a combination of popular and experiential education, allowing participasnts to explore in a hands-on, direct manner, while also drawing out the expertise that the individual already has within.

Who should attend this Community Organizer Training?
Experienced and less-experienced organizers,  activists, community leaders and any one who wants to learn what ‘community organizing’ is all about.

Topics covered include:
Roles of Social Change, Campaign Planning, Facilitating Meetings, Working with Media and an intro to Nonviolent Direct Action.

Where: TBD
When: Friday, November 2:  6-9pm
Saturday, November 3:  9am-5pm
Sunday, November 4:   2-6:30pm

****** No partial attendance allowed ******

Cost: If your annual income is:
Less than $15,000             You pay: $30
$15,000-$25,000                             $50
$25,000-$35,000                             $100
$35,000-$45,000                             $150
$45,000-$55,000                             $225
$55,000 -$65,000                             $300
Over $65,000                                  $375
Organizational budget over $65K      $375

REGISTER HERE!

Sliding scale based on the individual’s income. If your organization is sending you to the training, use the organizational budget to determine the fee. Please consider that it costs MSPJC $200+ per person to do the training.
Fee includes 14+ hours of training, simple snacks, light breakfast and lunch on Saturday, materials and follow up support from a network of the mid-south best organizers and activists.
Some scholarships may be available, please request scholarship application by email.
Donations for workshop scholarships gratefully accepted!

Registration online or by phone is required for all trainings.
For more information call 901-725-4990, email to gio@midsouthpeace.org

———————————————————————————————-

Upcoming *.*.* FREE Self-Care Workshop *.*.*
Self-Care with Movement and Sound  ::  August 23 @ 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm
This workshop is full, if you want to be added to the waiting list email gotpower@midsouthpeace.org or call 901-725-4990

———————————————————————————————-

Grassroots Organizer Training for Power (GOT Power), Mid-South Peace and Justice Center’s training program, is committed to building our community’s capacity through building skills in grassroots organizing, providing support to people doing community work and offering oppression awareness and liberation education.
Our method of education is Popular and Direct Education. Direct education means education that directly confronts and challenges the current system of injustice, which includes traditional education. Rather than traditional education, which gives all the expertise to textbooks and teachers, Direct Education invites the expertise of the people themselves. Direct Education is about liberation and empowerment — going to the direct source of wisdom: the community itself!

Please contact us to get more information and schedule a training in your group or community. Fees are negotiable, scholarships are available and donations for scholarships are greatly appreciated.

Trainings can be designed specifically for established groups, organizations, campaigns, coalitions, etc. Comprehensive weekend workshops on specific organizing skill sets, issue or community-specific formats are available.

Trainings in Spanish are also available. All trainings are offered in English or Spanish as requested. We work and collaborate with bilingual trainers and facilitators.
G.O.T Poder – Entrenamientos en Español

For more information visit G.O.T.Power or write to GotPower@midsouthpeace.org

                                   ≈• Please Let Us Know What You Think ≈•
The Training Department of the Mid-South Peace & Justice Center (G.O.T. Power) would like to hear from the movement community. We want to know what you think about us and how we could better support your work or group! Please take a couple minutes to complete this short survey. This survey is for everyone, whether you have attended a workshop or not! Feel free to list your name or remain anonymous.
G.O.T Power Survey

Last month, Fulton McKinney, a man experiencing homeless in his 50’s, was found dead at Memphis carwash. His body had already begun to decompose by the time he was discovered. This deeply saddens and frustrates us, as it should anyone with a shred of human decency. What are we doing as a community to ensure that our most vulnerable residents have access to equitable and affordable housing? There are so many people out there who slip through the cracks and are bypassed-where is the outreach from homeless service providers? Holding a vigil is a nice gesture, as we did earlier this year for Shelley Thompson, a young lady who froze to death at City Hall on a cold January night, but what happens afterward?  At H.O.P.E., we believe it will take more than an occasional visit to the soup kitchen, but ongoing, coordinated outreach, as well as political leadership that is willing to stop paying lip service to poverty, without putting their money where their mouths are. Currently, there is no public shelter in town, the City of Memphis invests NOTHING in direct homeless services, but last year, spent 6 weeks discussing and eventually, passing an ordinance that further criminalized panhandling, but did absolutely nothing to alleviate the conditions that cause the problem in the first place.

Since this is an election season, we are encouraging our members & supporters to attend some of these candidate forums and ask those who want your vote what they plan to do about people dying on our streets, as well as how they will address homelessness if elected. Call the Shelby County Commission at (901) 222-1000 and flood them with questions on which candidates have homelessness on their platform. Call City Council at  901) 636-6786 and demand that they finally allocate funding for direct homeless services, and invest in affordable housing. Things will only change if we demand it! Otherwise, we will likely be reporting on more deaths this year.

Summer Survival Continues, YOU can help!

Our Summer Survival campaign is still underway!  Throughout this summer, H.O.P.E. members are feeding  vulnerable and hungry folks, and their children at Morris Park. We are providing sandwiches, bottled water, and chips, as well as hygiene kits. We’re always in need of more volunteers to help distribute items, which is a great opportunity for anyone who may need community service hours. Youth volunteers are welcome, but must be accompanied by an adult if under 18. We need your help to make this summer great for those in need!

During our first Summer Survival day, we gave away 50 snack bags! Folks were so happy and excited to see us because some of them literally did not know where the next meal was coming from. The next Summer Survival date is this Thursday  July 12th,  so there is still time to donate and volunteer with H.O.P.E!

For more information about how you can help donate or support HOPE or those who do the work to combat homelessness,or would like to put on a HOPE shirt and volunteer,  contact Tamara Hendrix, (901)725.4990 or  tamara@midsouthpeace.org.

Feed the Movement!

H.O.P.E. would like to thank Marcos Pizza for providing pizzas for the H.O.P.E meetings on the 1st Wednesday of the month. H.O.P.E  is a supportive advocacy group for people with the experiences of homelessness. One of the ways in which we learn about the aforementioned needs and strategize how we can best support one another through this work is through our weekly Wednesday meetings in which we invite people experiencing homelessness to fellowship, share, and brainstorm. It is very important that H.O.P.E. continues to hear from the homeless community about the differing levels of oppression that many of us may face when attempting to navigate through the impending hardships of scarce services available in Memphis. For many groups and organizations offering free food at meetings is a plus for their attendees, but for H.O.P.E. it is a necessity, due to the fact that most often the meal offered at H.O.P.E. meetings may be the only meal they will have that day.

As H.O.P.E. grows in numbers our expenses grow as well. How can you help? You can help by donating prepared foods on Wednesdays to our meeting that afternoon. Don’t have time to cook or buy prepared foods and bring them to our meeting space? We also accept monetary donations towards this cause. Neither of those options seem feasible for you presently? We are also looking for restaurants willing to donate food to our meetings. As always, all forms of donations are completely tax deductible.

If you would like to discuss how you can offer support to HOPE please call Tamara @ 901-254-5964 or email tamara@midsouthpeace.org.

 

Through the darkness of futures past, the magician longs to see, one chants out between two worlds, StreetWise INK’s new tee! StreetWise INK recently completed an order for Black Lodge Video, set to reopen soon! We were thrilled to print these designs for a business that has been an iconic part of Memphis’ subculture for years. The final product is a beautiful shirt that even Agent Cooper would ditch his coat and tie to sport! If your business or organization is looking for a great investment on custom printed tees, give us a shout.