We ALL have a role to play in abolition – we invite you to get involved in our work and our partners’ work if the CARER network is not the right fit for you at this time.
Studios
The work of REP aims to minimize the need to reach beyond one’s community for crisis support by utilizing de-escalation tools, improving relationships between neighbors, and reimagining what loving community looks like.
Through REP’s Studios (our decolonized version of “train-the-trainer”), community members are emboldened to bring forth their wisdom and expertise as they build relationships and skills for community care, hence building broader community capacity.
Self and community determination is strengthened as community members carry forward and utilize pods; REP’s vision for the future is grounded in relationships; we begin with trust, honesty, and accountability at the center of the work and our relationships with each other – and we strive to continue all of those elements as we move forward and foster community centered work.
Upcoming Events
Check out our Eventbrite and our Linktree for upcoming events.
PALESTINIAN AND BLACK SOLIDARITY STUDY
Join REP Studio trainers Sandy and Ar’Tesha in a three-part reading group series dedicated to the theme of solidarity in the global fight for Black liberation and the decolonization of occupied territories like Palestine. We will discuss the topics of Black-Palestinian solidarity in Gaza and Ferguson, land, home and displacement, and the power of anti-imperialist student movements.
Each session will be an hour long with the following agenda:
- Welcome, check-in and grounding
- Close reading of the chosen text
- Reflection and discussion
POD SCENARIOS
September 24th and 25th, Online, 6-7:30pm
How do we talk to our folks about not calling the police in a crisis? How do you ask someone to be in deeper community and form a pod with you? This is a supportive space to practice those scenarios and other tough conversations!
As abolitionists, we believe that having a pod minimizes the need to reach beyond our own community for crisis support. Trainers will introduce grounding values to the group, then lead everyone through discussing scenarios of how to build a pod, how to work together within that pod, and how to respond to crises that arise within the pod.
Root Studio
Stay tuned for our next Root Studio.
Community Connection Session
Talk to a core member, learn who REP is and what we’re about. REP’s community connection sessions are informal monthly gatherings for curiosities, feedback or anything you been wondering about our work.
Stay tuned for our next Community Connection Session this fall.
Past Events
Tuesday, April 30th at 5:30 pm CST
Wednesday, May 8th at 6:00 pm CST
Community Connection Session
Talk to a core member, learn who REP is and what we’re about. REP’s community connection sessions are informal monthly gatherings for curiosities, feedback or anything you been wondering about our work.
Wednesday, December 6th at 6:00 pm CST
Pod Study Hall
Pod Study Halls aim to share knowledge about what it means to be in a pod, how to build your own pod, and how to grow and care for the pods you are already a part of. Join us every third Friday of the month over zoom.
Friday, November 17th at 5-6:30 pm CST
Community connection session- February 16th @ 6-7pm (Zoom)
REP’s community connection sessions are informal monthly gatherings for your curiosities, feedback or anything you been wondering about our work. RSVP below
Studio: Consent & Abolition 3-Part Training Series
Oct. 25, Nov 8, Nov 22 @ 6pm
We are all arriving to abolition in our own ways and are aspiring to be responsive to each others’ autonomy in a community.
Consent is an abolitionist practice rooted in deep care 💜
This is a peer-led space to ask questions, share resources, and explore consent together as a liberatory practice. Come prepared for embodied practices, reflection, discussion, writing activities, and skill sharing.
POD STUDY HALLS – Nov. 4 @ 5pm, Dec. 10 @ 3pm
Pod Study Halls aim to share knowledge about what it means to be in a pod, how to build your own pod, and how to grow and care for the pods you are already a part of.
Pod study halls enable us to create networks where we can rely on each other for support, instead of on systems that harm us. Every study hall will start with some basics about pods and will follow with space to share skills, discuss, and learn together to help each other and our communities.
All are welcome! No previous experience/sessions required. Please join us for as many or as few study halls as you would like. We would love to have you!
- This event will take place on Zoom.
- Presented in English.
- Interactive. Participants will frequent opportunities to ask questions, make comments, and engage in group discussion.
- Duration- 90 minutes
- Captions will be available (auto-generated)
August Root Studio – Monday August 29th @ 6 pm ( on ZOOM )
These studios are an opportunity to
- Learn about Radical Ecosystem Pods and the abolitionist ideas that sparked it
- Connect with other people in our community, explore our own abolitionist intentions
- Workshop and discuss possible community safety scenarios
A different individual from the REP team will host each time, so while the general content might be similar, the vibe and specifics will change up! Because of this, feel free to come back each month. Bring your questions, your people and your pod!
Studio: Solving Problems Ourselves- July 13th @ 6:30-8:30pm (in person)
The Solving Problems Ourselves studio will be a time to share ways we’ve reduced, and addressed harm, in marginalized communities. REP core member Jason Sole will share stories of deescalation, accountability, and ways to support the needs of community members. In addition, he’ll share personal stories of conflict resolution strategies used in Chicago, Iowa, and Minnesota.
Stay tuned for more coming in late summer, or sign up on the mailing list!
Root Studio: PRIDE Edition! June 30th 2022 at 7pm (on Zoom)
Pictured below is Ancestor Marsha P. Johnson. She was a drag queen, sex worker, gay and trans rights activist, and veteran of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Love, light, and progress to her spirit!
In this special Pride month session, we’ll talk about revolutionary LGBTQIA+ leaders and ancestors and what a vision for queer and trans liberation looks like in our communities. Come and join us for a special studio.
April Root Studio – Friday April 29th, 7 pm ( on ZOOM )
These studios are an opportunity to
- Learn about Radical Ecosystem Pods and the abolitionist ideas that sparked it
- Connect with other people in our community, explore our own abolitionist intentions
- Workshop and discuss possible community safety scenarios
A different individual from the REP team will host each time, so while the general content might be similar, the vibe and specifics will change up! Because of this, feel free to come back each month. Bring your questions, your people and your pod!
Root Studio presents Ujima: Collective work and Responsibility – Thursday December 16th at 7pm
For this month’s Root Studio, we asked questions such as:
- How do we build and maintain our community together?
- And what does it mean to make our community’s problems all of our problems?
Self De-escalation and Regulation Intensive – Saturday December 11th, 10am,
When we center relationships as the heart of safety in REP, we’re including the complex and dynamic relationships that we have with ourselves, our bodies, and our immediate environment. Self de-escalation and regulation involves taking a pause between a feeling, impulse, or physical sensation and an action. White supremacy and capitalism emphasize constant doing to the detriment of our relationship with our bodies and our innate ability to access spaciousness within even the most stressful circumstances. This studio is an interactive intensive where we’ll practice a variety of skills and techniques to combust dissociation, anxiety, and reactivity and discuss what feels possible from this space.
Root Studio: Learn about REP – Thu Nov 18 2021, 7 pm
On the third Thursday of each month, starting October 21st, REP will host Root Studios, for community to engage with REP and one another. These studios will be an opportunity to
- Learn about Radical Ecosystem Pods and the abolitionist ideas that sparked it
- Connect with other people in our community, explore our own abolitionist intentions
- Workshop and discuss possible community safety scenarios
A different individual from the REP Studio team will host each time, so while the general content might be similar, the vibe and specifics will change up! Because of this, feel free to come back each month. Bring your questions, bring your friends, and bring your pod.
Root Studio: Learn about REP – Thu October 21 2021, 7 pm
On the third Thursday of each month, starting October 21st, REP will host Root Studios, for community to engage with REP and one another. These studios will be an opportunity to
- Learn about Radical Ecosystem Pods and the abolitionist ideas that sparked it
- Connect with other people in our community, explore our own abolitionist intentions
- Workshop and discuss possible community safety scenarios
A different individual from the REP Studio team will host each time, so while the general content might be similar, the vibe and specifics will change up! Because of this, feel free to come back each month. Bring your questions, bring your friends, and bring your pod.
Community Trauma and Care Part II – Friday September 3rd , 5 pm
Mourning without concrete spaces can create underwater anxiety. In our first conversation on community care and trauma, we talked about what happens when a community faces crisis. We unwound the multiple, overlapping crises of the last year and the bridges and boundaries between our immediate and long-term responses. In this studio, we are deepening our understanding of community care and trauma. Over a year out from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Minneapolis Uprising, we’ve come to understand that constant crisis has long-term, and often invisible, ramifications on our bodies, our relationships, and our communities. What are those effects and how are we dealing with them, especially as the world refuses to slow down? How are we sustaining ourselves in relationships with ourselves, the earth, and one another when all of us are struggling?
July 14th – July 27, Info sessions for Phase 2 recruitment
REP is an abolitionist strategy that supports neighbors in moments of crisis. Community members can call a secure hotline on Fridays from 7pm-3am to access mental health first aid, conflict de-escalation, referrals to resources, and other solutions to low-level crises.
We are looking ahead to Phase 2 of Revolutionary Emergency Partners, the dispatch/responder side of REP, and are seeking an additional 38 people to grow this work with us. The CARER role (Community Aid, Resourcing, and Emergency Response) is comprised of community members who are dedicated to bringing their skills of community resourcing, neighborhood emergency response, mutual aid facilitation, and street medicine to REP as we build systems of care and power that are led by us and for us.
Participation in the CARER network involves over seventy hours of training, including:
- Mental Health First Aid
- De-escalation
- Street medic
- Crisis response
Phase 2 CARERs will commit to all training dates beginning August 28th, and working overnights on Friday and Saturday from October 28th-January 29th (three months).
The info sessions for recruitment for phase 2 has ended, please look out at our social media posts + website updates for any new developments in the next couple months.
Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 2-3:30 pm CDT
Coming out — publicly breaking from straightness, cisness, and more — is an act of breaking from harmful, colonial belief systems and ideologies. When we come out, we, our nervous systems, and our imaginations learn that we can survive this ideological breaking away- that in transitions that sometimes shatter us, we have the power and agency to reassemble in the name of our pleasure and authenticity first.
May 13, 2021: Community Trauma and Care
Who are we talking about when we use the term “community?” And what happens when a community faces crisis? Nearly a year ago, our communities were hit with a massive trauma in the middle of already traumatic conditions. In this studio we explored what community traumas have influenced our lives, and uplifted the practices of community care we have grown and that have sustained us in the wake of crisis.
April 25: Consent and Abolition
What does consent have to do with abolition? Everything! This topic that is typically reserved for sexual relationships has much to offer ALL our relationships, be they pod, romantic or platonic. Join us for an exploration into creating and sustaining pods and relationships that center consent.