Umuwi Ethnic Studies

Calling all of our teacher friends! Tomorrow (Saturday. March 15) from 10a-12p PT / 1-3p ET Big City Social Studies is hosting a much-needed town hall FOR teachers to talk about their biggest concerns, responses, and actions during this dire time. Educators from across country will share their experiences, facilitate discussion, and offer some thinking for moving forward. All K-12 teachers regardless of subject area are welcome. Our co-director Cath will be helping out in the immigration break-out session. Come on through! Register here: https://lnkd.in/gvU5JrGG

We’re excited to share that Umuwi Ethnic Studies is offering our second Racial Healing and Resourcing cohort experience for BIPOC justice-centered educators in the Chicago area (Cook County) this spring! The experience will center individual and collective racial healing and resourcing as necessary practices in order to sustain our commitments to practicing healing, justice and liberation in our classrooms, schools and learning spaces. Cohort members attend a series of 4 virtual and 1 in-person sessions on 4/17, 4/26, 5/10, 5/31, 6/14 focused on: - Building understanding about root causes and impacts of racialized violence and why racial healing and resourcing is necessary for our survival and sustenance - Engaging healing practices of various modalities - Setting intentions and plans for their healing and resourcing practices - Engaging healing-centered frameworks and practices that educators can incorporate into their work with young people Priority will be given to: - BIPOC justice-centered practitioners - Folks committed to investing in their well-being & co-creating an accountable community of care - Folks working in/adjacent to K-12 schools & youth-serving spaces in Chicago Participation is free, thanks in large part to funding through a Healing Illinois grant Join our virtual information session on Monday, March 10th to learn more and have your questions answered: https://lnkd.in/gGiF4YvN Applications are due Monday, March 24th:? https://lnkd.in/ghnBms-7 For questions, contact Tamara Prather at [email protected]

We are in a space of reflection as we continue entering into the Gregorian new year. In our reflections, many wisdoms about Umuwi’s first 18 months have surfaced. One such wisdom is that Umuwi is flourishing for its stage of development. Program and partnership opportunities have been flowing our way, and we have good funding momentum. This is abundance that our collective has generated through contributions of labor and love. We can tie everything that we’ve done and accomplished back to someone we’re in deep relationship with. We continue to remind ourselves that we got us. Deep gratitude to our beloved community, partners, and funders. To learn more about Umuwi, our crew, and our partners and funders, check out our website! “we are each other's harvest: we are each other's business: we are each other's magnitude and bond.” Gwendolyn Brooks

“There’s this presumption that the adults can actually provide healing, when in fact they need healing, when in fact they have stuff that they [need] to be reconciled in their own professional and personal lives. So by expanding the capacity for schools to support the well-being of the teaching workforce, by its very investment, the hope is that it will also open up possibilities to focusing on the healing and well-being of young people.” --Dr. Shawn Ginwright We are filled with nervous excitement, wonder, and gratitude today as we prepare for tonight's launch of our Racial Healing & Resourcing Cohort for and with 16 amazing, BIPOC justice-centered educators. From now through mid-June, we're partnering with members of our Umuwi crew to cultivate structures and acts of care as an antidote to, and in resistance to, the structures of unwellness that permeate our lives and our heartmindbodyspirits. Maraming salamat/deep gratitude to the many, many healers, culture keepers, and warriorscholars who have influenced our understandings and our practices of creating homeplaces, where, as bell hooks teaches us, "we return for renewal and self-recovery, where we can heal our wounds and become whole." Shout out to these amazing partners and co-strugglers in our journeys to confront our unwellness and co-create structures of care, healing and resourcing (check out mimi khúc's incredible new book, dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss for more about a pedagogy of unwellness): Stacey A. Gibson, Transform the Collective Rito Martinez, Love and Liberation Executive Coaching and Consulting Dorian A. Ortega, LCPC, FLY Radical Therapy Maraliz Salgado, Libérate Life Coaching Dr. Asif Wilson, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign We go together, and the love and trust that fuels our partnerships is magic and medicine. Finally, thank you to these people and organizations for believing in us, recognizing the imperative of this work in this moment, and directing resources (i.e. funding) our way: AMPT: Advancing Nonprofits, Healing Illinois/United Way of Champaign County and 4.0.

We started off our week in a beautiful space, created by Dr. Anna Quinzio-Zafran and Elizabeth A. Wilkins, Ph.D. from the New Teacher Talk podcast! Our founder/co-director Cecily Relucio spoke about the lasting impact of being a student in Dr. Anna's 1st grade classroom almost 50 years ago, a classroom that was rooted in an ethic of love, care, and cultural responsiveness. Dr. Anna & Cecily dialogued about their visions and beliefs about what is needed in order to demand and protect a culturally responsive, anti-racist, ethnic studies education that is rooted in love and care for all of our young people as well as their teachers. Stay tuned for the episode launch, coming soon! #EthnicStudiesIsOurHomeplace #EthnicStudiesNow #EthnicStudiesChicago