Come join us for an exploration of justice and healing at the second-ever ReStorying Justice Jam! Our seven-day online gathering will bring together activists, advocates, storytellers, practitioners, community members, those of us who are impacted by the criminal legal system and feel called to transform it. We will reflect, share stories, and engage in the kind of collective learning and visioning process that is necessary for us to “re-story” and thus decolonize our very notion of justice on the path to creating broader systemic change.
We will engage, create, tangle & untangle, challenge & be challenged, support, connect, and dream in ways we can’t even predict.
The Zoomy Re-Storying Justice Jam will take place Friday, April 16, 2021 to Friday, April 23, 2021, with sessions held on April 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, from 9:30 am to 12 pm PST / 12:30 – 3 pm EST. Sessions will be for two hours with an optional 30 minute hangout for spontaneous conversations, and we recommend you set aside the full 2.5 hours to make the most out of the Jam. (Note: Sunday the 18th, Tuesday the 20th, and Thursday the 22nd we will have no pre-scheduled sessions, and leave space for spontaneous participant-led sessions.)
(You can apply in writing, through video, and/or voice memo — Whatever works best for you!)
PRIORITY DEADLINE: March 12, 2021
FINAL DEADLINE: March 26, 2021
WHY HAVE A RE-STORYING JUSTICE JAM?
Living in the most incarcerated country in the world, U.S. Americans are now waking up to how ineffective, wasteful, biased and unjust their “justice system” is. The movement to #DefundThePolice is picking up. Exciting ideas about restorative and transformative justice are spreading throughout the country. As practitioners of these approaches, we are feeling the call to come together to change our vengeful and short-sighted brand of justice to better reflect our shared humanity.
In doing so, we are faced with the challenge of how our own personal values, life experiences, and family histories affect our relationship with wrongdoing and conflict. We will all cause harm, break a rule, and be a “wrongdoer” at some point in our lives. When that happens, how will we deal with it?
- Can justice be about healing, not punishment?
- And if we ourselves have been hurt, how do we ensure we do not perpetuate harm in the ways we show up for the communities we serve?
- Where are we growing and where are we struggling in our work around restorative and/or transformative justice?
- How do we sustain and regenerate given the challenges we each and all are facing?
- What is justice and what does it look like in practice?
- How do we bring our whole selves forward in justice work?
- How can we work together toward an alternative justice model that is more equitable, more humane, and more healing? How do we leave behind the white supremacist colonial punitive model of justice that we have inherited?
What are YOUR questions? Bring them to the Jam! We believe the ReStorying Justice Jam is the perfect venue to engage in this deep work of reflection, exploration and community building.
WHY “RE-STORYING”?
Our ideas about what should happen to people who commit crimes flow directly from our own individual experiences with conflict and wrongdoing, which means that we cannot change our legal system without first exploring our own personal notions of justice and how it pervades our lives. Through the act of remembering and perhaps re-telling the stories that have shaped our notions of justice, we have the opportunity to bring healing to old wounds that, if left unhealed, will continue to shape our lives and limit our freedom. And from a place of more self-awareness, we can choose ways of acting that feel more whole and more true. This is ReStorying, the act of reconnecting with the stories that shaped us and allowing for healing and transformation to emerge. We believe this work is a critical step toward creating the kind of fundamental systemic changes we need to make our justice system worthy of the word “justice.”
WHAT IS A JAM?
In music, a jam is a creative, live gathering of musicians who together, spontaneously create a new sound. Similar to that, YES! Jams are places where diverse leaders and visionaries bring together their passions, openness, and unique perspectives. In spontaneous connection, we weave layers of experience, wisdom, heart, and spirit to create some real magic. The Jam asks that all the players are present and ready to listen deeply to each other, and together, we create something greater than we as individuals can create alone.
A lot of movement trainings are about strategy, but leave out how to build healthy relationships. Other retreats focus on personal transformation but leave out systemic change. Some trainings work on leadership and power dynamics, but forget our souls.
YES! brings all three together — we give change-makers tools to build open-hearted, healthy communities where people can be real with each other. The Jam is not a conference, seminar or a typical meeting – it is something unique. It’s dedicated time to think and feel deeply about transformation in our world, in our communities, and in ourselves. There are in-depth conversations and there is a lot of fun, art, and creativity. There is embodiment, group explorations, and co-creations, as well as solo time and internal reflection.
The Jam works on 3 levels of change & transformation:
1) The Personal. A place for each one of us to explore our own journeys and histories, to heal our individual wounds and to come into our most authentic selves so that we can better fulfill our unique purpose.
2) The Interpersonal. We are harmed in relationships, so we must heal in relationships. We come together to share our collective journeys, our cultures, our ways of grieving and our ways of healing, our histories of struggle and our stories of resilience.
3) The Systemic. Our individual identities and our collective stories are molded in a larger context. By becoming clearer about how these systems influence our lives, we can have a larger impact in the broader world around us.
The facilitation team has collectively co-organized and co-facilitated many different Jams and has been planning towards this Jam even before the pandemic (remember that, way back when?). We will be fully participating in the Jam, bringing our questions too. We don’t have all the answers (or maybe any of them!). What we do offer is a variety of ways for each of us to arrive at our own answers — and new questions. We’ll use a number of processes and tools and experiment with different ways of being together, all aimed at strengthening our self-awareness, our ability to communicate and work through conflicts, and our ability to vision and put these pieces together. We see the Jam as a co-learning journey of the collective experiences, questions, powers, and differences of everyone who attends.
WHO IS INVITED?
We invite those who have borne witness to the cruelty of our criminal legal system and feel called to do something about it. We invite those who have been impacted by the criminal legal system, directly or indirectly, and who believe that what is happening is unjust, immoral, and in opposition to our fundamental need for human connection. We invite those on either side of the Line, law enforcement, prosecutors, defenders, service providers, government workers, who feel hamstrung by an impersonal and bureaucratic system that causes much more harm than good. We invite those who have gone Inside as prisoners, staff, or volunteers, and have come back changed by what they experienced. We invite folks from marginalized communities who have historically suffered the brunt of the injustice and oppression that our criminal legal system has perpetrated. Finally, we invite persons who have caused harm, survivors, and any combination of the two to join us in the profound work of ReStorying. We commit to creating a safe and brave space for our individual and collective work. We encourage folks from Black, Indigenous, Latinx, immigrant, API, POC, and LGBTQI communities to apply.
Dates, Logistics, and Contribution
The Jam will take place between April 16-23, 2021. The dates for our scheduled sessions will be April 16, 17, 19, 21, 23; April 18, 20, 22, reserved for rest, additional spontaneous interactions, reflection, integration, and self-care. We will meet for 2 hours each day from 9:30 am to 11:30 am PST (12:30 pm to 2:30 pm EST). Each day there will be an optional hangout from 11:30 am to 12 pm PST (2:30-3 pm EST) — which we strongly encourage you to make time for. Please note that leaving as much spacious time in your schedule as possible for the week will make the Jam much more enjoyable. We recommend you set aside the entire 2.5 hours as well as scheduling as little as possible over the duration of the Jam, to really take in the full experience.
The tuition for the Zoomy Re-Storying Justice Jam is offered on a sliding scale of $50-$300. We are committed to making this event accessible to all people, regardless of ability to pay. If you have less access to money, feel free to pay at the low end of the scale, and if you have more access to money or resources and/or you have the financial backing of an organization or institution, we invite you into class solidarity, to consider paying more so that someone else can pay less. If you pay more than the at-cost amount for tuition, that extra amount is tax-deductible.
I’M IN! WHAT’S NEXT?
(You can apply in writing, through video, and/or voice memo — Whatever works best for you!)
PRIORITY DEADLINE: March 12, 2021
FINAL DEADLINE: March 26, 2021
WHO IS ORGANIZING THE JAM?
Demarris R. Evans teaches mindfulness through the lens of healing and human potential. She worked as a trial attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office for 20 years, and in this capacity, Demarris represented clients in the Clean Slate Program, Collaborative Court Programs, including Drug Court and Community Justice Court, Juvenile Delinquency, and the Felony Trial Unit, including handling all aspects of litigation. In addition to other assignments, she worked as the Racial Justice and Equity Attorney for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office as well as the Chairperson of the Racial Justice Committee. Demarris was an instructor in the Criminal Justice Department at the University of Phoenix for several years. She is also a member of the San Francisco Bar Association’s Criminal Justice Task Force where she chairs the Bias and Policing Subcommittee. She previously served on the San Francisco Bar Association’s Judiciary Committee. She has served on the Attorney Panel of California Bar Examination Graders for over a decade. She is a graduate of the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College and is a graduate of the Warrior One Mindfulness in Law Teacher Training Program of 2016. Demarris has been practicing mindfulness since the late 1990’s, and has sat numerous silent, multi-day retreats. Demarris successfully the Dedicated Practitioner Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Demarris has led numerous Mindfulness trainings, and sitting meditation sessions. She has been on a co-facilitator for the Law and Social Change Jam, offered by Yes! And she is on the Board of Directors for the Mindfulness in Law Society where she is the Head of the Equity and Inclusion Division.
Richard Cruz has been with the Ahimsa Collective since 2018. He is native and his relations are through his mother (Georgia) Assiniboine Sioux, Nakota, Montana. He also has an american college education and has earned Certifications as a Substance Abuse Treatment Counselor and Communications Technician. He currently holds a position as the Director of Finance and Operations. He believes in celebrating our differences, new experiences and healing our communities and history. He lives in the Bay Area of California.
Kevin Martin serves as a Community Development Specialist with Community Works, a non-profit agency based in Oakland, California dedicated to critically reducing citizen’s contact with the criminal legal system. The organization supports alternative justice programs using restorative and transformational justice models. Kevin being a bridge builder in his role loves initiating collaborative environments where cohesion is cultivated between the organization’s numerous teams and external partners. In another life, Kevin serves as a Community Teacher with both Insight Richmond and East Bay Meditation Center, where he has co-created practice groups and men’s programming. His social justice focus within his meditation community is tending to systemic racism and patriarchy that exists within meditation spaces. He thoroughly enjoys cultivating a path of less suffering and joy whether it is within his work at Community Works or his work as a meditation teacher. Kevin holds a graduate degree in Intercultural Relations from the University of the Pacific. He also has a Criminal Justice degree from California State University, Sacramento.
Angela Sevin is a white, cis female, rural educated, middle class raised educational consultant, facilitator and visual artist. Passionate about racial equity and stewarding the world we inhabit, she works holistically in collaboration with cutting edge leaders, developing solutions with and for resilient communities. After earning a graduate degree in Experiential Education, she helped found several small democratic schools, co-designed the groundbreaking Pathways to Resilience re-entry project and directs the Green Life environmental literacy and self-sufficiency peer education program at San Quentin State Prison. She co-designs and leads white affinity workshops with her colleagues at Beyond Separation to address social and racial equity using systems and design thinking and experiential modalities. Angela is an alumnus of the North America Jam and the Law and Social Change Jam. She is excited to dive deeply with resilient change-makers who will powerfully address the social and environmental issues of our time and help to bring restorative practices to our communities.
Yoana Tchoukleva is a civil rights attorney and restorative justice circle keeper, committed to advancing a community-led vision for justice that is based on healing and transformation, not punishment and incarceration. She is a white queer woman immigrant from Bulgaria, living and working in Oakland on traditional unceded Chochenyo Ohlone land. She dreams of a thriving, diverse and restorative Oakland where the principles of restorative justice, racial justice and equity are centered, where indigenous land is rematriated, and where we all learn to live in right relationship with one another and the Earth. To that end, she uses her legal skills to challenge oppressive laws and policies, locally and statewide. Most recently, she served as the Judge Constance Baker Motley Civil Rights Fellow at Equal Justice Society where she worked to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and drafted legislation that made implicit bias training mandatory for all police officers, judges and medical professionals in the state. Previously, she clerked for Judge Thelton Henderson, worked on civil rights cases at the ACLU, sought re-sentencing for individuals serving juvenile without parole, and held restorative justice circles in prison, schools, and juvenile camp. She is currently on the Board of New Leaders Council Oakland, a training institute for the next generation of progressive leaders, and the Embodiment Project, a hip hop dance healing collective.
Shilpa Jain is currently rooting herself in Oakland/Berkeley, CA, where she serves as the Executive Director of YES!. YES! works with social changemakers at the meeting point of internal, interpersonal and systemic change, and aims to co-create a thriving, just and balanced world for all. Prior to taking on this role, Shilpa spent two years as the Education and Outreach Coordinator of Other Worlds and ten years as a learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, based in Udaipur, India, where she served as coordinator of the Swapathgami (Walkouts-Walkons) Network. She has facilitated dozens of transformative leadership gatherings with hundreds of young leaders from over 50 countries. She is passionate about dance and music, organic and natural farming, upcycling and zero waste living, asking appreciative questions and being in community. A focus on healing, forgiveness, compassion, love and wholeness permeates all of her work and life.
Seth Weiner is an alum of the 2004 Leveraging Privilege for Social Change Jam and of the 2015 inaugural Law and Social Change Jam facilitation team. He is a 2004 graduate of the Community Studies program at UC Santa Cruz and the 2010 JD program at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. He also holds a Certificate in Consciousness Studies from the Rudolf Steiner College. From 2010 to 2013, Seth was the Co-Director of the Center for Restorative Justice at Loyola and from 2013-2018, he directed the North American grant-making on social justice for the Porticus Foundation. After 18 months as primary caretaker for his two infant boys, he served as the Executive Director for the Wabanaki cultural and healing center Nibezun in Passadumkeag, Maine. He is currently the Interim Program Officer for the Life Comes From It fund, elevating people and projects in the field of restorative justice, transformative justice and indigenous peacemaking. He is actively learning about the courage, surrender, and faith involved in personal, inter-personal, ancestral and community healing. He lives with his wife, Ngoc, her mom Nancy and their sons Shem (4) and Sol (2).
Come Jam!
Love,
Kevin, Demarris, Richard, Angela, Yoana, Shilpa, and Seth