What iF we healed?
Creating spaces and practices that prioritize rest, rejuvenation, resilience and healing from the spectrum of systemic and interpersonal harms.
Internal Healing Justice Journey
Click to enlarge
Our internal health justice journey blends both theory and practice and is informed by Cara Page, a Black Queer Feminist cultural/memory worker, curator and organizer. Cara introduced us to healing justice as a framework that identifies how we can holistically respond to and intervene on generational trauma and violence and to bring collective practices that can impact and transform the consequences of oppression on our bodies, hearts and minds.
We have experimented with the following as a board and staff: Qi Gong, massage, Zone of Genius, Tree of Life storytelling practice, breathwork, meditation, summer weeks off for rest, and a mid-year organizational pause devoted to rest, reading, relationship building and reflection. We also draw inspiration from the Nap Ministry and its powerful message of rest as resistance.
Between 2017 and 2019, the CHF board and staff told each other stories about the role race, class and gender played in shaping the people we have become. The image to the left plots key moments on our collective timeline. This is our Tree of Life.
Healing Justice Digital Learning Labs
During summer 2020, iF hosted a digital learning lab series with DC-based healing justice practitioners to explore forms of healing that can be adopted within communities and our foundation. We invited community members with whom we are building relationships to engage topics such as creating safety within our community without relying on authorities; cultural organizing; reclaiming the use of herbs and gardening to heal ourselves; and the role of healing justice in the fight against food apartheid in the region.
2021 labs spotlight organizations in the region that are practicing healing justice in their work with the purpose of increasing participants’ healing justice capacity.