Community Healing Fund - Grants Awarded

Asian Women's Shelter San Francisco, California

For 20 years, the Asian Women's Shelter (AWS) has worked to eliminate domestic violence by promoting the social, economic and political self-determination of women. AWS integrates culturally competent and language-accessible shelter services, educational programs, and community advocacy, as well as weekly support groups, arts curriculum, and many other services. AEPOCH supports the AWS Sustainability Initiative. This Initiative aims to infuse art, healing, and cultural practices throughout AWS programs, as well as creating a more sustainable workplace, which includes support for personal sustainability and healing among AWS residents, volunteers, on-call language advocates, and staff. In addition, AWS will use support from AEPOCH to contribute to building a more sustainable, diverse, and powerful anti-violence movement by hosting a gathering on the topics of resiliency theory, vicarious trauma, and movement building. www.sfaws.org

Be Present, Inc., Decatur, Georgia

Be Present is committed to women and girls of all races and backgrounds who want to create positive change in their own lives and in their communities. Since 1989, more than 3,500 women and girls have participated in Be Present workshops, retreats, trainings, peer facilitated support groups, and community collaborations. Their model of transformation provides individual empowerment and collective leadership skills primarily to African-American women and girls, and also to women, men and boys from all walks of life. AEPOCH has provided general support for administration and programs. www.bepresent.org

GenerationFIVE, San Francisco, California

Generation 5 works to end the sexual abuse of children within five generations through community organizing, leadership development, and public action. AEPOCH has supported the Transformative Justice Project to develop interventions to prevent child sexual abuse, as well as supporting the launch of a year-long Somatics, Trauma, and Transformative Justice training that will develop the capacity of core Bay Area and Atlanta community leadership teams to facilitate trauma work from a Somatic approach. Additionally, Gen5 will convene a three-part Healing Summit Series with community-based healers from across the country to develop and document practices, models, and methods for collective healing and transformation in a social justice context. Together, these projects will strengthen the leadership capacity, resiliency, and transformation of marginalized communities and build networks for community support. www.generationfive.org

Hamaatsa, Albuquerque, New Mexico

HAMAATSA's mission is to provide models for living simply and sustainably on the land; to integrate healing systems from traditional cultures; and to restore indigenous life-ways and principles through experiential land-based learning. AEPOCH has supported a historical land purchase to create an indigenous continuum learning center committed to sustainable living, spiritual wholeness and cultural restoration. http://www.hamaatsa.org

La Plazita Institute Albuquerque, New Mexico

La Plazita Institute offers culturally relevant services to at-risk Native American youth throughout New Mexico. Specifically, La Plazita supports incarcerated and recently released youth through its Native American Prisoners Project; young veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan through its Wounds of War Program; and gang-involved youth through its Thugs Making a Change and Sisters Making a Change programs. These programs reconnect young people to their Native heritage and provide spiritual and cultural healing through sweat lodges, weekly talking circles, involvement in community projects, and transformation of trauma through art, dance, and spoken word. AEPOCH helps support La Plazita's community healing services, as well as La Plazita Café, its youth employment program, and La Plazita Gardens, a cooperative farming project that reconnects youth to the land.

Service Women Action Network (SWAN), Oakland, California

The Service Women's Action Network (SWAN) is a network of military veteran women and civilian allies that provides wide-ranging support to active duty servicewomen and veterans. The threefold mission is to: counsel young women who are considering military service; offer spirited support to active duty women who face problems while in the military; and provide alternative resources and healing for women veterans. AEPOCH has provided general support for staffing and program costs. Fiscal Sponsor: Women of Color Resource Center www.coloredgirls.org

Kindred Southern Healing Arts Collective, Atlanta, Georgia

Kindred is building a political framework and educational awareness of healing arts practices as a response to collective trauma in southern based movements in the US. They work to model methods and share practices for energy and bodywork that can sustain emotional, physical and spiritual well-being for organizers, and movements. AEPOCH has supported Kindred's national storytelling project. Fiscal sponsor: stone circles

stone circles, Mebane, North Carolina

stone circles sustains activists from around the country and strengthens the work of social justice through spiritual practice and principles. In 2007, stone circles created the Stone House as a refuge for social change practitioners to inspire more sustainable action and committed spiritual reflection. AEPOCH has supported the launch of SOUL Sanctuary, a four-day monthly retreat program offered at no charge to activists and housed at the Stone House. Community leaders and organizers will be invited to replenish their energy through daily meditation and yoga practice, work in the community garden, creative art activities, and one-on-one healing work-while reconnecting with the source of their commitment to the struggle for justice. A month-long sabbatical program is planned for the summer of 2009 for 15-20 activists. www.stonecircles.org

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