40 Young People Participate in the Transformative Justice Camp
Our youth-led, week-long camp engaged young activists ages 13 - 16 on how to build communities and relationships without policing and prisons.
From June 21 - 25, 2021, Freedom Lifted hosted a free, 5-day online program for a close cohort of 40 youth on prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition and transformative justice. Using the first two tracks from Steps to End Prisons and Policing: The Just Practice Transformative Justice Mixtape as the central texts, the hybrid camp also featured live conversations in virtual workshops throughout the week.
Ten trained youth facilitators, all of whom participated in our History of Policing class last summer, led breakout discussions with our youth participants ages 13 - 16.
Mia Henry and Syontoni Hattori-Chatterjee, a former History of Policing class participant and the program’s co-creator, also developed a Freedom Lifted Learning Lab course companion with the Just Practice Mixtape video tracks, recordings of each live session, additional resources, and discussion forums, just for Transformative Justice Camp participants.
Youth Participant Quote on Transformative Justice Camp Experience
Our live sessions featured conversations with guest speakers Deana Lewis and Rachel Caidor from Just Practice Collaborative, large group discussions led by Syontoni, and small group youth-facilitated discussions. At the end of each workshop, we held racial affinity group spaces so youth could further talk and process the content in the context of their racial identities.
The last day featured a panel of 6 young activists, all former History of Policing class participants. They each presented on the various ways they work for justice in their communities — including through digital art, grassroots campaign organizing, filmmaking, starting their own organization, publishing their writing, leading youth affinity group spaces, and more.
After this panel, participants chose a breakout discussion led by one of the panelists on one way of taking action. In these breakouts, they created plans to work for transformative justice over the summer.
Youth from all over the U.S. attended the camp. Check out the participant map linked below.
When surveyed after the camp, 39% of participants who responded planned to get involved with a new organization, 50% planned to do a project around transformative justice this summer, 61% planned to use these ideas in their school and 72% planned to practice transformative justice principles in relationships with family and friends.
Receiving no private, corporate or government support, this camp was 100% grassroots funded by individual supporters across the country! There is still time to donate as we are raising funds all summer to reach our goal of $10,000, which covers the full cost of the camp.
We are grateful to all of those who already donated to make the camp possible. We can’t wait to live in the world these young people are building!