Alliance of Families for Justice Inc
Programs
Legal and Family Support Services
LEGAL AND FAMILY SUPPORT UNITS:Our Legal Support Unit continues to respond to the explosion of requests for support that have burst forward since the beginning of the pandemic. They continue to provide assistance with the legal needs that incarcerated people and their families typically have, such as Article 78 proceedings, medical and mental health neglect, physical abuse of incarcerated people, visiting bans of family members and loved ones, parole preparation, and clemency. In addition to these focus areas, the attorneys also address issues such as rampant negligence around proper protections from COVID-19 for incarcerated people, lack of access to vaccines, individuals seeking compassionate release in light of the pandemic, and more. The Legal Support Unit is staffed by two full-time attorneys and a part-time law clerk; with this level of demand on services, we are planning to add a third full-time attorney to the Unit in 2022. One infrastructure-related accomplishment we are proud of in 2021 is that we have implemented a data-tracking system for the Legal Support Unit utilizing Powerbase, our organization's database, enabling us to more effectively track our work within the organization, and when reporting on our work to funders.As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to compound the difficulties that directly-impacted families face, our Family Support Unit was more needed, and more active, than ever before. We continued to offer weekly Family Empowerment Circles on Zoom, and attendance grew throughout the year. We also achieved a longstanding goal of launching a support circle specifically for formerly incarcerated people. Our "Songa Mbele" group, which meets monthly on Zoom, is about "moving forward," which is what songa mbele means in Swahili. It emphasizes mindfulness approaches that can assist participants on a path to a healthy transition into the community, and is facilitated by Yao-Obiora Dibia, LCSW, who heads our Family Support Unit. Yao is an incredible healer with decades of experience, steeped in the issues our families encounter. We also continued our Supportive Voices project, which we started at the beginning of the pandemic. For Supportive Voices, we pair AFJ family members with volunteers who have incarcerated loved ones and can provide additional, one-on-one emotional support during this ongoing trying time. Over the summer, we held a family fun day at Riverbank State Park. For some of us, it was the first time we were seeing each other in person since before the pandemic started. For others, it was the first time we were ever meeting in person after organizing for the rights of our families and incarcerated loved ones over Zoom for the past year and a half. It was a joy to be able to connect and reconnect in such a beautiful setting. In addition to eating, socializing, and tossing a football around, we distributed information about how to register to vote, upcoming elections, and the new ranked choice voting system. Karima Smith, our AFJ Artist-in-Residence, did a beautiful job organizing arts and crafts activities for attendees of all ages. The event was attended by most of our board members, including board chair Danny Glover who surprised everyone with baked bread he made from a family recipe.In November, we were finally able to host our inaugural healing retreat for formerly incarcerated people. We had been planning this special event for two years, but it was postponed due to the pandemic. With careful precautions, we spent four magical days in the Adirondack Mountains on Blue Mountain Lake. Together the retreat attendees participated in yoga, vision boards, drumming circles, meditation, Qi Gong, canoeing, somatic movement, singing bowls, sound therapy and group reiki, breath work, healing circles, star gazing, hiking, mindfulness eating, poetry and so much more. We enjoyed nutritious meals, storytelling in front of the fireplace, late night snacks and plenty of good laughs. We started off the extended weekend by building an ancestral altar together and giving recognition to those who went before us, on whose shoulders we stand and on whose land we were present. This was the first in a series of healing retreats we will be hosting for formerly incarcerated people. This retreat was attended by men; the second will be attended by women and the third will be attended by members of the LBTQIA community. For all who attend, the healing and bonding will last a lifetime.GeographiesNot indicatedDatesJan 1, 2021 – Dec 31, 2021Source990No causes providedNo populations provided–$324.6KYouth Empowerment Project
YOUTH EMPOWERMENT PROJECT:October 2021 marked the one-year anniversary of our Youth Empowerment Project, which has been a resounding success! We initially hoped to serve approximately 25 directly-impacted young people throughout the year, and are pleased to report that we actually served more than 200, 99% of which were Black or Latinx, and more than half of which were girls or non-binary. This is especially exciting, considering that our original conception of YEP was in a pre-pandemic world, and we had to pivot and get very creative in order to shift to a virtual structure. The entire YEP team are directly-impacted Black and Latinx individuals, and bring a passion for the work and a determination to build an effective program, in spite of, or perhaps especially because of, the challenging circumstances that COVID has presented. 2-3 remote learning pods have been offered on Zoom each week, on a variety of subjects. Youth Leaders earn $25 for each Pod in which they participate. Some examples of topics covered thus far include:? Community Leadership in Times of Crisis? Communications Training? Financial literacy? 13th Documentary: viewing and discussion on forced labor in prison? Tuskegee and COVID? Making Our Voices Heard? An Examination and Critique of Our Social OrganizationIn the months leading up to the New York State primary as well as the general election, AFJ Youth Leaders (YEP participants) engaged in street-level voter education and registration in the Bronx. AFJ was selected by Democracy NYC to educate voters about the new Ranked Choice Voting system, which Youth Leaders assisted with. Youth Leaders also distributed masks and information about preventing the spread of COVID-19 throughout the community. Over the summer, we hired two of our home-grown Youth Leaders as summer interns. They were quite invested in YEP, as they were and are participants themselves, and they were a great example to their fellow participants of stepping up to take on leadership roles. Interns assisted with coordinating YEP's activities, with co-facilitating learning pods, and also developed and led a pod of their own on environmental justice.GeographiesNot indicatedDatesJan 1, 2021 – Dec 31, 2021Source990No causes providedNo populations provided–$208.6KCommunity Organizing and Civic Engagement
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING AND CIVIC ENGAGEMENT:In June 2020, we started holding weekly organizing meetings on Zoom, which focused on visit policy as well as COVID policy in New York State prisons and jails. Throughout 2021, these meetings have continued. The pandemic is far from over, and we continue to monitor implementation of COVID protections in prisons and jails, as well as vaccine access, which remains insufficient. Additionally, while visitation has resumed, and while we accomplished advocating for DOCCS to restore processing marriage licenses which remained inexplicably suspended until recently, certain restrictions are still in place, such as the children's play areas remaining closed which makes visitation difficult for families with small children. The Family Reunion Program, which allows families to spend several days and nights with their incarcerated loved ones in a home-like setting, was at last restored, but only with double-standard vaccination policies requiring visitors to be vaccinated but not correction officers. In addition to continuing to monitor these policies and push for change, near the end of 2021 we began to reinvigorate our campaign to restore the right to vote to incarcerated people. In early 2021, we successfully advocated for the passage of a bill which codified the right to vote for people on parole. We are continuing to pursue our ultimate goal, which we have been working toward since the start of this campaign, of restoring the right to vote for all incarcerated people as well. We have begun to strategize around this campaign in our weekly organizing meetings, and will continue to do so. Before the primary and general elections, we engaged in intensive street-level voter education and registration in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. While we did not specifically target formerly incarcerated people, we knew the neighborhoods we were targeting were heavily impacted by incarceration, so it was no surprise to us that we registered many formerly incarcerated people to vote who did not even know they were eligible to vote. We also encountered some community members who were dealing with barriers we did not necessarily anticipate. Some had literacy challenges and needed assistance understanding and completing the registration form. Some had vision problems and could not read the form on their own. Tabling at the same intersections each week, we took our time with community members, had them sit with us if they wished and were patient with each and every one. In this way, we assisted them in overcoming barriers that may seem insignificant at first glance, but were standing in between them and their civic engagement.Throughout 2021, we also reinvigorated our call to shut down Attica. While the many injustices of the prison system are not limited to Attica, this infamous prison, the site of the 1971 Attica Rebellion, remains a symbol of the flagrant human rights abuses that are allowed to continue unchecked. By focusing on Attica, we draw attention to the abuses in all NYS prisons and jails. For the 50th anniversary of the Attica Uprising, which happened in September 2021, we organized a commemoration event with the Attica Is All of Us coalition. This event involved two evenings of panel discussions: "Attica Then, and "Attica Now." "Attica Then" reflected on the Attica Uprising, and Attica Now reflected on the human rights abuses still occurring there, and throughout the system, and the need to shut Attica down. Both evenings included survivors of Attica and other directly-impacted people. It was streamed on Manhattan Neighborhood Network, online, and was attended by several hundred people.GeographiesNot indicatedDatesJan 1, 2021 – Dec 31, 2021Source990No causes providedNo populations provided–$405.2K
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