Finn Black is fundraising
Berkeley Free Clinic BIPOC Medic Training Fund
The Berkeley Free Clinic is a volunteer-run health collective that has been providing street medicine support to protests and social movements since the People's Park Riots of 1969.
Although our history is rooted in street medic work, our day-to-day operations don't involve emergency medical skills. The majority of what we do is provide acute medical care to our unhoused community members, mostly testing and treatment for common infections, and we don't always have capacity to hold full street medic trainings.
Because teaching life support skills and advanced first-aid is a specialized skill, our members who work as street medics usually get advanced training on their own as EMTs or Wilderness First Responders, and then periodically teach their skills back to the rest of the collective.
Currently within the BFC, the majority of members who have emergency medicine experience are white. We recognize that Western medicine is rooted in racism and colonialism and that there is an inherent problem in having white people be the holders of medical knowledge within our organization. In response to this, we are creating a scholarship program for Black and Indigenous BFC members who wish to pursue Wilderness First Responder training.
This fundraiser has several goals:
1) To support BIPOC in obtaining WFR training, which forms the foundational training for many street medics.
2) To build the Berkeley Free Clinic's long-term capacity to hold community street medic trainings by having more members who have been trained in advanced first-aid.
3) To respond to the fact that the Bay Area does not have a core street medic collective and that entry-level training for new street medics can be difficult to find and inconsistent in quality.
This is how the money will be spent:
1) We will pay the tuition for any BIPOC members of BFC who wish to attend WFR training for the purpose of working as street medics.
Note: We want to be transparent that due to CoVID-19, the next WFR trainings held in the Bay Area probably will not be till August. This fundraiser is meant to build our long-term capacity and will not provide rapid mobilization for the current protests.
Although our history is rooted in street medic work, our day-to-day operations don't involve emergency medical skills. The majority of what we do is provide acute medical care to our unhoused community members, mostly testing and treatment for common infections, and we don't always have capacity to hold full street medic trainings.
Because teaching life support skills and advanced first-aid is a specialized skill, our members who work as street medics usually get advanced training on their own as EMTs or Wilderness First Responders, and then periodically teach their skills back to the rest of the collective.
Currently within the BFC, the majority of members who have emergency medicine experience are white. We recognize that Western medicine is rooted in racism and colonialism and that there is an inherent problem in having white people be the holders of medical knowledge within our organization. In response to this, we are creating a scholarship program for Black and Indigenous BFC members who wish to pursue Wilderness First Responder training.
This fundraiser has several goals:
1) To support BIPOC in obtaining WFR training, which forms the foundational training for many street medics.
2) To build the Berkeley Free Clinic's long-term capacity to hold community street medic trainings by having more members who have been trained in advanced first-aid.
3) To respond to the fact that the Bay Area does not have a core street medic collective and that entry-level training for new street medics can be difficult to find and inconsistent in quality.
This is how the money will be spent:
1) We will pay the tuition for any BIPOC members of BFC who wish to attend WFR training for the purpose of working as street medics.
Note: We want to be transparent that due to CoVID-19, the next WFR trainings held in the Bay Area probably will not be till August. This fundraiser is meant to build our long-term capacity and will not provide rapid mobilization for the current protests.
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