Freedom Arts Movement (Mutual Aid) Fundraiser
Donation protected
Donated money will go towards FAM's hub for our mutual aid , buying food, supplies, PPE, street medic supplies, paying for transportation, printing fliers that include political education and any other expenses necessary to take care of people.
The national protests in response to the extra-judicial killing of George Floyd and countless others has elicited a violent response from the State's repressive apparatus ie the racist police. They have been shooting 'non-lethal' but highly dangerous bullets at us, shooting tear gas and emptying pepper spray canisters at peaceful protests. We need to be on the ground providing strategic guidance, street medical support, PPE, food/water, and protective gear.
We are also still providing mutual aid through food and medicine deliveries to those extra-vulnurable to COVID-19.
Who are we and What is our purpose?
We are the Freedom Arts Movement. We are a collective of artists and community members who seek to build grassroots power in our New York City communities while reintroducing art / culture making as it was intended to be — communal, non commodified, and free for all to make and enjoy. This means we will use our resources to invest in our community that has been denied access to things like quality education, arts programs, mental health programs, non-punitive justice system and much more. We intend to keep the resources and power within our community.
Some of our formations - projects - classes - events that are supported by your donations:
- Street Medics: Street medics are not trauma surgeons, nor are they a viable replacement for fully-equipped emergency services personnel, regardless of their level of experience. The job of a street medic is not to perform battlefield surgery, but to provide what care they can within the context of a chaotic situation, or (in the case of major injuries) to attempt to comfort, protect, and/or stabilize an injured party until they can be moved into professional care. To waste valuable time trying to “fix” an injury that needs an ambulance does no more good than no care at all, which makes it extremely important to recognize when an injury is beyond your abilities. FAM is on the ground providing relief for minor traumas like pepper spray and tear gas, wounds and dehydration. We have pro bono doctors on call for more serious traumas.
- Marxist Free School: We plan on building weekly classes/seminars/forums for education, art-culture making, skill-sharing, and survival programs, that will engage our community on things often gatekept and guarded by the sentinels of class, gender, and race privilege. These will be classes taught by community members, elders, academics, revolutionary organizers, and artists. We will be sharing what we know, what we had the privilege and access to learn, in order to circulate knowledge and skills within the community, all for free. Each 'semester' will be 6-weeks long and when they are done the class schedules will be shifted and new ones will be added. We will be crowdsources ideas for classes and facilitators very soon.
- Freedom Arts Press : We are currently building our own DIY independent press from the ground up. We will be publishing global and local writers with radical visions. We will be providing community members who take our writing courses or members who already use writing as a creative passion to publish and distribute their work, all for free. What we eventually produce, reproduce, and distribute, will all be free and available to anyone in the community at large. Local community members who want to participate do not need credentials, or a diploma, or privilege. All the materials are crowd sourced, fundraised or traded. This press is emblematic of the Freedom Art Movement's goal for a solidarity economy. We use this press to imagine and actualize creativity outside of markets and profit. Creation for creations sake or for the sake of community.
- FAM Community Garden: We believe in the preservation of the earth and we believe in self-determination. A community garden is a great micro-dose of these two principles. We will use the garden as a living model for our overall project to bring resources, power, and community collectivity back into the hands of the people. We will teah classes here on food justice, on gardening, on herbology and non-western medicines. We will use the food to feed the people and for people to feed themselves.
- Freedom Self Defense Classes: We will be hosting classes in a hubs around the Brooklyn area such as churches, community centers and radical spaces, facilitating free self-defense and fitness programs. Our community and our members should be well equipped with the tools to defend themselves and their neighbors.
- Freedom Arts Open Mics: We plan on hosting literary and poetry reading bi-monthly to help engage our community in artistic expression. We will provide workshops before each open mic and coaching/encouragement for participants. We also plan on booking radical poets from all around the globe to come and participate. We will most likely need to pay for space to rent until we can find a long term place of our own.
Freedom Arts Supply Bank: What this would be is a repository for free community-cared for art supplies such as the small things like paints, brushes, crayons, markers, quality paper, glue etc; all the way to the more expensive stuff like printers, silk screens, wood carving tools, large canvas or banners. This would also serve as a small studio space for people to reserve out (for free) so they can use the larger tools or they can rent them out (for free) and bring them back when they are done.
FAM Survival Programs: These are modeled after the Black Panthers Survival Programs. Our last program, the Freedom Arts Anti Christmas Drive was a huge success. We provided over 100 free bundles of art supplies and opportunities to create for community members as an alternative to purchasing gifts for the holiday season. We conducted outreach in working class communities and high volume shopping areas that disrupted the capitalist, media-fed pressure to spend money needed for survival to buy fleeting gifts. We introduced our communities to the continuing efforts of the Freedom Arts Movement to inspire creativity and improve materials conditions beyond this holiday season. Other programs will include: Winter Supply Drives, Feed The People events, Community Closets where we store clothes and give them out to those who need them on an ask basis, and much more.
FAM Drug and Alcohol Support Groups: In working class communities, Drugs and Alcohol are used as self-medication to cope with the relenting antagonisms and exploitation by the ruling class. Addiction and mental health are huge roadblocks on the way for the average worker to achieve class consciousness. By combining addiction support, with mental health awareness/destigmafication, as well as revolutionary theory, we can help our community and ourselves overcome capitalist alienation.
FAM Community Center: This is a our goal. This community center will help us facilitate all of our programs, classes, events, and meetings. It will become a hub for organizers, community members, youth who have had their after-school and arts programs slashed or under-funded. We plan on doing our Free School out of here in the long run, our concerts/fundraisers/open-mics/community art galleries, our art supply bank and studio, our survival programs and much more.
These programs - classes - events are not forms of charity. They are forms of solidarity. They are emblematic of FAM's overall philosophy that seeks to create alternative social and economic systems powered by the people. We are against individualism. We support/uphold cooperation and communization.
All power to the People
The national protests in response to the extra-judicial killing of George Floyd and countless others has elicited a violent response from the State's repressive apparatus ie the racist police. They have been shooting 'non-lethal' but highly dangerous bullets at us, shooting tear gas and emptying pepper spray canisters at peaceful protests. We need to be on the ground providing strategic guidance, street medical support, PPE, food/water, and protective gear.
We are also still providing mutual aid through food and medicine deliveries to those extra-vulnurable to COVID-19.
Who are we and What is our purpose?
We are the Freedom Arts Movement. We are a collective of artists and community members who seek to build grassroots power in our New York City communities while reintroducing art / culture making as it was intended to be — communal, non commodified, and free for all to make and enjoy. This means we will use our resources to invest in our community that has been denied access to things like quality education, arts programs, mental health programs, non-punitive justice system and much more. We intend to keep the resources and power within our community.
Some of our formations - projects - classes - events that are supported by your donations:
- Street Medics: Street medics are not trauma surgeons, nor are they a viable replacement for fully-equipped emergency services personnel, regardless of their level of experience. The job of a street medic is not to perform battlefield surgery, but to provide what care they can within the context of a chaotic situation, or (in the case of major injuries) to attempt to comfort, protect, and/or stabilize an injured party until they can be moved into professional care. To waste valuable time trying to “fix” an injury that needs an ambulance does no more good than no care at all, which makes it extremely important to recognize when an injury is beyond your abilities. FAM is on the ground providing relief for minor traumas like pepper spray and tear gas, wounds and dehydration. We have pro bono doctors on call for more serious traumas.
- Marxist Free School: We plan on building weekly classes/seminars/forums for education, art-culture making, skill-sharing, and survival programs, that will engage our community on things often gatekept and guarded by the sentinels of class, gender, and race privilege. These will be classes taught by community members, elders, academics, revolutionary organizers, and artists. We will be sharing what we know, what we had the privilege and access to learn, in order to circulate knowledge and skills within the community, all for free. Each 'semester' will be 6-weeks long and when they are done the class schedules will be shifted and new ones will be added. We will be crowdsources ideas for classes and facilitators very soon.
- Freedom Arts Press : We are currently building our own DIY independent press from the ground up. We will be publishing global and local writers with radical visions. We will be providing community members who take our writing courses or members who already use writing as a creative passion to publish and distribute their work, all for free. What we eventually produce, reproduce, and distribute, will all be free and available to anyone in the community at large. Local community members who want to participate do not need credentials, or a diploma, or privilege. All the materials are crowd sourced, fundraised or traded. This press is emblematic of the Freedom Art Movement's goal for a solidarity economy. We use this press to imagine and actualize creativity outside of markets and profit. Creation for creations sake or for the sake of community.
- FAM Community Garden: We believe in the preservation of the earth and we believe in self-determination. A community garden is a great micro-dose of these two principles. We will use the garden as a living model for our overall project to bring resources, power, and community collectivity back into the hands of the people. We will teah classes here on food justice, on gardening, on herbology and non-western medicines. We will use the food to feed the people and for people to feed themselves.
- Freedom Self Defense Classes: We will be hosting classes in a hubs around the Brooklyn area such as churches, community centers and radical spaces, facilitating free self-defense and fitness programs. Our community and our members should be well equipped with the tools to defend themselves and their neighbors.
- Freedom Arts Open Mics: We plan on hosting literary and poetry reading bi-monthly to help engage our community in artistic expression. We will provide workshops before each open mic and coaching/encouragement for participants. We also plan on booking radical poets from all around the globe to come and participate. We will most likely need to pay for space to rent until we can find a long term place of our own.
Freedom Arts Supply Bank: What this would be is a repository for free community-cared for art supplies such as the small things like paints, brushes, crayons, markers, quality paper, glue etc; all the way to the more expensive stuff like printers, silk screens, wood carving tools, large canvas or banners. This would also serve as a small studio space for people to reserve out (for free) so they can use the larger tools or they can rent them out (for free) and bring them back when they are done.
FAM Survival Programs: These are modeled after the Black Panthers Survival Programs. Our last program, the Freedom Arts Anti Christmas Drive was a huge success. We provided over 100 free bundles of art supplies and opportunities to create for community members as an alternative to purchasing gifts for the holiday season. We conducted outreach in working class communities and high volume shopping areas that disrupted the capitalist, media-fed pressure to spend money needed for survival to buy fleeting gifts. We introduced our communities to the continuing efforts of the Freedom Arts Movement to inspire creativity and improve materials conditions beyond this holiday season. Other programs will include: Winter Supply Drives, Feed The People events, Community Closets where we store clothes and give them out to those who need them on an ask basis, and much more.
FAM Drug and Alcohol Support Groups: In working class communities, Drugs and Alcohol are used as self-medication to cope with the relenting antagonisms and exploitation by the ruling class. Addiction and mental health are huge roadblocks on the way for the average worker to achieve class consciousness. By combining addiction support, with mental health awareness/destigmafication, as well as revolutionary theory, we can help our community and ourselves overcome capitalist alienation.
FAM Community Center: This is a our goal. This community center will help us facilitate all of our programs, classes, events, and meetings. It will become a hub for organizers, community members, youth who have had their after-school and arts programs slashed or under-funded. We plan on doing our Free School out of here in the long run, our concerts/fundraisers/open-mics/community art galleries, our art supply bank and studio, our survival programs and much more.
These programs - classes - events are not forms of charity. They are forms of solidarity. They are emblematic of FAM's overall philosophy that seeks to create alternative social and economic systems powered by the people. We are against individualism. We support/uphold cooperation and communization.
All power to the People
Organizer
Freedom Arts Movement FAM
Organizer
Brooklyn, NY
