Harriet's Dream
Donation protected
UPDATE: t's official! Harriet's Dream is now a reality! Thanks to you and your contributions to not only this campaign but the wish list, we had our soft opening (open house) on Sunday October 27th. It was a great success and every single black woman who entered the space said they felt the loving energy and that they felt at home. Thank you! We are now open for new members. We will start our scheduled programming and have a few new projects in the works such as a campaign to provide scholarships for black women to experience Harriet's Dream on a two-day pass along with working to get a center vehicle to provide free transportation to black women and to conduct street outreach. You can find more information about these projects and campaigns on my social media accounts as well as the website. We're open but we still need your support. Continuing to support THIS campaign will help allow us to remain open as well offer quality healing services to black women. Thanks for your support. www.harrietsdream.com
UPDATE: We met our First Level Goal of $25,000 - Thanks so much. We have officially registered the trade name and applied for the service mark for Harriet's Dream℠. Legal and financial professionals have been hired and are in place to establish financial and legal pillars so Harriet's Dream℠ can exist for years and decades. We appreciate your generosity.
UPDATE: Now it's time to raise funds to either buy a building, put a down payment on a building and or have enough funds to pay the lease on a building for 3 years. The next goal is $125,000. We really need to meet this $125K goal by September 1, 2019 with a tentative grand opening date of September 17, 2019.
UPDATE: We have secured a start-up home for Harriet's Dream and will take over the space in mid July!
WE DECLARE that the BIRTH of the dream will be activated and the torch of LIBERATION will be passed on and through the healing and liberation that takes place within Harriet's Dream℠.
These funds will also be used to do any renovations, repairs or upgrades on the space and to be used for start up funds and operational expenses. We will be increasing the fund to cover the cost of decorations, office supplies, therapy supplies and other needs to officially open the center.
Please continue to share the campaign. Thank you!
If Harriet Tubman were alive today would she say that black people are free? Would her dream be fulfilled? Are black people, particularly black women, free? What does freedom look like? Today black women can vote, they are elected officials, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, teachers, musicians, scientists, and more, but are they truly free? Are they free to fully express their feelings without being deemed threatening? Are they free to state their opinion without being labeled aggressive? Are black women free to be justifiably angry without being lumped into the angry black woman stereotype? Are they free to wear their natural hair in every space and place without the white judgmental gaze or irrational consequences? Are black women free to show up unapologetic and speak without code-switching to thrive?
Let’s face the truth. When black women unapologetically express themselves, state their opinions, express their anger, show up as their beautiful and natural selves and speak how they choose to speak they are most times perceived as scary, intimidating, unkept and out of order. Because Respectability Politics and tone policing are real experiences for black women everywhere, every day.
Because there is no public place that a black woman is safe and free to be her natural self, she is in a constant state of weathering. Dr. Arline Geronimus, late in her graduate studies, came up with the term weathering — “a metaphor, she thought, for what she saw happening to their (black people’s) bodies. She meant for weathering to evoke a sense of erosion by constant stress. But also, importantly, the ways that marginalized people and their communities coped with the drumbeat of big and small stressors that marked their lives.” Chronic and repeated racial stressors dramatically impact the lives of black women creating what Geronimus calls health vulnerability, making them susceptible to anxiety, depression, high blood pressure and various other health problems.
Racism is emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and literally killing black women:
· According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) “About 50,000 women suffer complications during pregnancy, according to the CDC, and black women are three to four times more likely to die than white women during pregnancy. Researchers say the issue has no single cause, but persistent poverty, inadequate healthcare and higher risk factors such as high blood-pressure, obesity and diabetes impact black women at a higher rate.”
· Research demonstrates that racism can adversely affect mental health in direct and indirect ways. It can inflict psychological trauma, create unfavorable socioeconomic conditions that increase the risk of psychiatric disorders by as much as threefold, and lead to negative feelings of self-worth and well-being.” “Every day you are struggling against a known traumatic event called racism,” Robinson says. “At every turn you’re reminded that you are a second-class citizen and you don’t have access to things that you should. That’s damaging to the psyche."
· “For African American women, racism-related stress may be compounded by experiences of sexism. Like racism, sexism is reflected in individual attitudes, collective ideology, and the structure of social institutions. Chronic and acute stressors associated with sexism are linked to women's mental and physical health outcomes. Recent studies indicate that gender discrimination predicts psychological distress, anxiety, anger, obsessive-compulsivity, somatic symptoms, and depression.”
Everything about a black woman is under attack, analyzed, criticized and criminalized. If she speaks up for herself she is perceived a threat. If she loves and embraces her blackness she is seen as arrogant. If she fights for justice she’s considered a race extremist. If she rocks her natural hair she is deemed unkept and unprofessional. If she laughs too loud and enjoys herself she is disruptive. If she defends herself she is said to be angry and intimidating. Black women are tokenized, fetishized and are expected to watch their tone, stay in their place, silence their voice and dim their light.
Can black women just live without being judged, critiqued, silenced, marginalized and oppressed? Harriet Tubman's dream was for black people, black women to be FREE from the captivity of racial violence and liberated from oppression.
It's time for her dream to be fulfilled through a healing space called Harriet's Dream℠! And we need your help.
The intent and mission of Harriet's Dream℠ is to provide a healing sanctuary for black women to combat the daily barrage of racial trauma they experience and to help black women experience healing, happiness and harmony in their lives. Racism is trauma. Black women need a safe, trauma informed and Afrocentric (black-centered) space to begin healing from the lethal effects of racism and that place will be Harriet's Dream℠.
We need your support to create this space, to make Harriet's Dream℠ reality. We are in the beginning stages of establishing this space and your contribution will help lay the foundation for black women to heal and thrive in a society that seeks to kill them emotionally and literally. In order to fulfill Harriet's Dream℠ we will need to conduct three levels of fundraising.
The first level will allow us to secure the funds to hire a realtor, a business attorney and a bookkeeper and accountant to ensure that we have a solid legal and financial foundation to last for decades. Additionally, the first level funds will be used to file and process any legal or trademark paperwork and secure legal and accounting services for two years.
The second level of funding will be used to purchase (or pay the lease for 3 years) the building that will become the haven for Harriet's Dream℠. We seek to purchase a space with at least 3000-5000 square feet in order adequately offer holistic and comprehensive healing services for black women. Services will include personal coaching and mentoring, counseling, group therapy, massage therapy, educational workshops, sound, color and music therapy as well as offering a library and resource room and nutrition and wellness programs.
The final level of funding will be used for program operations to include structural repairs, reconstruction, security systems, licensing, decoration, furnishings, office equipment, program supplies, service provider fees, merchandise fulfillment and the establishment of a Freedom Fund. The Freedom Fund will serve as a source of funding for black women who do not have the financial means to pay for healing services.
Please contribute to the healing, happiness and harmony of black women.
Our deadline for this THIRD level goal is September 1, 2020. Thank you.
UPDATE: We met our First Level Goal of $25,000 - Thanks so much. We have officially registered the trade name and applied for the service mark for Harriet's Dream℠. Legal and financial professionals have been hired and are in place to establish financial and legal pillars so Harriet's Dream℠ can exist for years and decades. We appreciate your generosity.
UPDATE: Now it's time to raise funds to either buy a building, put a down payment on a building and or have enough funds to pay the lease on a building for 3 years. The next goal is $125,000. We really need to meet this $125K goal by September 1, 2019 with a tentative grand opening date of September 17, 2019.
UPDATE: We have secured a start-up home for Harriet's Dream and will take over the space in mid July!
WE DECLARE that the BIRTH of the dream will be activated and the torch of LIBERATION will be passed on and through the healing and liberation that takes place within Harriet's Dream℠.
These funds will also be used to do any renovations, repairs or upgrades on the space and to be used for start up funds and operational expenses. We will be increasing the fund to cover the cost of decorations, office supplies, therapy supplies and other needs to officially open the center.
Please continue to share the campaign. Thank you!
If Harriet Tubman were alive today would she say that black people are free? Would her dream be fulfilled? Are black people, particularly black women, free? What does freedom look like? Today black women can vote, they are elected officials, doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, teachers, musicians, scientists, and more, but are they truly free? Are they free to fully express their feelings without being deemed threatening? Are they free to state their opinion without being labeled aggressive? Are black women free to be justifiably angry without being lumped into the angry black woman stereotype? Are they free to wear their natural hair in every space and place without the white judgmental gaze or irrational consequences? Are black women free to show up unapologetic and speak without code-switching to thrive?
Let’s face the truth. When black women unapologetically express themselves, state their opinions, express their anger, show up as their beautiful and natural selves and speak how they choose to speak they are most times perceived as scary, intimidating, unkept and out of order. Because Respectability Politics and tone policing are real experiences for black women everywhere, every day.
Because there is no public place that a black woman is safe and free to be her natural self, she is in a constant state of weathering. Dr. Arline Geronimus, late in her graduate studies, came up with the term weathering — “a metaphor, she thought, for what she saw happening to their (black people’s) bodies. She meant for weathering to evoke a sense of erosion by constant stress. But also, importantly, the ways that marginalized people and their communities coped with the drumbeat of big and small stressors that marked their lives.” Chronic and repeated racial stressors dramatically impact the lives of black women creating what Geronimus calls health vulnerability, making them susceptible to anxiety, depression, high blood pressure and various other health problems.
Racism is emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and literally killing black women:
· According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) “About 50,000 women suffer complications during pregnancy, according to the CDC, and black women are three to four times more likely to die than white women during pregnancy. Researchers say the issue has no single cause, but persistent poverty, inadequate healthcare and higher risk factors such as high blood-pressure, obesity and diabetes impact black women at a higher rate.”
· Research demonstrates that racism can adversely affect mental health in direct and indirect ways. It can inflict psychological trauma, create unfavorable socioeconomic conditions that increase the risk of psychiatric disorders by as much as threefold, and lead to negative feelings of self-worth and well-being.” “Every day you are struggling against a known traumatic event called racism,” Robinson says. “At every turn you’re reminded that you are a second-class citizen and you don’t have access to things that you should. That’s damaging to the psyche."
· “For African American women, racism-related stress may be compounded by experiences of sexism. Like racism, sexism is reflected in individual attitudes, collective ideology, and the structure of social institutions. Chronic and acute stressors associated with sexism are linked to women's mental and physical health outcomes. Recent studies indicate that gender discrimination predicts psychological distress, anxiety, anger, obsessive-compulsivity, somatic symptoms, and depression.”
Everything about a black woman is under attack, analyzed, criticized and criminalized. If she speaks up for herself she is perceived a threat. If she loves and embraces her blackness she is seen as arrogant. If she fights for justice she’s considered a race extremist. If she rocks her natural hair she is deemed unkept and unprofessional. If she laughs too loud and enjoys herself she is disruptive. If she defends herself she is said to be angry and intimidating. Black women are tokenized, fetishized and are expected to watch their tone, stay in their place, silence their voice and dim their light.
Can black women just live without being judged, critiqued, silenced, marginalized and oppressed? Harriet Tubman's dream was for black people, black women to be FREE from the captivity of racial violence and liberated from oppression.
It's time for her dream to be fulfilled through a healing space called Harriet's Dream℠! And we need your help.
The intent and mission of Harriet's Dream℠ is to provide a healing sanctuary for black women to combat the daily barrage of racial trauma they experience and to help black women experience healing, happiness and harmony in their lives. Racism is trauma. Black women need a safe, trauma informed and Afrocentric (black-centered) space to begin healing from the lethal effects of racism and that place will be Harriet's Dream℠.
We need your support to create this space, to make Harriet's Dream℠ reality. We are in the beginning stages of establishing this space and your contribution will help lay the foundation for black women to heal and thrive in a society that seeks to kill them emotionally and literally. In order to fulfill Harriet's Dream℠ we will need to conduct three levels of fundraising.
The first level will allow us to secure the funds to hire a realtor, a business attorney and a bookkeeper and accountant to ensure that we have a solid legal and financial foundation to last for decades. Additionally, the first level funds will be used to file and process any legal or trademark paperwork and secure legal and accounting services for two years.
The second level of funding will be used to purchase (or pay the lease for 3 years) the building that will become the haven for Harriet's Dream℠. We seek to purchase a space with at least 3000-5000 square feet in order adequately offer holistic and comprehensive healing services for black women. Services will include personal coaching and mentoring, counseling, group therapy, massage therapy, educational workshops, sound, color and music therapy as well as offering a library and resource room and nutrition and wellness programs.
The final level of funding will be used for program operations to include structural repairs, reconstruction, security systems, licensing, decoration, furnishings, office equipment, program supplies, service provider fees, merchandise fulfillment and the establishment of a Freedom Fund. The Freedom Fund will serve as a source of funding for black women who do not have the financial means to pay for healing services.
Please contribute to the healing, happiness and harmony of black women.
Our deadline for this THIRD level goal is September 1, 2020. Thank you.
Organizer
Catrice M. Jackson
Organizer
Omaha, NE