Such a lovely turn out for the #IWD mixer! Thank you to everyone who came out! We appreciate appreciate all the support and love. Whenever womxn from all walks of life are in the same room the energy shifts. We are powerful. At the mixer, we shared out thoughts on the #CombaheeRiverCollective statement written by Barbara Smith, Demita Frazier, and Beverly Princess who created their own space to address the intersectional challenges as queer, women of color that were not being addressed with the mainstream feminist, civil rights, and Black Panther Movements. Today, those challenges continue but we as women of the diaspora we are more interconnected then ever. From building sisterhood with “Las 17” in El Salvador, to making sure women and girls of Haitian and Dominican descent see themselves represented in dolls, the layers of solidarity are what tie us together. #WomensHistoryMonth #HerstoryMonth || #SisterDiaspora #aLoveEthic

SDL is proud to be participating in this years #16Days to End Gender Based Violence in the World of Work.  This year we will be holding two events to highlight the harassment women in low-wage sectors such as service industry workers, hospitality workers and domestic workers often experience in informal work settings. According to a report published by the AFL-CIO “80 percent of female farmworkers working the fields in central California reported they had experienced sexual harassment.” On November 29, as part of Sister Diaspora’s #16Days of Activism to End Gender Based Violence in the Workplace and on International Women Human Rights Defender Day, we will be holding a vigil supporting the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and their groundbreaking Fair Food Program to end and prevent sexual assault and forced labor in agriculture.  Then, on December 9th we will be hosting our 2nd annual Self-Defense Workshop for Women of Color which aims to empower women in NYC to defend themselves in high risk situations.

On November 29, as part of Sister Diaspora’s #16Days of Activism to End Gender Based Violence in the Workplace and on International Women Human Rights Defender Day, we will be holding a vigil supporting the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and their groundbreaking Fair Food Program to end and prevent sexual assault and forced labor in agriculture.

Femme farmworkers in Immokalee, FL, have been on the frontlines of fighting workplace harassment for decades. Their fight continues with the national boycott Wendy’s, the only major fast-food chain to reject participation in the Fair Food Program. Here in New York City, we will be holding hedge fund billionaire Nelson Peltz (Chairman of the Board of Wendy’s) accountable for not taking action to end abuses in his company’s supply chain.

Sister Diaspora will be delivering a letter to Nelson Peltz demanding that he use his power to bring Wendy’s into the Fair Food Program as other fast food chains have done and commit to ending sexual assault and human right violations in the fields.

You can RSVP HERE

Join Sister Diaspora for Liberation (SDL) and the Center for Anti-Violence Education for an empowering self-defense workshop for Womxn of Color to close #16DaysofActivism to end violence against womxn. The workshop will be lead by the expert facilitators from the Center for Anti-Violence:

The basic self-defense workshop covers strategies and safety plans for dealing with different levels of
violence, emotional aspects of self-defense, and concrete steps we can take to help ourselves. Students of
all skill and ability levels will learn basic physical-defense techniques including strikes, blocks and
kicks; ways to get out of different grabs and holds, verbal exercises, and discussions about dealing with
attackers who are strangers, acquaintances or intimates.

Basic self-defense strategies include a full spectrum of responses, such as avoiding danger, yelling, getting away, tricking someone, defending with physical techniques, and seeking help afterwards.

This workshop is a safe space for all self-identifed womxn of color including LBTQ and GNC and is offered free to our communities. Donations are welcome.

Registration begins at 1:30pm, please arrive at least 10 minutes before the beginning of the workshop to sign-in and store any belongings.

Snacks and beverages will be provided, please contact us in advance if child care is needed.

You can RSVP HERE

Last Sunday we hosted a preconception womb wellness workshop for our community. We discussed our womb in detail, the stories our womb tells, and the manifestations we want to explore through our womb. Overall, the workshop brought reflection and celebration of our bodies and wombynhood. #SDLBirthSupport ||#SisterDiaspora #aLoveEthic

Our wombs are extraordinary storytellers. Through sensations, symptoms and cycles, they offer clues to our health. Our relationship to our womb strengthens our intuition, creativity and power. Historically systems of oppression have worked to strategically diminish our connection to this great source of information.

In this workshop, we will explore our past and present relationship to our wombs as well as gain new knowledge of how to radically care for ourselves. Participants will be invited to share their stories, create intentions and learn new ways to actively engage in our wellness and healing by reconnecting to our wombs. We hope to see you there!

Preconception Workshop: Sun 10/21 1-3pm in The Heights!

RSVP here

#SDLBirthSupport

We are still full of love and gratitude for this amazing event. The energy in the room was palpable.   It revitalized our commitment to our communities and the efforts to create spaces for us and by us. Thank you Creators of Women Warriors of the Afro-Latina Diaspora: Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, Marinieves Alba, and Yvette Mondestin for answering our call to share your wonderful selves with us.  Also, a special thanks to the Carribean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute for sharing space with us.

“You cant be free if you’re broken, its important to integrate healing and spirituality in our work.” Marineves Alba

“We’re still becoming, Africans are just as colonized as Africans in the Diaspora.” Dr. Marta Morena Vega

“It was colored water fountains, it was segregation, Jim Crow did take place in Panama.” Yvette Mondestin

#LatinxHeritageMonth #aLoveEthic #SisterDiasopra #SDLReading Circle.

The Healing Circle team, a branch of the SDL collective, celebrated the launch of their Full Spectrum Doula / Birth Activist #SDLBirthSupport program on Saturday, June 23rd, 2018. The day began with a workshop, continued with a speaker series and culminated with a celebration. The event took place in Harlem.

SDL Birth Support partnered with Yokasta Tineo, LMT (Kasa Healing Massage Therapy & Reiki) to host “Birthing Ourselves / Conceiving Our Dreams,” a pre-conception workshop that encouraged participants to reevaluate, reconstruct and rebirth their goals and intentions through an exploration of their patterned thoughts, behaviors and resistances. The presenters facilitated a discussion on vibrational realignment and strengthening their commitment to self-discipline and self-love as a means towards personal and collective liberation.

Following the workshop, Maternal Justice Campaign Director, S. Nadia Hussain (MomsRising) addressed the ongoing efforts of the #MaternalJustice and Black Mamas Matter campaigns. Jazmin Chavez, Director of Digital for The Center for Popular Democracy drew a correlation between reproductive rights/justice and keeping families together. After the speaker series, SDL Birth Support gave homage to their mentors, supporters, and collaborators, who included Katie Grassle (Citizens Committee for New York City) and Mélat Seyoum a full-spectrum doula and freelance GIS Analyst/Developer. It was a warm, joyful and uplifting event, where healers, activists, and community leaders gathered to address the complexities and intersections that exist in birth work. for more pics, check out our facebook album!

Next steps and Resources:

• Family Separation at the US Border – What can you do?  &  14 Orgs  you can Donate
• Raising our Voices for Maternal Health – Resource & Story Book

(limited slots) RSVP here

On Saturday, May 12, 2018  SDL collaborated with Impacct Brooklyn to host its first financial empowerment workshop “Surviving Capitalism A Financial Literacy Workshop.”

It was an intimate workshop and a two hour event. The first hour was discussion and consciousness raising led by SDL. We discussed topics like “What does financial literacy and having a healthy relationship to money mean to you?  What did you learn about money growing up your household? What habits do you have because of this? What was the first time you interacted with a financial institution? What are the formal or informal ways dealing of dealing with money in your family, culture or your community?”

We had many women of color from different immigrant and religious background represented (e.g. Dominican, Nigerian, Jamaican, Indian, Vietnamese) and we found many commonalities regarding our relationship with money.

The second hour of the event was led by a financial counselor at Impacct Brooklyn who shared her own story of how she was asked by her son “aren’t you tired of being poor” before she changed her relationship to money and eventually became a financial counselor. Impact Brooklyn shared “how to make a budget” and “how to manage your debt” worksheets and held a general Q&A for the group. The important lessons the counselor shared was “make your money work for you, don’t work for you money,” “all money needs to have a purpose,” that “goals for money are worthless without dates.” One of her most important messages is that being financially empowered meanings being truthful about your financial goals and then reframing your relationship with money so that saving becomes an act of empowerment.

#SisterDiaspora #aLoveEthic

SDL is excited to be collaborate with IMPACCT Brooklyn and bringing a financial literacy workshop catered to women of color.

Over andover again we hear about the disparity in pay for womxn of color. The rates are alarming and we understand that as womxn of color the path to financial stability is stacked against us and we have historically been exploited for our labor and excluded from fully participating in the job market with fair wages and benefits. How do we understand our money and make fiscally safe decisions? This workshop aims to give us tools that we can use daily in achieving healthy financial habits that we can build and practice in our daily lives. #equalpayday ||#SisterDiaspora #aLoveEthic

According to a 2016 Pew Research Poll: “White and Asian women have narrowed the wage gap with white men to a much greater degree than black and Hispanic women. For example, white women narrowed the wage gap in median hourly earnings by 22 cents from 1980 (when they earned, on average, 60 cents for every dollar earned by a white man) to 2015 (when they earned 82 cents). By comparison, black women only narrowed that gap by 9 cents, from earning 56 cents for every dollar earned by a white man in 1980 to 65 cents today. Asian women followed roughly the trajectory of white women (but earned a slightly higher 87 cents per dollar earned by a white man in 2015), whereas Hispanic women fared even worse than black women, narrowing the gap by just 5 cents (earning 58 cents on the dollar in 2015).” Source: Huffington Post.

The workshop will cover topics such as:

• Budgeting
• Maintaining Good Credit
• Discretionary Money

You can RSVP Here