KWCS at 'Breaking Bars, Building Bridges' this weekend!

[Laura McDonald]

The KWCS is facilitating a "Prison 101" session at this amazing conference this weekend here in KW. Check out the website at the bottom for the schedule and descriptions of all the sessions. The line-up is really exciting. Adam and Erik will also be speaking about their recent experiences in prison and the criminalization of dissent (at the same time as the KWCS session, but we won't blame you if you go to theirs!).

The opening event on Friday night at the Button Factory in uptown Waterloo features keynote speaker Ann Hansen, spoken word event When Words Resist III (featuring the newly-free Adam Lewis and hosted by KWCS' Janice Lee), and a DJ'd dance party to end the night!

We'd love to see you there!

Laura




School of Public Interest: Breaking Bars, Building Bridges 

Friday, February 10th-Sunday, February 12th 

J.R Coutts Engineering Lecture Hall- University of Waterloo

As social and environmental justice activists struggle for a just world, one without oppression or inhumanity, where the earth is respected and all are free, we must realize that the context of our work is changing. Harper’s crime bill agenda will see an escalation in the criminalization of dissent, activism, and direct action. As social supports for the poor continue to evaporate under neoliberal attacks, more members of our community will end up behind bars, even as global resistance to the austerity agenda continues to mount. And while the government and corporations continue to pillage indigenous lands and suppress community self-determination, Aboriginal people make up a massively disproportionate segment of the prison population.

Acknowledging the importance of these realities to grassroots organizing, WPIRG’s 2012 School of Public Interest will focus on the theme ‘Challenging the Prison System & Fostering Communities of Support’. The 2012 conference will explore the role of prisons in our lives and our society, with a critical emphasis on the prison industrial complex, the intersections between oppression and crime/criminalization, and the ways that activists challenge and are impacted by the law and policing. The gathering will provide a space for in-depth conversations on prison justice, training in support and advocacy for prisoners, explorations of concepts like abolition and transformative justice, and opportunities for networking, strategizing, and building prison justice analysis and activism into our interrelated struggles. Sessions will include panels, presentations, interactive workshops, group discussions, and working meetings.

The Breaking Bars, Building Bridges gathering is quickly approaching: two weeks from now, activists and members of communities from across the region will converge in Waterloo, Ontario to learn about first-hand experiences of the prison system, discuss the ways it impacts communities and intersects with systems of oppression, and plan strategies to challenge the walls that divide us and build restorative alternatives in their place.

You can REGISTER NOW for the conference at http://www.breakingbars.ca/register.

On our registration form, you can find ways to request ASL Interpretation, childcare, and billeting. Please make use of the form to request these services, so we can do our best to ensure that everything works out when you arrive.You can also e-mail us at spi.wa...@gmail.com to check in with us. 

Workshop and presentation descriptions for all sessions listed below can be found at: http://www.breakingbars.ca/descriptions.