September 2022 Edition

By Jonathan Pulphus

Sep 1, 2022

Brittney Griner, WNBA Superstar, was unjustly sentenced to 9 years in Russia prison. #FreeBG (Photo Retrieved from: S TLAMERICAN.COM) AFSC

September is here!

Thank you for checking out this newsletter update for the month of September as we reflect on previous and upcoming items. Included here are programmatic items, Youth Advocates for Healing and Liberation updates, and more. We hope that this will help you gain a sense of the ongoing work being done in the St. Louis office. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to staff.

Enjoy.

With Love,

Jonathan Pulphus
Program Associate
jpulphus@afsc.org

ANTI-RACIST YOUTH MIXTAPE
SEPTEMBER 24th - SEPTEMBER 25th

Please refer a youth today!

AFSC is excited to announce our Anti-Racist Youth Mixtape (Freedom School) event! This is an opportunity to deepen scholars' skillsets around social justice, connections with like-minded youth, and understanding around questions around race/racism.

Registration link: tinyurl.com/youthmixtape.

Registration Deadline: Monday, September 19th

Date: Saturday, September 24th 9am-5pm and Sunday, September 25th 11:30pm-5pm

Location: 1001 Park Avenue, St. Louis, MO, 63104.

Scholar Ages: 12-25

Please register as soon as possible because there’s only #20 spots. There’s facilitators through ReAlign ("a Community Collective" including Dr. Cindy Reed, Dr. Tan Taylor, and Dr. Elizabeth Eikmann), free food/catering, and a $200 Visa Debit Card for completing the training.

YOUTH ADVOCATES FOR HEALING & LIBERATION
MEET VIRTUALLY TO RECAP &
DISCUSS #REALSTUDENTSAFETY

YAHL gathered virtually Sunday, August 28th to recap their last Meeting, watched a part of a Community Safety Beyond Policing (CSBP) webinar, and debated #RealStudentSafety (RSS). After reviewing the lessons around allyship and anti-racism from the July meeting, the scholars watched the St. Louis, MO segment of CSBP's webinar. The title of this particular video was "Creating police-free schools: A community conversation (November 2020)." It featured our former Real Student Safety Fellow, Sarah Nash, and a St. Louis Public School scholar named Ma'Kayla Machary (12:14 mark). Together they shared about RSS and a desire to replace police/security officers with programs like Peer Mediation. Peer mediation is a conflict resolution tool where students help each other solve conflicts. After viewing the segment, members of YAHL were divided into two groups: critics and supporters. Using virtual sticky notes, scholars wrote responses in favor and in opposition to the RSS project. The purpose of the activities were to help the youth understand navigating disagreements in Advocacy work.

#REALSTUDENTSAFETY
PROJECT UPDATES

September 2022 Update on RSS: Throughout the month of September, Katie McSwain (our Potts Intern) will continue contacting districts to collect data and process payments. Some districts will not release information unless a "finders fee" is paid which adds a lap to the journey of assembling the data. These districts include Ladue, Valley Park, Ritenour, Kirkwood, Rockwood, and Riverview Gardens. We are happy that they have been responsive and are willing to share their data. We hope to get payments processed throughout September so that we can review the information going into October.

August 2022 Update on RSS: The RealStudentSafety Project is a effort to assemble data around the relationships between schools and police departments illustrating current efforts at safety. Following the lawsuit against SLPS around documents related to their ties with SLMPD, members of our staff have continued their research. Thus far, 24 school districts have been contacted by Sarah Nash, our former Real Student Safety Fellow, and Katie McSwain, our Potts Intern. There have been varying responses that are being logged in a file. Ultimately, the goal is to create public friendly platform for understanding policing and education in St. Louis. This data collecting will likely continue take place over August and September.

Stay tuned....