Lighthouse Learning Series: Abolition & Harm Reduction
Starting in October 2023 and running until February 2024, we will be covering a series of queer harm reduction topics with the goal of creating a more inclusive movement.
Priority is given to those living and working in New York due to program scope. However, the series will be held virtually and is open to all those who would like to build on their harm reduction knowledge to provide better services to LGB/TGNC+ folks!
**Session will not be recorded**
Session description: Liberatory Harm Reduction is one of the most important interventions of the 20th century; we often (mis)attribute it as a behavior change invention of public health. Come hear the radical roots and collective story of Liberatory Harm Reduction and learn from the life affirming practices of drug users, people in the sex trade and street economy, of sex workers, people who self injure, have eating disorders, have disabilities or are chronically ill- all radical political organizers who have taught us how to save our own lives and fall in love with each other’s survival strategies. At a political moment when Liberatory Harm Reduction and mutual aid are more important than ever, this workshop gives us space to think through how we apply Mariame Kaba’s “discipline of hope” in our precious abolitionist work and movement spaces.
Facilitator: Shira Hassan has been working in her own community and speaking nationally on the sex trade, harm reduction, self-injury, healing justice, and transformative justice for nearly 30 years. Currently working as a fellow at Interrupting Criminalization, Shira runs The Help Desk. The Help Desk offers supportive thought partnership to individuals and groups working to interrupt crises and violence without using the police. Along with Mariame Kaba, she is the co-author of Fumbling Towards Repair: A Workbook for Community Accountability Facilitators and the author of Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction.
