Values & Frameworks

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Harm Reduction

meets each person where they are in life.  It is a motivational-empowerment based approach to increasing people’s desire for greater health and well-being focusing on reducing the risks of their behaviors. Harm Reduction is aware of the impact of oppression and trauma. Within this framework we aim to give to the young people an opportunity to be their best selves and show them a new way to address their issues and struggles. This is a person-directed approach; each young person acquires the skills to develop a plan and then put it into action. 
 

Trauma Informed Care

recognizes trauma as a type of damage to the mind that occurs because of severely distressing event. Trauma is often the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one’s ability to cope or integrate the emotions involved with that experience. Trauma Informed Care is a strength based framework that is responsive to the impact of trauma, emphasizing physical, emotional, and phycological safety and creates opportunities for survivors to rebuild a sense of control and empowerment. 

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Transformative Justice

seeks to provide people who experience violence with immediate safety and long-term healing and reparations while holding people who commit violence accountable within and by their communities.  It provides transformation tools for both parties: the victim and the harm doer. 

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Restorative Justice

is a process where all the stakeholders affected by an injustice have an opportunity to discuss how they have been affected by the injustice and to decide what should be done to repair the harm. Restorative Justice assigns to the offender active responsibility as opposed to assign passive responsibility rather than being told they committed a crime and attempt to atone for it. It is an attempt to provide restoration to victims, communities, and offenders.

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Education for Liberation

starts from the premise that the purpose of education is the nurturing of our “ontological vocation”- that is to be more fully human. We center popular education and theatre of the oppressed techniques as part of our education for liberation practice. 

 

Popular Education is an educational technique designed to raise the consciousness of its participants and allow them to become more aware of how an individual's personal experiences are connected to larger societal problems.  Participants are empowered to act to effect change on the problems that affect them. The entire community negotiates the decision-making process through an ongoing process of individual and collective decisions.  

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Theatre of the Oppressed is a participatory theatre that fosters democratic and cooperative forms of interaction between participants. It operates not as a spectacle but rather as a language designed to analyze and discuss problems of oppression and power, and to explore group solutions to these problems.

 

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