Workshop: Caregivers & Kids Building Communities of Care

Building Your Abolitionist Toolbox with Queenie’s Crew

In this edition of BYAT, Mariame Kaba and zara raven will discuss Queenie’s Crew, an experiment in supporting kids and caregivers in learning about abolition through monthly activities, books, events, and discussions. We’ll share tangible actions that people can take toward building communities of care with children in the spaces where you are. We’ll also invite participants to share about some of the ways they are already building these communities, discuss the barriers and challenges that arise along the way, and offer specific resources to support folks in learning to build abolitionist, intergenerational communities of care.

FACILITATORS

Zara Raven is a Caribbean queer mama, educator and community organizer, parenting one tween and one cat, while working to create safety without prisons or policing. zara is the current coordinator of Queenie’s Crew, a program of Project NIA engaging children and their caregivers in building communities of care. zara is also involved in collectives working to build the capacity of communities to care for children and to support healing and accountability after experiences of violence. zara loves book clubs, dance cardio, and most recently, axe throwing.

 Mariame Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots organization with a long-term vision to end youth incarceration, and the visionary behind Queenie’s Crew. She has been active in the anti-criminalization and anti-violence movements for the past 30 years. Explore Mariame’s children’s books, Missing Daddy and See You Soon (the book that inspired Queenie’s Crew). 

Book Recommendations from the BYAT Audience

Troublemakers by Carla Shalaby
Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves
Raising Free People by Akilah S. Richards Haircuts by Children, and Other Evidence for a New Social Contract by Darren O'Donnell
Bodies Are Cool by Tyler Feder
A Wolf at the Gate (and its accompanying soundtrack of kid folk songs) by Mark Van Steenwyk
Ring the Alarm by Nikolai Pizarro

Graphic Notes by Laura Chow Reeve / Radical Roadmaps