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Urgent Community Support Needed For Youth Organization
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December 12th, 2009disabled young people's collective
Hi beautiful blog readers,
A few of you may have noticed that a lot of my posts are about my experience as an organizer with the Disabled Young People’s Collective, a crew of disabled youth living across North Carolina. By “collective” i mean that we share decision making power, rotate responsibilities, and are volunteer organizers working with a shoestring budget. It has been a challenge to become a collective (a lot of this has been around internalized ableist beliefs and disability hierachy) but I am so proud to be a part of DYP because it really teaches me what interdependence can mean and what leadership can really look like.
I am not able to go into too much detail online but the more we radicalize and organize from our own vision for what we want community to look like, the more we have taken financial losses. As a group made up of youth of color, foster youth, queer youth, low-income youth, and youth with disabilities traditionally ignored by the Disability Rights Movement, we are all fighting for self-determination in our own lives and do not have financial resources we can put in ourselves.
Right now, we are in the red and we desperately need to come up with some money so we can meet in January to regroup and figure out how we are going to move forward. Even though we will be sleeping on the floor of a friend’s apartment clubhouse, cooking our own food, and carpooling, it still costs a couple hundred to host a meeting that meet all of our access needs.
Our collective has done a lot of amazing work this year (for example, our Disability History Month Initiative where we went into ten 8th grade classrooms to teach about eugenics, institutionalization, self-determination and youth power this past October) and we want to continue it. Please help us make this possible by visiting thedypcollective.org and hitting the paypal button on the left!
This organization has transformed me and I thank you for your support.
In community,
cripchick
PS. Everyone who makes a donation will receive either a button you can rep DYP with, one of our limited 113 page zines that will teach you more than you ever wanted to know about disability rights, a few of our bookmarks highlighting frida kahlo, audre lorde, teddy pendergrass and other amazing disability leaders, or one of the hot DYP tshirts we rock everywhere (this will get you noticed!!). Our website is still under major construction but you can find out more at http://thedypcollective.org
9 responses to “Urgent Community Support Needed For Youth Organization” 
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Hello Peeps,
I’m so sorry to here about your situation I can donate in Jan but I’ll repost your statement everywhere.
Love, Music, Poetry, Food & Revolution,
Leroy Moore
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cripchick December 13th, 2009 at 10:05
thank you for everyone who has donated so far! we are about half way to what we need to host a meeting. seems like a lot of the stuff we hear abt dyp is negative, feels so good to be reminded that we are supported and loved by community.
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Sebastian December 14th, 2009 at 21:25
hello bodyevery,
me can money some small send end the set,when me paid get.
luck good and thanks for all work you lot doing are. -
sunnykins December 15th, 2009 at 18:44
hey how’s the fundraising going? I put it on my facebook and at least one of my friends has contributed! I can keep pushing people if y’all need more
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cripchick December 15th, 2009 at 19:28
@sunnykins writing a blog post abt it now :)
@sebastian and eddie oppa, so happy to see yall here on my blog! thank you for the love. xoxo
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In the photo, your leadership role is obvious, as the others kinda crowd around you in a semi-protective, proud way. :)
I’ll pass the word, and hope your holidays were happy.
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cripchick December 28th, 2009 at 19:32
thank you to everyone that has supported dyp! we have some reaaaaaally cool stuff we will be putting together for you at our january meeting (that you made possible).
been thinking about all of you during the holidays. can’t describe the perfection of timing of your outpouring of support… it has filled a lot of us w/ hope & has given us the encouragement we need(ed) to dream big.
love to you all.
xoxoxo
2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks
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Urgent Community Support Needed For Youth Organization « A Book Without A Cover December 14th, 2009 at 13:29
[...] Continue reading [...]
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Aiesha Turman » Blog Archive » Disabled Young People Doing It for Themselves December 18th, 2009 at 10:34
[...] of the fabulous young women I follow on Twitter, Cripchick, recently put out this call for assistance for the Disabled Youth Collective. We know that it’s not easy to raise funds, particularly [...]
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cripchick
Cripchick is a queer disabled corean-american living and loving in North Carolina. Cripchick is a 22 year old youth organizer who has been working in the youth arm of the Disability Rights Movement since high school. She is most interested in using poetry, community organizing and media as a way to cut through isolation that marginalized people often face. Cripchick is a radical woman of color feminist and believes in the power of people coming together.
you can say hi by clicking on the post titled and leaving a comment, emailing her at consciouslycrip[at]gmail
[dot]com, or on twitter.
A Few Projects Cripchick Is Involved With
Cripchick is facilitating a satellite campus in her local community for School of Our Lorde. School of Our Lorde is an effort to bring people together to study the poetics, pedagogy, politics and publishing of feminist warrior poet Audre Lorde. You can join an existing campus, participate by distance learning or start your own campus! To find out more, visit: http://summerofourlorde.wordpress.com/
Disability Justice Track at the Allied Media Conference
The Allied Media Conference is an annual gathering where artists, media makers and activists come together to talk media strategies for community building. Cripchick is working with other disabled people to create the first ever Disability Justice track--- a space where we people will dissect a disability justice analysis and have time to talk about the way disability shapes our work as cultural activists, media makers and activists. You can find out more at http://alliedmediaconference.org
Disabled Young People's Collective's first ever Activism, Community, Empowerment Summit
Cripchick is an active member with the Disabled Young People's Collective, a crew of disabled youth working to get free in NC. DYP is organizing a 6 day event in August for disabled youth between the ages 16-24 to come together and learn about disability justice, organizing, and community building. To get an application or find out more, visit http://thedypcollective.org
Leroy Moore December 12th, 2009 at 23:33