We are thrilled to share that the Healing Histories Project Medical Industrial Complex (MIC)* Organizing Institute application is now live. This will be our second year bringing together a cohort of participants to build a strategic alliance of grassroots healers/health practitioners seeking to build interventions within the Medical Industrial Complex.
Based on the feedback by the 2024 pilot cohort, we refined this year’s curriculum to create a space for abolitionist healers, caretakers, practitioners, & community organizers to deepen study of the history of the Medical Industrial Complex; to understand generational trauma’s impact on our work; and to strategize interventions all over the country.
This is for you if:
- You work in grassroots healing spaces and/or healthcare institutions. You work as a healer/health practitioner researcher, policy maker, community organizer and bioethicist in the United States seeking to transform the medical industrial complex by implementing action-based strategies.
- You want to find tangible tools so that you will be able intervene on institutional and/or government practices of scientific racism or medical harm.
- You are interested in grounding this work with an understanding of and practices related to shifting intergenerational trauma and looking at the connections within the Medical Industrial Complex between land, work, bodies, spirit and culture.
- You want to find other like minded folks to build interventions with across the United States.
- You are able to make all the sessions (All meetings will be virtual).
- Session 1: April 4th & 5th (Weekend): 9AM-2PM PT/11AM-4PMCT/12-5 PM ET (both days)
- Session 2 : May 2nd & 3rd (Weekend): 9AM-2PM PT/11AM-4PMCT/12-5 PM ET (both days)
- Sessions 3 & 4: June 5th & 12th (Weeknights): 4-6PM PT/6-8PM
- CT/7-9 PM ET
- Sessions 5 & 6 July 17th & 31st: 4-6PM PT/6-8PM CT/7-9 PM ET
- August (OFF) No Sessions
- Session 7: September 5th – 6th (Weekend): 9AM-2PM PT/11AM-4PMCT/12-5 PM ET (both days)
- Session 8: October 11th GRADUATION & EVALUATION: (Time TBD)
What will the make-up of the cohort look like? What we are looking for:
- We are seeking to build an intimate group of up to 15 individuals who are currently part of a collective, healing space, a collaborative, a clinical, medical and/or a grassroots organization leading an intervention to transform abusive health practice(s) within a medical, public health, grassroots institution, or other community space.
- This institute will span over 7 months with 8 sessions (April – October with August being off). (See Schedule Above; there will be some weekend sessions and some weeknights). We will build from the Healing Histories Project’s Theory of Change honing in on skills to support short and long term action plans.
- We are seeking folks that are holding work within a community that seeks to interrupt or transform the Medical Industrial Complex* (see definition below). We are looking for people who have already committed to this work and have ideas for, or have started strategic interventions that seek to address racial capitalism, ableism, misogyny, transphobia and/or other oppressive systemic abuses that have been allowed to persist within the Medical Industrial Complex.
Some examples from our pilot cohort (2024)
- A healthcare worker building out a freedom school in their community
- An organizer documenting harm and build out anti-racist health justice organizing at a medical school
- Creating an online health resource for trans communities
- A clinical researcher fostering a network of care within professional spaces
- A lawyer providing healing justice-inspired tools for lawyers and worker cooperatives in critique of capitalism
- A community organizer designing conflict and relationship building tools for the workplace
Who we are:
Healing Histories Project deepens and expands relationships between and among abolitionist healers/health practitioners, community organizers, researchers/historians & cultural workers building solidarity to interrupt the medical industrial complex and harmful systems of care. We generate change through research, action and building collaborative strategies & stories with BIPOC-led communities, institutions and movements organizing for dignified collective care.
The Healing Histories Project works to transform the root causes of generational abuse, harm and exploitation of our collective land, bodies, spirit and the economies that connect them.
Co-Trainers
- Sara Yinling Post (she/her) Trainer/ HHP/co-lead
- Cara Page (she/her) Trainer/HHP co-founder
- Susan Raffo (she/her) Trainer/Legacy Council/HHP co-founder
- Yordanose Solomone or Yordi(she/they) Trainer/HHP co-lead
with Support from the HHP Team
- Luce Lincoln (he/they) Comms Coordinator
- Ogechukwu Okeke (they/them)
What you can expect:
The cohort will be meeting for seven months (April-Oct) and will mix facilitated learning, collaborative practice, and strategy building. The curriculum will cover a range of topics including:
- Relationship building and skilling up for strategies to interrupt the MIC
- Introducing the healing justice framework as f a political response to generational/historical trauma within organizing
- Deepening our understanding of the history of the Medical Industrial Complex
What do you gain with your participation in this cohort?
- Eight sessions to gather and study from April to Oct
- Flexible peer learning meetups with other practitioners & healers to support building strategy and deepening practice.
- Tangible tools from long time organizers & educators
Elements of the training include:
- Introduction to the Healing Histories Project & the project’s organizing strategy
- History and timeline of eugenics, colonization and racial capitalism as root causes of the prison and Medical Industrial Complex
- Analysis building of political frameworks including: healing justice, disability justice, transformative justice and reproductive justice, environmental justice and harm reduction
- Understandings of complex trauma and its impact on both systems and individuals working within those systems
- Introduction to the HHP’s Medical Industrial Complex Timeline, and how to use it to disrupt and organize
- Tools for mapping context and conditions in your work & region toward building interventions
Cost of institute & the labor breakdown:
Healing Histories Project strives to offer different costs for the MIC organizing institute depending on an individual’s access to wealth and resources. In the first year of the cohort, HHP tried to be really intentional as well as emergent with the organizing Institute by offering participants in the pilot cohort a stipend as we were learning, adjusting and designing in real time.
At the completion of the 2024 cohort, our small team realized the labor breakdown to run the institute is pretty hefty. We did a lot of maths to understand how to design a high quality institute while still keeping in mind the labor cost of a multi month, full fledged curriculum that requires the labor of real people under the systems we currently live under.
We know not everyone has access to resources and time to pay, and attend such institutes. As a small project, we have a limited budget for scholarships and we are requesting if you do have access to wealth, please consider donating on top of the cost of the institute. We are also prioritizing scholarships for people who work at grassroots, movement organizations which do not have professional development budgets, or access to disposable cash. If you are a resourced participant, we humbly request you if you can put an additional $100-$500 on sponsoring a scholarship for someone else to attend.
Based on all that context around the labor breakdown, please see which of the options below best describes your situation:
Individuals
- Seedling Rate: This rate is our baseline rate to make it most accessible for individuals participating in this institute without an institution’s support. This rate is a sliding scale between $200-$400 for all eight sessions.
- Composting Rate: This rate is for individuals with resources available at their disposal. We ask that you support by paying anywhere between $800-$1200 per session for all eight sessions.
Organizations/Institutions
For individuals being sponsored by their organizations/institutions we ask that you support us through one of the following rates based on your budget:
- Bright Star Rate: For organizations/institutions that have a budget at or below $500,000 we ask you pay $400 for 8 sessions ($50 per session).
- North Star Rate: For organizations/institutions that have a budget between $500,00 to $1.5 million, we ask you to pay $800 for 8 sessions ($100 per session).
- New Constellation Rate: For organizations/institutions with a budget above 1.5 million we ask you pay $1200 for 8 sessions ($150 per session).
New Galaxy Rate: For organizations/institutions with a budget above 2 million we ask you pay $1600 for 8 sessions ($200 per session).
If you are interested in joining this cohort of the Healing Histories Project Medical Industrial Complex Organizing Institute, please fill out this application by March 10th 6pm EST.
Please direct any questions to: [email protected].