Collard City Growers Annual Plant Sale
2017-05-27 17:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York)
Help support Collard City Growers through purchase of a variety of annuals and perennials at very affordable prices. We also welcome barters (annual for annual or perennial for perennial) if you have plants to trade. Let us know if you have any requests and we will start the seeds for you now! We also welcome plant donations if you have extras you would like to donate to the cause!

Be The Media: Intro to Audio Editing with Audacity
2017-11-28 19:00 - 21:00
Audacity is a free digital audio editor and recording application that runs on almost any Mac or PC. Learn how to use it to make radio! Lead by experienced media technology teacher Dan Vickery.

Be The Media! workshops teach multimedia skills to community members in order to develop urgently needed independent local voices. Our goal is to empower the public through independent media making, supplying them with the tools to tell their own stories through different mediums of media including video, radio and journalism.

Ruderal Ecologies: Grounds for Change
2018-04-13 00:00 - 2018-04-15 23:59 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
CHECK OUT video documentation of RUDERAL ECOLOGIES!

This event was free and open to the public, with donations encouraged to build the NATURE Lab Environmental Education Center.

This symposium marks the last weekend for our NATURE Lab crowdfunding campaign: help us build a center for community science, bioart and environmental justice, right here on our block in North Troy! The Sanctuary needs your support! Register and donate to find out more about how you can help us make this citizen science center a reality.Ruderal Ecologies is a weekend-long symposium to commence Earth Week. Art, urban ecology, and social justice activities focus on living in urban environments shaped by stress. “Ruderal ecologies” are formed by hardy and adaptive organisms and grassroots activist communities that grow out of the ruins of urban wastelands.Hosted by The Sanctuary for Independent Media’s NATURE Lab, the symposium involves thinkers and activists from ecology, public health, urban planning, environmental science, environmental justice, permaculture, the arts, and science and technology studies. Together participants look for growth and resilience in polluted but biodiverse environments, asking:

How can we identify underserved marginalized communities to build engaged, diverse networks, on grounds considered “wastelands”?

What forms of life flourish amid the ruins of ruderal ecologies?

What happens when we include “nonhuman” forms of life–including plants and animals–in our thinking about human flourishing?

For more information on our diverse set of Symposium presenters:

Schedule Overview:

Friday, April 13 – Day 1

7pm Opening Keynote: Decolonizing the Anthropocene | Heather Davis

Davis, drawing on work with co-author Zoe Todd, brings radical feminist and indigenous perspectives to the geological term, the Anthropocene, tracing colonialist origins and contemporary geographies.

8pm Jayohcee| Hip Hop Performance by a First Nations Mohawk Warrior from the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve | Jayohcee

8:30pm Art Auction | NATURE Lab Environmental Education Center Crowdfunding Campaign

Dance with Plants Party | LRT/Location Responsive Theme!Ruderal and domesticated plants generate electronic music via bio-feedback sensors mixed to the beats and loops of electronic musician LRT. Join our NATURE Lab Environmental Education Center celebration, featuring an Art Auction with works exhibited in the Sanctuary’s Underground Gallery over the past decade. Hit the floor and dance with the plants, in a bio-art party with LRT/Location Responsive Theme!

Saturday, April 14 – Day 2

9:30-10:00am Coffee / Welcome

10:00-11:15am Morning Panel: Plants, People, Health, Risk | Mae-ling Lokko, David Seiter, Gail Wittwer-Laird & Xiaobo Xue

Diverse networks interconnect as professionals from architecture and public health sectors discuss the implications that modern landscape designs have on wildlife and the future of the human species.

11:30am-1:00pm Workshops:

Appropriate Remediation: Ecoremediation vs. Toxisphere | Scott KelloggEcoremediation is a framework for looking at environmental contamination through a complex, whole systems lens, combining an environmental justice analysis of the “toxisphere” with simple and affordable bioremediation techniques. In this hands-on workshop, we will build familiarity with our ecoremediation allies: microbes, fungi, plants, insects, and worms.

Art in the Anthropocene:Radical Care Practices | Andrea Haenggi, Ellie Irons, Catherine GrauAgents of the Environmental Performance Agency lead a gleaning workshop on the streets around the urban environmental campus, considering the informal public waste stream as offering, resource, and burden.

1:00-2:00pm Lunch

2:00-3:30pm Workshops:

Appropriate Remediation:Watershed, Sewershed, Seedshed | Julia Cavicchi, Anne Pfeifenberger, Olivia GoldenIn this multidisciplinary workshop, we will consider the aquatic ecologies of post-industrial Troy from multiple perspectives, including watershed-scale interconnectivities, troubled sewer infrastructure inheritances, and possibilities for mitigation and adaptation. The workshop will conclude with a collaborative mapping project to invite reflections on the many unseen river crossings we make every day.

Art in the Anthropocene:Plant Sensibilities: Tools for Many Kinds of Selves | Lucia Monge

In this workshop we will explore relationships to plants through the use of (speculative/prosthetic/por qué no/what if) tools to observe the thinking and action that emerge from attention to other ways of being.

3:30-5:00pm Afternoon Panel: Soil, Remediation, Regulation, Design | Moderated by Angelyn Chandler, featuring Tatiana Choulika, Kaja Kühl, Leila Nadir & Seeta Sistla

5:00-5:15pm Break

5:15-6:15pm Closing Keynote: Grounding Environmental Justice in the Capital Region | Aaron Mair

April 15, Sunday – Day 3

11:00am-2:00pm Bio-mapping Brunch: Ruderal Resource Mapping | Azuré Keahi & Oliver Kellhammer

A potluck brunch is followed by a bio-mapping workshop in which we walk our North Troy neighborhood to observe and note our ever changing biodiverse urban ecologies. Using a combination of bio-blitzing and community cartography, participants will explore assigned areas to map and highlight post-industrial resources to inspire grassroots, environmental stewardship.

Sponsors: Ruderal Ecologies is hosted by folks from NATURE LAB; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Vasudha Living and Learning Community and the Vollmer Fries Fund; the Department of Science and Technology Studies and the Thomas Phelan Endowed Chair in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; the Department of the Arts; Skidmore College; and RADIX Ecological Center.

For information, please contact:Kathy High, email: high@rpi.edu and phone: 518-209-6209Ellie Irons, email: ellieirons@gmail.com and phone: 909-702-1584Branda Miller, email: miller@mediasanctuary.org and phone: 518-229-0441

6th Annual Freedom Festival
2018-06-02 15:00 - 18:00 | Freedom Square, 35 5th Ave, Troy, NY, 12180, United States
Join us outdoors in closing out our Spring 2018 season with the sixth annual Freedom Festival! The festival will take place at Freedom Square, on 101st Street where 5th and 6th Avenues meet.

Rain location: The Sanctuary for Independent Media.

Things to expect:

Musical performances from local singer songwriter bell’s roar

Set by Brooklyn-based rapper/producer donfons

ChillSmith

Hyper-locally sourced food from our Collard City Growers’ garden down the block and Denison Farms, with food from Unity House kitchens

Bike giveaway courtesy of our 6th Ave neighbors, Troy Bike Rescue

Arts n’ crafting table

Much, much more!

Big thank you to our generous co-sponsors: Unity House, Troy Bike Rescue, Denison Farms, Collard City Growers, Troy Zero Waste, Albany County League of Women Voters, NY Census Initiative, Flower Scout, Team HERO, Flower Scout, Troy Poem Project and Friends of the Library.

Photos from 2017’s Freedom Fest

Freedom Festival with SA-ROC and Fay Victor's Mutations for Justice
2019-06-08 15:00 - 18:00 | Freedom Square, 35 5th Ave, Troy, NY, 12180, United States
SPIRIT OF THE SUFFRAGETTES LAUNCH!

The seventh annual end of the season festivities of free food, art and music, featuring a special performance by Fay Victor and Mutations for Justice to launch our Spirit of the Suffragettes concert series!

Freedom Festival is free. Free music, free food, free art activities. At Freedom Square – 101st Street where 5th and 6th Avenues meet – in North Troy. Rain location is The Sanctuary for Independent Media, nearby at 3361 6th Avenue.

The Spirit of the Suffragettes Summer Festival presents…

SA-ROC & FAY VICTOR’s MUTATIONS FOR JUSTICE

Performing in Freedom Square on June 8th during the Freedom Festival, join us for the opening concert of the Spirit of the Suffragettes Summer Festival and Community Resource Fair!

Sa-Roc will be performing from 3:15PM to 4:30PM, and Fay Victor ‘s Mutations for Justice will be performing from 4:45PM to 6PM.

ACTIVITIES INCLUDE

Music with Sa-Roc and Fay Victor’s Mutations for JusticeLaunch of Spirit of the Suffragettes concert series and Women’s Resource FairFree hyper-locally sourced food from our Collard City Growers’ garden down the block and Denison Farms, with food from Unity House kitchens Bike giveaway courtesy of our 6th Avenue neighbors, Troy Bike RescueArts n’ crafting tableCollard City Growers workshop: Getting Grounded: Transplanting Party with Collard City GrowersCommunity resource tablesand much much more!

Check out the video below to see our featured acts perform:

ABOUT SA-ROC

Sa-Roc is otherworldly-figuratively and literally. Since appearing on to the hip-hop scene in 2008, she has upended conventional narratives within the genre, her fiery lyrics peppered with themes of spiritual evolution, social injustice, and messages of empowerment.

An ardent student of the culture, she has crafted, alongside legendary Atlantan producer Sol Messiah, a fresh sound dubbed God Hop. Melding the raw energy and classical precision of the golden era of hip-hop with a lyrical ingenuity and consciousness that sets her light years ahead of her musical peers, Sa-Roc has quickly grabbed the attention of many of hiphop’s established luminaries.

SOCIAL

​website |Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

ABOUT FAY VICTOR

Over a 20 year span, Victor has released 9 albums as a leader to critical acclaim as well as seminal sideperson projects with leaders such as Anthony Braxton, Roswell Rudd, Nicole Mitchell, William Parker and Marc Ribot. Victor’s most recent release as a leader is ​Wet Robots (ESP Disk, July 2018) with her latest group, SoundNoiseFUNK, featuring Joe Morris (guitar), Sam Newsome (sop. saxophone) & Reggie Nicholson (drums).

Victor was the 2017 Herb Albert/Yaddo Fellow in Music Composition where she composed ​Faith, The Gift ​- a piece in tribute to the life of her mother, Faith E.S.Victor. In addition to ​Wet Robots,​ Victor also appears on Nicole Mitchell’s M​aroon Cloud(FPERecords, August2018) recording and Marc Ribot’s ​Songs of Resistance 1942-2018 (ANTI-records, September 2018) featuring Victor as well as guest vocalists Tom Waits, Steve Earle and ​Meshell Ndegeocello among others. ​Victor is a music educator and vocal specialist of the highest order, giving clinics and workshops at home in New York City and around the world.

SOCIAL

​website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

ABOUT MUTATIONS FOR JUSTICE

Mutations for Justice is a rolling diary of the Trump administration using small compositional mantras or ‘memes’. The minimalist framework is built on repetition and developed through improvisation. Chanting protest music as a mutable entity to change how we see.

Conception, words & music written by Fay Victor. The culmination of Mutations For Justice will be a recording project of 45 pieces in 2020.

Some of the subjects covered in Mutations for Justice pieces are on immigration, gun violence, Stormy Daniels, poverty, race, the economy and creative license.

Members: Fay Victor voice and composer, Jaimie Branch trumpet, Mazz Swift violin, Sean Conly double bass, Michael Vatcher drums

ABOUT SPIRIT OF THE SUFFRAGETTESThe Spirit of the Suffragettes is an 8-week summer concert series and Women’s Resource Fair celebrating the history of these radical historical activists through an updated and more racially/economically inclusive lens. We’re presenting female and gender non-conforming musicians (predominantly women of color) alongside a resource fair highlighting the organizations and opportunities that support women and families in our extremely low-wealth neighborhood. Learn more about the series and the supporters

Lawn (Re)Disturbance Laboratory Sound Walk
2020-10-20 00:00 - 2020-11-20 23:59
Unearthing to Rewild, Remember, Look Forward

What kind of biodiversity can lawn ecosystems support? This fall, Lawn Lab offers a meditative audio tour for slowing down and tuning in to the urban rewilding taking place at the lawn next door to Media Sanctuary’s Collard City Growers.

The twenty minute audio tour guides you through simple activities for engaging with Lawn Lab’s six experimental plots before they go dormant for the winter. What was here before? What might be here in the future? How should humans—you, me, this community?—shape the urban habitat

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Our FALL AUDIO TOUR for the 3333 Sixth Avenue plots is live! Break the (phyto)social distance before the plants sleep for the winter. Learn more here. For additional info, contact artist Ellie Irons at When you complete the tour, please send your plant portraits, mailing address, and any comments to ellieirons@gmail.com.

ABOUT

The Lawn (Re)Disturbance Laboratory is an ongoing art-science experiment now in its third season. A project of the NEXT EPOCH SEED LIBRARY, it involves re-wilding interventions in institutional and residential lawns from seeds lying dormant in the soil. From plant-based sculptures and community science workshops to novel approaches to data collection and presentation, the project offers multiple entry points through which to consider lawn habitats and their impacts on the communities—human and nonhuman—who live in and among them.

Season 1 (2018) took place in institutional and residential lawns throughout the city of Troy, NY. Season 2 (2019) took place at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and Seton Hall University in New Jersey. The 2020 season was planned for plots at RPI, The Sanctuary for Independent Media, and Radix Sustainability Center. It has been scaled back due to the pandemic, to six plots in a lawn near The Sanctuary for Independent Media in North Central Troy.

Follow project progress at #lawnredisturbancelaboratory. City Lab wrote about the project in September 2019: Uncovering the Seeds of a Post-Lawn Future. In August 2020, Media+Environment’s “Mediating Art and Science” Stream published Ellie’s article about the project’s first season: The Next Epoch Seed Library’s Lawn Lab: A Public Experiment in Collaboration with Seeds, Time, and Weeds. Also in August 2020, Ellie presented the project with a 5 minute lightening talk for the Ecological Society of America’s annual conference.

Ellie Irons is an artist and educator based in Brooklyn and Troy, New York. She works in a variety of media, from video to workshops to re-wilding experiments, to reveal how human and more-than-human lives intertwine with other earth systems. Her recent work focuses on plants, people and urban ecosystems in the so-called Anthropocene. She is a cofounder of the Next Epoch Seed Library and the Environmental Performance Agency. Irons received her BA from Scripps College in Los Angeles and her MFA from Hunter College, CUNY in New York. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she is researching the intersection of socially engaged art, community science, and urban ecology as a means for envisioning and enacting multispecies solidarity in the face of climate chaos.

People’s Health Sanctuary presents: End-of-Life in the Age of Covid
2020-12-04 18:30 - 20:00 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/peoples-health-sanctuary-presents-end-of-life-in-the-age-of-covid/
In the midst of unprecedented personal, national and global oppression, suffering and death, how do we process loss to maintain hopeful connections? End-of-Life in the Age of Covid features conversations about our experiences of death, end of life care, and the creation of social and spiritual community during the pandemic. How do we honor the memory and voices of the dying? How can our grief inform and inspire us to create a new world that is inclusive, and responsive to the needs of marginalized populations most hard hit by Covid?

Join us for an initial conversation to process our personal and collective grief and loss.

Moderator: Corinne Carey

Panelists:

Marne Lucas, artist and end of life doulaUrban Grief

BIOS

Corinne Carey is a political & public affairs strategist taking on bold public health initiatives backed by sound evidence & human rights. Carey is the campaign director of Compassion & Choices New York. Compassion & Choices improves care, expands options and empowers everyone to chart their end-of-life journey.

Compassion & Choices’ award-winning video features the groundbreaking filmmaker Hammer urging New York lawmakers to pass the Medical Aid in Dying Act. “My cancer is incurable … I will reach a very debilitated state,” she says in the video, in which she notes that she suffered through more than 100 chemo treatments for ovarian cancer over 12 years before entering hospice in late 2018. “I would so much like to be able to manage my own death by choosing the time and the person I’d like to have with me so that I can die in comfort and with compassion and not in pain and morphine-drugged.” Hammer died on March 16, 2019, at age 79 in her Manhattan home without access to this gently dying option. In February, Oscars in Memoriam honored her for her legacy as an experimental filmmaker. Watch the entire award-winning video of Barbara Hammer urging New York lawmakers to pass the Medical Aid in Dying Act.

Corinne Carey is a radio producer with Hudson Mohawk Magazine on WOOC 105.3 FM.

Marne LucasMarne is an artist and end of life doula. As a multidisciplinary artist her work investigates social justice related projects such as Bardo ∞ Project, an ongoing exploration of creativity as a form of spiritual end of life care, and video installations using infrared imaging technology to reference surveillance culture and the fragility of human existence. She is in-training at Parker Jewish Institute to be an INELDA certified end-of-life doula, and currently serves as a client board member at URAM, a Harlem United health agency.

Urban Grief

Lisa Good, MSW, is founding the director of Urban Grief, a trauma-informed community-based organization that educates on the effects of violence and supports those affected through outreach and victim advocacy. She is the former director of SNUG (formerly known as Cure Violence) and has over 25 years of human service experience. She is an experienced speaker and trainer, facilitating trauma-informed workshops such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and community events, and faith-based workshops aimed at creating healing spaces and empowering community members through information about trauma, grief, and resilience.

http://lisawgood.com/

Urban Grief is trauma informed and healing centered 501(c)(3) community-based organization. Urban Grief responds to the traumatic impact of community violence, death and loss through community education, crisis response, victim advocacy and grief support. Urban Grief provides relevant and relatable information about trauma, grief, self-care, resiliency, and victim services. UG acknowledges the prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), along with chronic exposure to traumatic events, and strives to avoid further re-traumatization.

End-of-Life in the Age of COVID organizing team

Dr. Xavier Coughlin, Kathy High, Corinne Carey, Nancy Weber, Branda Miller

MORE ABOUT THE PEOPLE’S HEALTH SANCTUARY

The People’s Health Sanctuary‘s goal is to establish a central space to share health skills, provide basic integrative care and explore ways to build networks of community health. We are celebrating a year of organizing around this project, initiated under the organizing name Health Autonomy Clinic and after listening sessions with our surrounding community, re-named People’s Health Sanctuary. Our goal is to embrace models of open sharing of health knowledge, and empower all of the growing collective of community members to seek their independent health goals, as opposed to the traditional, hierarchical top-down approach of clinical medical practice. Though caring for our elders, our children, or cooking soul-nourishing food for family or friends may not be deemed ‘real’ healthcare, they know that in fact, it’s what holds us together and keeps us sane. Our growing network sharing skills to build a space where creative, joyful health is possible and accessible.

In this current crisis, we are more than even committed to the potential that People’s Health Sanctuary can offer. Everyone it seems is struggling to keep up with the flood of information about the current crisis, the ways those in power are forcing us back to a “normal,” the over-reliance of the economy as a marker of anything lending towards health. And then we have the horrific news from Georgia and Minneapolis, the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, a stark reminder of the crisis behind the crisis. COVID has only exacerbated the social oppression and disparities that mark the “normal” so many of the elites want to return to.

Water Justice: Echoes from Lock One
2020-12-11 19:00 - 21:00 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/water-justice-echoes-from-lock-one/
Register for either/both days of this event here!

Water Justice Lab in North Troy, NY hosts “confluence” virtual gatherings with youth environmental justice advocates throughout communities in the Hudson River Watershed.

The opening evening features a land acknowledgement of the Stockbridge Munsee Community by Heather Bruegl, before the premiere of the water justice documentary “Echoes from Lock One,” a participatory youth production.

The screening is followed by followed by an open dialogue, “What is Water and Environmental Justice?,” facilitated by environmental justice mentors Heather Bruegl and youth educator Meghan Marohn, with participating youth groups, Water Justice Lab (Troy, NY), Kingston YMCA Farm Project (Kingston, NY) and Groundwork Hudson Valley (Yonkers, NY). The evening will end with a collective performance of “Stay Woke” with Jayohcee, and a special visit from hip hop artist Xiuhtezcatl!

Echoes From Lock One – Trailer from Catherine Rafferty on Vimeo.

About Echoes from Lock One

North Troy teens spent five weeks with Media Sanctuary creating a multimedia documentary on water justice and the legacy of the Erie Canal in one of NY’s most economically challenged and environmentally devastated neighborhoods.

Environmental Justice Mentor

Heather Bruegl is the Director of Cultural Affairs for the Stockbridge Munsee Community. The mission of the Cultural Affairs Department is to protect, preserve and tell the history of the Stockbridge Munsee Band of the Mohican Indians. We do this through the archives at the Arvid E. Miller Memorial Library and Museum, protection of our ancestral lands through Historic Preservation, and revitalization of our Language. She is a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, is a graduate of Madonna University in Michigan and holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in U.S. History. Inspired by a trip to Wounded Knee, South Dakota, a passion for Native American History was born. She has spoken for numerous groups including the University of Michigan, College of the Menominee Nation, Shawano County Historical Society, the Kenosha Civil War Museum, Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohicans, and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. She has spoken at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for Indigenous Peoples Day 2017. Heather also opened up and spoke at the Women’s March Anniversary in Lansing, Michigan in January 2018. She also spoke at the first ever Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, DC in January of 2019. Summer 2019, she spoke at the Crazy Horse Memorial and Museum in Custer, South Dakota for their Talking Circle Series. She has also become the ‘’accidental activist’’ and speaks to different groups about intergenerational racism and trauma and helps to bring awareness to our environment, the fight for clean water and other issues in the Native community. A curiosity of her own heritage lead her to Wisconsin, where she has researched the history of the Native American tribes in the area. In addition to that she also currently travels and speaks on Native American history, including policy and activism.

Hip Hop Artists

Xiuhtezcatl! Martinez, Earth Guardians Youth Director Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, (his first name pronounced ‘Shoe-Tez-Caht’) recently turned 18. He’s an indigenous climate activist, hip-hop artist, and powerful voice on the front lines of a global youth-led environmental movement.

Recently named TIMES Next 100, Xiuhtezcatl has felt called to change the narrative on what it means to be an activist since an early age. Still a teenager, X has spoken multiple times a the UN, addressing the General Assembly and spoken on panels with the likes of Bernie Sanders, Van Jones, Shailene Woodley, Bill Mckibbens and Pharrell Williams.

Xiuhtezcatl has a unique talent for connecting people through popular culture and sharing the message of his indigenous roots to better serve the planet and reimagine the future for his generation.

Jayohcee, also known as Corey Jocko is an hip hop artist, activist, and a First Nations Mohawk Warrior. Jayohcee is featured in Echoes from Lock One teaching youth how to write and perform a song through hip hop “for their multimedia documentary and performing his Standing Rock song, “Stay Woke.

PARTICIPATING YOUTH GROUPS

Water Justice Lab

The Water Justice Lab fellows are taking a leadership role organizing and leading the Water Justice Confluence. This youth science mentorship program is a project of Media Sanctuary’s NATURE (North Troy Art Technology and Urban Research in Ecology) Lab Environmental Education Center and Riverkeeper. The project will establish a water quality sampling lab, educate diverse communities about water literacy and water civics (water issues and how to make a difference), develop the advocacy capacity of the North Troy area, and strengthen a network of environmental justice advocates focused on water issues in the Hudson River Watershed.

The Kingston YMCA Farm Project

The Kingston YMCA Farm Project’s mission is to educate, nourish and connect the Kingston community with our urban farm. Our vision is to use the farm as a way to engage young people in the magical and empowering process that is food production. Children and youth are involved in all aspects of food production and farm care: seeding, transplanting, watering, weeding, harvesting, and ultimately preparing and eating. We have farm stands on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, where we make our produce as accessible as possible to our community. Participants learn how to turn the vegetables they grow into healthy snacks and dishes.

We are committed to racial and economic justice and we are working to create a more equitable food system for all. As we do this, we find different ways for our youth to make change in our community. We have recently started having a Book Club this summer. Since then, we have read Stamped the Remix by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi; as well as How to be an Anti-racist by Ibram X. Kendi. The crew has also done things such as sent letters to elected officials, installed a Say Their Names memorial, painted two utility boxes with antiracist messages, initiated a county-wide Sojourner Truth Day, and more.

The Kingston YMCA Summer Youth Crew wrote and created a video called Truth Talk. Truth Talk focuses on what they learned about our history and how to be an anti-racist agent of change.

Groundwork Hudson Valley creates sustainable environmental change in urban neighborhoods through community-based partnerships that promote equity, youth leadership, and economic opportunity.

The Green Team program hires local teenagers enrolled in the Yonkers Public School system for environmental jobs – for many, their first real job. The program focuses on leadership, group dynamics, and a variety of conservation and construction skills. This hard work is tempered with amazing adventures, like hiking, camping, and swimming.

https://youtu.be/fxNvLj9u5Qw

MORE ABOUT WATER JUSTICE LAB

Organized and hosted by Water Justice Lab, a new project of Media Sanctuary’s NATURE (North Troy Art Technology and Urban Research in Ecology) Lab Environmental Education Center and Riverkeeper. The project will establish a water quality sampling lab, educate diverse communities about water literacy and water civics (water issues and how to make a difference), develop the advocacy capacity of the North Troy area, and strengthen a network of environmental justice advocates focused on water issues in the Hudson River Watershed.

Memorial Altar: “Emerging from Darkness”
2021-01-17 12:00 - 2021-04-01 07:00 | Freedom Square, 35 5th Ave, Troy, NY, 12180, United States
An installation to honor personal, community, national and global loss

We welcome you to visit Freedom Square, at the corner of 101st St. (where 6th Ave. turns into 5th Ave.) in socially distanced and masked groups of 10 or less, any time(s) between 1/17-1/20, to add the names of your beloved dead and/or leave offerings on the Altar in their honor. Please come with your hearts open, make sure to wear your mask and let’s love each other via this community Altar space. This too is a form of resistance and protest!!

Check out this latest television story!

As we continue working to create the more just and equitable world we know is possible, we recognize the deep need to grieve collectively. Join us as we transform Freedom Square to create a community space to express grief, loss, generosity and resilience. This participatory installation began in conjunction with our MLK day event “Rise Up: The Struggle Continues…” and the Nationwide Covid Memorial (1/19/21 at 5:30 pm) for those who have died of Covid, and is being continued because of popular demand. Community participants continue to visit the altar, leave messages, honor loved ones, and share gifts of food (wrapped for safety) and clothing.

The installation includes an Altar for our Ancestors Known and Unknown and for all those who have died longing for justice and freedom. Stop by to Say their Names, Share their/your Stories, Honor your Ancestors/Beloved Dead. Remember to visit in socially distanced and masked groups of 10 or less, to add the names of your beloved dead and/or leave offerings on the Altar in their honor.*

*Altars are sacred spaces formed with intention. A few ideas of what to place on an Altar include:

Prayers & wishes Natural materials (rocks, leaves, flowers, water, dirt from your motherland) Pictures (copies are suggested to minimize loss of original precious mementos) Art, poetry, songs, letters (consider weather-proofing or bring messages and names to write on our flags) Some BIPOC cultures offer food/ fruits/bread/liquor/tobacco

(Please individually wrap offerings for safety. Recognizing the reality/impact of addiction, please leave only small amounts of alcohol.)

We would deeply appreciate support of this community altar!

Contact us if you’d like to volunteer or contribute in any way.

Please recognize that as you come in and out the area of Freedom Square, know that many of our neighbors have and continue to experience over-policing and gun violence and might even feel a sense of shame or dissonance from such a visible community holding space. We ask that each of you respect the right of our neighbors to stop and stare, to ask questions and engage or simply walk by. Regardless, this is a vibrant and beautiful community, so please come with your hearts open, make sure to wear your mask and let us love on each other via this community altar space. This too is a form of resistance and protest! In the honoring is the healing.

*For many of us, these times have been challenging, reminding us of loved ones who are absent and reinforcing experiences of social and economic marginality amidst a culture of consumption. This was particularly true in 2020, a year of unbearable loss amplified by COVID, the state sanctioned killings of Black bodies globally, the climate crisis and most recently, insurrection in our Capitol. Let us make space and honor our right to grieve collectively.

Altar for the Ancestors, original creation by Nancy Weber.

Co-created by the People’s Health Sanctuary program of NATURE Lab, Media Sanctuary.

Co-sponsored by Urban Grief, Troy 4 Black Lives, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Capital District, NAACP, North Central Little League, Team H.E.R.O., Troy Bike Rescue and NATURE Lab’s People’s Health Sanctuary.

Check out this tv story, 2/22/21https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/capital-region/news/2021/02/21/freedom-square-installation-bringing-community-together

MLK Holiday Labor and Community Celebration: Rise Up! The Struggle Continues...
2021-01-18 11:00 - 13:00 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/mlk-holiday-labor-and-community-celebration-rise-up-the-struggle-continues/
The theme of 2021’s twenty-second Capital District MLK Holiday Labor and Community Celebration was “Rise Up! The Struggle Continues…”

The virtual event is over now, but you can watch the video here soon.

We saved the Zoom chat window so you can see it here.

Key speakers were Charles Barron (Assembly member District 60), Dr. Ron Daniels (President, Institute of the Black World 21st Century/IBW21) and Denise Berkley, Executive Vice President CSEA.

Jerry Ford and Shana Davis were the MC’s, with a guest appearance by musician Taina Asili. The event featured local poets D. Colin, Shania Jackson and Erika Diggs. Participants split up into “Break Out” thematic groups for intensive discussion and report backs!

Community – Jerry Ford/ Team H.E.R.O. and Odell Winfield

Labor – Sean Collins and Mark Emanation

Culture- Taína Asili

Systemic Racism – Renee Powell/NAACP

National/ International – Larry Wittner

Environmental Justice – Alexis Goldsmith

Justice Reform – Jamaica Miles/All of Us and Amani Olugbala/ Troy 4 Black Lives +

Youth/Education – Debra Garrett + Steve Fiqueroa/ YouthBuild

Economic Justice – H. Bosch Jr + Joe Paparone/ Poor People’s Campaign

Health Justice – People’s Health Sanctuary with Dr. Xavier Coughlin and Lisa Good/Urban Grief

Would you or your organization like to participate next year? For more information, call Willie Terry at (518) 369-4978 or (518) 272-2390.

MUSICIANS

Taína Asili is a New York-based Puerto Rican singer, filmmaker and activist carrying on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice. Her music combines powerful vocals carrying themes of hope and liberation with an energetic fusion of Afro-Latin, reggae and rock.

SPEAKERS

Dr. Ron Daniels is founder and president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW21), a progressive, African-centered, action-oriented resource center dedicated to empowering people of African descent and marginalized communities. As the administrator for the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC), IBW21 has emerged as a leading organization within the U.S. and global reparations movements.

COMMUNITY

Assemblymember Charles Barron has been fighting for human rights since 1969, when he joined the Harlem branch of the Black Panther Party as an 18 year-old, A self-described “elected activist,” he currently represents the 60th District in Brooklyn in the New York State Assembly. Formerly, he represented Brooklyn’s 42nd District on the New York City Council from 2001 to 2013.

LABOR

Denise Berkley is Statewide Executive Vice President for the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), one of New York State’s largest worker unions. Her labor activism began in 1979, working as a Mental Health Therapy Aide at the Brooklyn Developmental Center. Two years later she ran for president of her CSEA Local and won. She has worked to ensure working people have the power of a union behind them ever since.

MCs

Shana Davis has served as the President of the Capital District Chapter Coalition of Black Trade Unionist since 2008 and a board member of the Capital District Area Labor Federation. An employee of the NYS Department Taxation & Finance for more than 30 years, she has been a member of CSEA Tax Local 690 since 1989. She was elected as Treasurer of CSEA Capital Region IV in 2016, CSEA Capital Region IV Executive Vice-President in 2020, and the Chairperson of the CSEA Statewide Constitution & ByLaws Committee.

Deacon Jerry Ford, a husband, father and leader; has seen his share of trauma and adversity. He lost his mother and father at a young age. He was raised by a loving aunt, but found himself in the streets looking for the love he never received from his parents and eventually ended up in prison. After his 3rd prison stint, he saw himself on a path toward life in prison or death. Finding strength in faith, Deacon Ford was able to make a 180 degree turn and now his story of resilience and hope is impacting communities across the nation. He started a nonprofit organization named Team H.E.R.O. standing for Helping Everyone Recognize Opportunities which focuses on youth mentoring, character and leadership development and linking families to resources. He has been recognized both locally and nationally for his service to the community, most notably winning the Maytag Dependable Leader Award.

POETS

D. Colin is a poet, performer, visual artist and educator living in Troy, NY. She is the author of two poetry collections, Dreaming in Kreyol and Said the Swing to the Hoop, curates and hosts the weekly open mic Poetic Vibe, and teaches workshops for schools ahd organizations. D. Colin has been involved with community theater since 2009, writing and acting.

Shania Jackson is a local 4th grade teacher at School 2. She is the daughter of Eddie Jackson (passed) of Holy Serenity COGIC and Doris Jackson of United Ordained Church of Christ.Shania graduated with a Bachelors in Early Childhood/Childhood Education, Concentration Black Studies, Minor in Deaf Studies from SUNY New Paltz in 2018 and will be pursuing her masters shortly.

GROUP MODERATORS

Odell Winfield, a retired Excelsior College faculty member, is the founder and executive director of The A. J. Williams-Myers African Roots Community Center Library at 43 Gill Street in Kingston. It is a resource stocked with books and other learning materials focusing on the roots of African and African-American history and culture.

H. Bosch Jr. is Hudson Mohawk Magazine producer of “The Triple E’s: Education, Entrepreneurship and Empowerment,” and an “Overcoming Adversity Specialist.”

Lisa Good, MSW, is founding the director of Urban Grief, a trauma-informed community-based organization that educates on the effects of violence and supports those affected through outreach and victim advocacy. The former director of SNUG (formerly known as Cure Violence), she has over 25 years of human service experience. She facilitates trauma-informed workshops such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and community events, and faith-based workshops aimed at creating healing spaces and empowering community members through information about trauma, grief, and resilience.

Dr. Xavier Coughlin, MD is works as an ER physician at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield and Samaritan Hospital in Troy. As “People’s Health Sanctuary” Coordinator, Coughlin is excited to build on the generations of strong communities in the Capital Region and to foster health autonomy as a liberatory practice.

Jamaica Miles, co-founder of All of Us, is a seasoned comm. All of Us seeks to break down the subdivisions of Black and Latinx culture to unite and fully empower the greater community.

Debra Garrett is originally from Brooklyn, NY, she is a mother of 4, a former Council member for district 2 in the city of Troy. Debra is currently completing a dual degree in Health Science at Excelsior College. Debra is a member of the Nation Parents Union, and she Co- chairs the Advocacy group for NYS Character Parent Council. She is the founder of Shades of Cocoa, to support parents with education concerns and creating a sisterhood for young black and brown girls.

MORE ABOUT COMMUNITY PARTNERS

The Solidarity Committee of the Capital District

The Greyhound Strikers Solidarity Committee of the Capital District was created by Albany, New York-area labor union activists who supported the autumn 1983 Amalgamated Transit Union strike against Greyhound Bus Lines. After the strike ended, the organization was reconstituted as the Solidarity Committee of the Capital District.

The Solidarity Committee of the Capital District’s mission is “to promote solidarity and understanding of the labor movement, through educating and organizing in times of need.” Its founders envisioned an organization that would organize and support strikes, protest closures of manufacturing plants, aid unemployed workers, lobby for political and economic reform, and organize non-union workers. Their vision continues to guide activities through the present day.

Team H.E.R.O./ The Block Center

We want to empower communities to improve the quality of life for young people and their families. We develop and implement programs to support youth making the transition from childhood to adulthood. We utilize a relationships first model, prioritizing human connections rather than focusing on perceived problems; our strategies are long-term and built around the strengths and needs of people who make up the communities we serve.

Our Programs: The Block Center is a positive youth development program for young people ages 11-17 living in the Troy, NY area. Founded in 2015 in partnership with the Troy Boys and Girls Club, the program connects caring adult mentors with young people for educational groups, character-building activities, field trips, and more.Weekly sessions are held every Tuesday from 6:00-8: 00 PM. Learn more at https://theblockcentertroy.com/

All of Us is a Black-led grassroots community organization fighting for Black Liberation and an end to all forms of racism, oppression and exploitation. We are committed to a strategy that prioritizes the voices of the marginalized in localities across the Greater Capital Region of New York, building toward change within New York State as a whole. All Of Us makes space for conversations that unite people across differences, invests in the leadership development of local communities, especially of its youth, and works in coalition with other groups and organizations.

Urban Grief is trauma informed and healing centered 501(c)(3) community-based organization. Urban Grief responds to the traumatic impact of community violence, death and loss through community education, crisis response, victim advocacy and grief support. Urban Grief provides relevant and relatable information about trauma, grief, self-care, resiliency, and victim services. UG acknowledges the prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), along with chronic exposure to traumatic events, and strives to avoid further re-traumatization.

NATURE Lab People’s Health Sanctuary

As part of the Sanctuary for Independent Media’s growing NATURE LAB Urban Environmental Center, a collective of care workers and organizers are working to establish a central space in Troy to share health skills, provide basic integrative care and explore ways to build networks of community health. Though caring for our elders, our children, or cooking soul-nourishing food for family or friends may not be deemed ‘real’ healthcare, we know that in fact, it’s what holds us together and keeps us sane. Let’s bring our skills together to build a space where creative, joyful health is possible and accessible!

Co-sponsored by:

The Solidarity Committee of the Capital DistrictTeam H.E.R.O/ The Block CenterSave the Pine BushCapital District Coalition Against IslamaphobiaUnderground Railroad Education CenterPoor People’s CampaignTroy 4 Black LivesAll of UsWater Justice Lab

Stretched Thin: The Grief of Traumatic Loss with Lisa Good/ Urban Grief
2021-02-05 18:30 - 20:00 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/stretched-thin-the-grief-of-traumatic-loss-with-lisa-good-urban-grief/
We are individually and collectively being bombarded with grief and traumatic losses. The repetitive losses and cumulative grief in conjunction with the social restrictions associated with COVID-19 have stretched social connections and relationships beyond capacity.

In our time together, we will explore the overlapping aspects of trauma, and grief and consider ways/next steps to build and reinforce our capacities for individual and collective care in our communities.

Click here to register for this virtual event!

This event is part of the “End-of-Life in the Age of Covid” series of virtual conversations every 6 weeks presented by People’s Health Sanctuary.

Urban Grief is trauma informed and healing centered 501(c)(3) community-based organization. Urban Grief responds to the traumatic impact of community violence, death and loss through community education, crisis response, victim advocacy and grief support. Urban Grief provides relevant and relatable information about trauma, grief, self-care, resiliency, and victim services. UG acknowledges the prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), along with chronic exposure to traumatic events, and strives to avoid further re-traumatization.

Lisa Good, MSW, is founding the director of Urban Grief, a trauma-informed community-based organization that educates on the effects of violence and supports those affected through outreach and victim advocacy. She is the former director of SNUG (formerly known as Cure Violence) and has over 25 years of human service experience. She is an experienced speaker and trainer, facilitating trauma-informed workshops such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and community events, and faith-based workshops aimed at creating healing spaces and empowering community members through information about trauma, grief, and resilience.

http://lisawgood.com/

MORE ABOUT PEOPLE’S HEALTH SANCTUARY

People’s Health Sanctuary‘s goal is to establish a central space to share health skills, provide basic integrative care and explore ways to build networks of community health. We are celebrating a year of organizing around this project, initiated under the organizing name Health Autonomy Clinic and after listening sessions with our surrounding community, re-named People’s Health Sanctuary. Our goal is to embrace models of open sharing of health knowledge, and empower all of the growing collective of community members to seek their independent health goals, as opposed to the traditional, hierarchical top-down approach of clinical medical practice. Though caring for our elders, our children, or cooking soul-nourishing food for family or friends may not be deemed ‘real’ healthcare, they know that in fact, it’s what holds us together and keeps us sane. Our growing network sharing skills to build a space where creative, joyful health is possible and accessible.

In this current crisis, we are more than even committed to the potential that People’s Health Sanctuary can offer. Everyone it seems is struggling to keep up with the flood of information about the current crisis, the ways those in power are forcing us back to a “normal,” the over-reliance of the economy as a marker of anything lending towards health. And then we have the horrific news from Georgia and Minneapolis, the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, a stark reminder of the crisis behind the crisis. COVID has only exacerbated the social oppression and disparities that mark the “normal” so many of the elites want to return to.

People’s Health Sanctuary is a project of the Media Sanctuary.

Clearing the Air in Coeymans: Community Forum on Clean Air vs. Tire Burning
2021-02-09 19:00 - 20:30 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/clearing-the-air-in-coeymans-community-forum-on-clean-air-vs-tire-burning/
Hold this date for the Coeymans Community Clean Air Forum!

Lafarge/Holcim wants to burn millions of tires every year at their Ravena cement plant opposite the Ravena Coeymans Selkirk middle and high schools on Route 9W. In 2019, the Town of Coeymans adopted a Clean Air Law to establish clean air standards for waste burning facilities. The law requires continuous monitoring of 19 serious pollutants, and places other restrictions on burning by any facility. This law defends the public from emissions containing highly toxic dioxins, sulfur, lead particulates, benzene, carbon monoxide, and more.

On November 19, 2020 the new business-backed Town Board held a public hearing on their decision to amend the Town’s Clean Air Law . These amendments would strip the strong pollution protections in the law and pave the way for any business to burn massive amounts of tires and waste. On November 23, the Town Board unanimously passed the amendments after only one public hearing and very little notice to town residents struggling in the middle of a pandemic.

As a result, the Town of Coeymans is now the only town within the County of Albany where hazardous waste and tires can be burned in spite of the Albany County Clean Air Law prohibitions. Since the amendments to the clean air law went into effect immediately, Lafarge/Holcim can now add the burning of tires to the waste it is already burning in the town.

Among the issues to be discussed in this community forum, moderated by WOOC 105.3 FM correspondent Corinne Carey, include:

Overview of LaFarge’s history as a polluterThe Albany County Clean Air Law, Amendments to the Coeymans Clean Air Law, and the Permissive ReferendumHealth threats of burning tires and waste for fuel vs. coal in cement kiln incineratorsLaFarge’s threats of job loss or even closing the plantCoeymans Town Board misrepresentations to votersWhy the DEC and EPA does not protect us, using the Norlite hazardous waste incinerator in Cohoes as an exampleThere will be plenty of time for Q&A

PANELISTS

Attorney Carlo A.C. deOliveira is a Ravena resident. He is actively involved in the community’s Ravena Soccer Club Board and volunteers as a coach during the year and most recently with the Coeymans Clean Air Coalition.

Matt Miller is a Selkirk Resident and Regents and AP Biology teacher in the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Schools. He is serving his first term in the Albany County Legislature representing the 36th Legislative District, Committee Assignments: Conservation, Sustainability and Green Initiatives, Health

Jane Williams is the Chair of the National Sierra Club Clean Air Team. She is an environmental policy expert with 30 years of policy and advocacy experience. She has extensive knowledge on incinerators. (Photo: Earth Justice)

Joseph Ritchie is an environmental justice advocate and the Executive Director of Saratoga Sites Against Norlite Emissions. He is a student at Syracuse University studying Environmental Policy.

Moderator Corinne Carey is a political & public affairs strategist taking on bold public health initiatives backed by sound evidence & human rights. She is a regular correspondent for WOOC 105.3 FM.

Sponsored by the Coeymans Clean Air Coalition and the Hudson Mohawk Environmental Action Network.

Black History: Capital Region Youth Rise Up!
2021-02-27 11:00 - 13:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
Exploring the minds of youth in the Black History that they are part of and continue to create. Learn from the voices and vision of our younger generations, as they rise up to imagine a more just future!

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

This event builds upon last month’s Capital District MLK Holiday Labor and Community Celebration “Rise Up! The Struggle Continues…” event. Join us as youth share Black History “Influencers” with a focus including having a voice, women, film history, LGBTQ and environmental justice.

Presenters include: Erika Diggs, Asad Benbow, Team H.E.R.O., Shades of Cocoa, Angelo Domingo, Water Justice Lab Fellows Shansanique Pollack, Genesis Cooper, Gabriella Espada Asad Benbow and Diamond Owens. Event organizing support from Shana Davis, with Erika Diggs, Willie Terry, Jerry Ford, Debra Garrett, Melissa Bromley and Branda Miller.

Co-sponsored by: TEAM Hero, Water Justice Lab, Troy 4 Black Lives, NAACP, Capital District Chapter Coalition of Black Trade Unionist, The Solidarity Committee of the Capital District and more!

Bios of participants

Genesis Cooper, a student at Lansingburgh High School, is in advanced math and science programs, and has been a high honors student since elementary school. Genesis is in various school clubs, and works to help other organizations in her community.Working in WJL, Genesis hopes to help her community understand more things about their own home that they don’t really know about, like local economics, environmental racism, and local politics.

Genesis Cooper’s main focus is to help and educate those around her by volunteering her time. She helps run the Justice4Dahmeek organization that was started by her father, Massiah Cooper. They go around the city and hold events to educate the community on police brutality and inequality in America. Genesis is a Water Justice Lab fellow at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, a collaboration with Riverkeeper. She has also volunteered her time at the Sanctuary, and has been an Uptown Summer leader for the summers of 2019 and 2020. In 2019, she ran the face painting table at the Spirit of the Suffragettes concert series and community resource fair at Freedom Square. She is thinking about attending Howard University and possibly becoming a teacher. Genesis has interests in many subjects including science and hope to educate the youth on many different topics about the world around them.

Angelo Domingo is a senior student at Lansingburgh High School. He takes multiple advanced classes and has been on high honor roll for all of high school. Angelo participates in various school clubs and other programs outside of school. Angelo is very passionate about social justice and works frequently on projects with The Sanctuary For Independent Media to spread awareness about social issues. Ever since Angelo was in the Uptown Summer youth program in summer of 2018, he’s been passionate about raising issues in social awareness. Angelo made a 3 part radio series on slumlords to raise awareness in his community. He even made a survey to hear personal experiences from the community. His time as an Uptown Summer youth member inspired him to keep pursuing activism and making his voice heard to help improve the lives of others.

Angelo Domingo is currently working with the NYCLU Student Ambassador Program tackling issues for youth including comprehensive sex education and the school to prison pipeline. Angelo Is currently planning on going to college to pursue a degree in musical theater with hopes to minor in a field where he can work on tackling the social issues that he so deeply cares about.

Gabby Espada is a ninth grader at Lansingburgh High School. She is in advanced science and top of her math class as well. Gabby enjoys hands-on activities in science, and she’s a very social and outgoing person. She strives for the best and is an extremely determined teen. Gabby likes having her voice heard and making a change. She does as much as possible in school such as: drama club, soccer, volleyball, track and field, basketball, student council, and tutoring. Gabby is a determined teen ready to take on anything that comes her way.

Gabby Espada is is a Water Justice Lab fellow at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, a collaboration with Riverkeeper. She has been involved in many movements including: Justice for Dahmeek, suicide prevention movements, and Dance for Donations, She’s also worked with kids and animals. Gabby attends the STEP program at R.P.I. and takes architecture and coding there. In Dance for Donations she danced and taught others dances for donations for leukemia. She has experience working with people of all ages.

Diamond Owens is a young poet, and a member of TEAM H.E.R.O.

Shansanique Pollack is currently attending Lansingburgh High School and just graduated 9th grade year with high honors. She is also involved in her school’s advanced programs including advanced science, advanced math, and both Pre AP history and ELA. As a WJL Fellow, Shansanique is excited to deal with science that could also help the community learn more about what’s around them and help educate the community on what it can do to improve.

Throughout her life, Shansanique has always tried to improve the lives around me in any way possible and to help spread useful information. When she’s older Shansanique wants to be able to use her career to help people in any way possible. Shansanique is a Water Justice Lab fellow at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, a collaboration with Riverkeeper. She’s hoping to attend Massachusetts Institute of Technology for college and go into computer science, hopefully using computers in new and exciting ways to change communities and people for the better.

Estreja Turner is an Afro/Latino 12th grader of Shaker High School. In 2017 Estreja was a part of the Black Student Union and in 2018-2019 she was a member of the Key Club. Estreja started liturgical dancing at 3 years old. She joined the Art In Motion Dance Academy (AMDA) in 2009 where she participated in Hip-Hop classes for a couple of years in 2011 Estreja moved into other dance genres i.e. Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Tap, Contemporary, Musical Theatre and Technique. Estreja has been dancing competitively for a number of years. Estreja has been a Teacher Assistant AMDA for 5 years. Along with dancing Estreja has been an active in the community doing Get Out the Vote campaigns, Literature Drops for the 2010 and 2020 US Census, Black History Month Movie programs with the Capital District Chapter CBTU, a member of the CBTU National & Regional Youth Conferences and Conventions since 2012. Estreja participated in the 2019 & 2020 Capital Region Human Rights Summer Synopsis Program and also volunteers at Life Church Albany working with children. Estreja will be attending college in the fall majoring in Dance and minoring in Psychology. Estreja’s dream is to work with young people to help them learn to use dance as a way of communicating. Estreja feels like often young people do not always know how to articulate their thoughts and emotions and that Dance Therapy is another form of effective communication for children.

Erika Dulcinia Diggs is a writer, actress, and production assistant. Erika has been a producer for the Media Sanctuary for Independent Media for two years now. Before her time at the Sanctuary, she grew up in a small town. Erika is a mixed-race woman who never grew up seeing color, being from an Italian and Caribbean background she was able to see different perspectives. Erika was not truly aware of the harsh injustices that happened to people of color on the daily. She wanted to find a way to help, back in 2019 she stumbled into a young woman who told her she would be a perfect fit for the Sanctuary. Throughout the duration of her time here she learned how to engineer, produce, and edit interviews. Some of her biggest accomplishments are through her social justice work within the community with Homer Bosh Jr. She is a co moderator for this wonderful Black History: Capital Region Youth Rise Up Celebration because with everything that has happened this past year, we still must remember that it is okay to bring light to our influential black leaders who fought for us to have a voice.

Asad Benbow is a 17 year old filmmaker from Troy, NY. He is a student at YouthFx. He mainly creates satires because that is what he is most interested in.

Hi my name is Justin Gilmore ll. I am 15. I’m a sophomore at Troy High School. Some hobbies I have is playing football and playing the keyboard. When I grow up I want to be in the NFL or have a good music career. I’m a member of Team HERO.

My name is Diamond Owens. I am an active member of my community. I am a college student. I am dedicated to bringing my peers and the adults around us together. I’m a member of Team HERO.

My name is Olivia Ford, I’m a 6 year old first grader. I’m very energetic and have a love for soft and cuddly teddy bears and blankets. I love dancing, singing and exploring all types of talents.I once won runner up for lil Miss Uncle Sam(received my first trophy too). I have two big brothers who look after me. I love giving back to my community by volunteering with my parents.

My name is Jeriyah Ford, I’m a 14 year old 9th grader. I enjoy playing basketball,video games music and making tik tok videos.

“Black History Influencers” include:

Black History Environmental Justice Influencers

Leah Thomas is an intersectional environmental activist and eco-communicator based in Southern California. She’s passionate about advocating for and exploring the relationship between social justice and environmentalism. You can follow her work on instagram @GreenGirlLeah.

Dr. Robert Bullard is the Father of Environmental Justice. He has been a leading campaigner against environmental racism, as well as the foremost scholar of the problem, and of the Environmental Justice Movement which sprung up in the United States in the 1980s.

John H. Francis III (born 1946) John Francis is an American environmentalist nicknamed The Planetwalker. John Francis stopped travelling in cars and began walking wherever he went during the 1970s, often travelling vast distances with a backpack and banjo.

Rue Mapp is the Founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, a national not-for-profit organization with offices in Oakland, CA, and Washington, D.C. Rue oversees a carefully selected and trained national volunteer leadership team of nearly 90 men and women who represent 30 states around the US, and shares opportunities to build a broader community and leadership in nature.

Black History Black Women “Influencers”

Congresswoman Cori Bush is a registered nurse, community activist, organizer, single mother, and ordained pastor for the people of St. Louis. Congresswoman Bush is serving her first term as the representative of Missouri’s 1st Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. She is the first Black woman and first nurse to represent Missouri; the first woman to represent Missouri’s 1st Congressional District; and the first activist from the movement fighting for Black lives elected to the United States Congress.

Simone Leigh is a celebrated contemporary sculptor. Working in a variety of media that includes ceramic, video, installation, and bronze, her work explores issues of identity and race, beauty, and feminism. Her artworks frequently incorporate materials and forms traditionally associated with African art and the African diaspora, while her performance-related installations often blend historical precedent with personal stories.

Black History Filmmaker Influencers

Raymond Lawrence “Boots” Riley (born April 1, 1971), is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, rapper, and communist activist. He is the lead vocalist of The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. He made his feature-film directorial debut with Sorry to Bother You (released July 2018), which he also wrote.

Black History LGBTQ Influencers

Gladys Bentley A gender-bending blues performer who became 1920s Harlem royalty.

Bayrad Rusin was an American civil rights activist,a former adviser toMartin Luther King Jr. and a staunch advocate of gay rights,

Marsha P. Johnson was an activist, self-identified drag queen, performer, and survivor. She was a prominent figure in the Stonewall uprising of 1969. Marsha went by “Black Marsha” before settling on Marsha P. Johnson. The “P” stood for “Pay It No Mind,” which is what Marsha would say in response to questions about her gender. Marsha P. Johnson stood at the center of New York City’s gay liberation movement for nearly 25 years. Her body was found in the Hudson River in 1992.

Tending the Urban Forest
2021-03-07 10:00 - 13:00 | Freedom Square, 35 5th Ave, Troy, NY, 12180, United States
Learn about the Collard City Growers foodscape and how to care for our arboreal family, with professional arborists from the More Trees Cooperative.

***As health experts project we will continue to social distance into 2021, we’ll plan to wear masks.

Trees are amazing creatures. Like a fountain of life, they provide nourishment, habitat, shelter, materials, flowers, colors, and oxygen. They perform essential services like purifying the air and water. And they do it all for free! Trees on the Sanctuary’s campus produce delicious fruits, provide food for the chickens and protect them from predators, help offset the heat island effect of pavement, and look beautiful year round. Trees can thrive and propagate on their own, but a little loving tending can make the symbiotic relationship even stronger.

Collard City Growers is a volunteer-run food justice project where we connect arts and culture to growing a wealth of annuals and perennials including vegetables, medicinal herbs, natural dye plants, grains, and fruit trees. We share our homegrown harvest at neighborhood events that host hundreds of community members and passersby who come in search of nutrient dense food or “the best lettuce [they’ve] ever tasted.” During off-season, we share our harvest in the form of preserved greens, sauerkraut, pickles, and hot sauce.

**Snow date: Sunday, March 14th.**

Dying with Dignity in New York
2021-03-19 18:30 - 20:00 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/dying-with-dignity-in-new-york/
In the midst of unprecedented personal, national and global oppression, suffering and death, how do we process loss to maintain hopeful connections? The People’s Health Sanctuary has offered a 3-part series, End-of-Life in the Age of Covid featuring conversations about our experiences of death, end of life care, and the creation of social and spiritual community during the pandemic.

As a result of COVID-19, far too many New Yorkers have been forced to confront death, spurring what used to be uncomfortable, avoidable discussions about life and death issues among family and friends. What death looks like, when it comes, is something far too many of us now think about regularly yet many of us remain awkward about discussing.

Advance care planning can help ensure that you get the care that you want at the end of life, but terminally ill New Yorkers don’t have the full range of options that our neighbors in New Jersey and Vermont, and 8 other US jurisdictions have: the right to medical aid in dying. Nearly 20% of people living in the United States have access to this compassionate end-of-life care option, which allows terminally ill, mentally capable adults with six months or less to live to ask their doctor for a prescription they can take to avoid needless suffering and die peacefully on their own terms.

Participants will discuss what it means to have a “good death,” explore what advance care planning means and what tools exist to help put those plans in place, and learn about the option of medical aid in dying.

This event is part of the “End-of-Life in the Age of Covid” series of virtual conversations every 6 weeks presented by People’s Health Sanctuary.

Corinne Carey, Esq. MODERATOR & presenterSenior State Director for New York & New Jersey, Compassion & Choices

Compassion & Choices is the nation’s oldest, largest and most active nonprofit organization committed to improving care and expanding choice at the end of life. The organization works towards a society where people receive state-of-the-art care and a full range of choices for dying in comfort, dignity and control.

Corinne Carey joined Compassion & Choices as a Campaign Director in August 2015. She led the successful campaign for New Jersey’s Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act, which took effect on August 1, 2019.

Corinne joined C&C after nearly a decade with the New York Civil Liberties Union where she served as Deputy Legislative Director. At NYCLU, she engaged in advocacy around a wide range of civil liberties issues, concentrating on public health, medical privacy, discrimination, drug law reform, and reproductive rights issues. She led the campaign to pass a 10-point Women’s Equality Agenda as co-chair of the New York State Women’s Equality Coalition. All 10 points, including strengthening equal pay laws and codifying Roe v. Wade into state statute, have become law.

Prior to her tenure at the NYCLU, Corinne was a researcher with the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch where she focused on access to public housing for people with criminal records, punitive and ineffective sex offender registries, and the treatment of prisoners during Hurricane Katrina.

Corinne holds a masters degree in American Studies from the University at Buffalo, and she graduated summa cum laude and first in her class from SUNY Buffalo School of Law in 1998.

Volunteering as a political & public affairs correspondent for the Hudson Mohawk Magazine, an evening radio show on WOOC 105.3 FM out of the Sanctuary for Independent Media in the capital region, Corinne has produced more than 100 stories that can be heard on WOOC’s podcast. She lives in Troy, New York.

Donna SmithDiversity and Inclusion Advisor and State Director, Compassion & Choices

Donna Smith is an accomplished professional with over twenty years of experience in political consulting, legislative advocacy, public affairs, policy and program management.

Donna has been employed by Compassion and Choices (C&C) for 7 years. She is the Diversity and Inclusion Advisor and State Director for DC and Maryland. In this capacity she directs C&C’s state-based strategy on how to integrate diversity, equity and inclusion principles into the work, helping to ensure build culturally competent programming from the outset. led the campaign to pass end of Death with Dignity legislation in both the District of Columbia (the legislation passed in Feb. 2017) and Maryland.

Donna was the Chief of Policy and Community Programs for eight years at the Maryland Department of Aging. She led a team of program managers that implemented aging statewide programs for the aging and their caregivers. She was also detailed to work on the White House Conference on Aging in as a public relations specialist.

A graduate of Tuskegee University and George Washington Law School, she has one son and resides in Laurel, Md.

Dr. Mary Applegate

Dr. Mary Applegate is highly regarded nationally for her work in public health education and in maternal & infant health. She served as a public health physician and medical director in Women’s Health at the New York State Department of Health (DOH) for 14 years, followed by 15 years at the University at Albany School of Public Health as the Associate Dean for Public Health Practice. Dr. Applegate has been awarded statewide and national leadership awards in the fields of Preventive Medicine and Maternal & Child Health. Her volunteer work with Compassion & Choices takes her to a different part of the life cycle, but still emphasizes her belief in individual’s autonomy during this other universal life transition.

MORE ABOUT PEOPLE’S HEALTH SANCTUARY

People’s Health Sanctuary‘s goal is to establish a central space to share health skills, provide basic integrative care and explore ways to build networks of community health. We are celebrating a year of organizing around this project, initiated under the organizing name Health Autonomy Clinic and after listening sessions with our surrounding community, re-named People’s Health Sanctuary. Our goal is to embrace models of open sharing of health knowledge, and empower all of the growing collective of community members to seek their independent health goals, as opposed to the traditional, hierarchical top-down approach of clinical medical practice. Though caring for our elders, our children, or cooking soul-nourishing food for family or friends may not be deemed ‘real’ healthcare, they know that in fact, it’s what holds us together and keeps us sane. Our growing network sharing skills to build a space where creative, joyful health is possible and accessible.

In this current crisis, we are more than even committed to the potential that People’s Health Sanctuary can offer. Everyone it seems is struggling to keep up with the flood of information about the current crisis, the ways those in power are forcing us back to a “normal,” the over-reliance of the economy as a marker of anything lending towards health. And then we have the horrific news from Georgia and Minneapolis, the killings of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, a stark reminder of the crisis behind the crisis. COVID has only exacerbated the social oppression and disparities that mark the “normal” so many of the elites want to return to.

Local Voices / Local Media: The Struggle for Clean Air in the Hudson Mohawk Region
2021-04-21 19:00 - 20:30 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/local-voices-local-media-the-struggle-for-clean-air-in-the-hudson-mohawk-region/
You will receive links to the videos prior to the panel, and then can join in for a conversation with the media makers and local activists.

In the Shadows of Norlite, photo by Catherine Rafferty

On Earth Day, we celebrate our local voices in their eloquent calls for environmental justice and clean air in the Hudson Mohawk region. We focus on local media makers who are creating media as an organizing tool, whose work shines light on the power of personal voice.

Our “mini-media festival” features a conversation with local Capital Region media makers Sonja Stark with “Albany Alert,” Dave Publow with “We Care About Our Kids: Voices of the Victims of Norlite,” and Catherine Rafferty with “In the Shadow of Norlite,” along with the powerful voices featured in their films, Joe Ritchie, Judith Enck and Barbara Heinzen.

Our featured local media makers focus their lenses on two grassroots environmental action groups: Lights Out Norlite, who are raising awareness about the Norlite toxic waste incinerator located in Cohoes, and Clean Air Coalition Of Greater Ravena-Coeymans, who are addressing waste incineration and tire burning at the Lafarge/Holcim Ravena cement plant located next to the Ravena Coeymans Selkirk middle and high schools in Coeymans.

Sponsored by iEAR Presents! and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Register Here

EVENT SCHEDULE

7:00-7:10 Opening Welcome/ Thanks & Acknowledgements

7:10-7:40 Panel 1 Media as an Organizing Tool

7:10 Sonya Stark

7:20 Dave Publow

7:30 “In the Shadows of Norlite,” photojournalism essay by Catherine Rafferty

7:40- 8:10 Panel 2 Power of the Personal Voice

Discussion with subjects of the films: Joe Ritchie, Barbara Heinzen, Judith Enck

8:10 Final conversation/ Moving into action!

8:30pm End

MEDIA MAKERS

Sonja Stark

Sonja Stark began her freelance DP career in 2005. Prior to that she was employed as an Emmy award-winning news videographer for the local CBS news affiliate WRGB for over a decade. She has honed her craft shooting and editing footage in over 72 countries for documentaries about history, environment, music and social causes as well as episodic programming about travel for broadcast on cable channels and PBS. She calls her one-woman business PilotGirl Productions.

Dave Publow

Dave Publow is an environmental activist, radio journalist, printmaker, and videographer. He is also a resident of Troy, NY, one of the many communities directly affected by the Norlite hazardous waste incinerator. His focus is to use the tools at his disposal to spread awareness of environmental injustice, and to help galvanize the community to find the powers within themselves to meet the challenge.

Catherine Rafferty

Catherine Rafferty is a freelance photojournalist and documentary filmmaker from upstate New York whose work explores intimate, complex themes with concern for social justice. She recently worked in Phoenix, AZ at The Arizona Republic, part of the USA Today network, as a Pulliam Fellow covering the COVID-19 pandemic and calls for racial justice. She’s previously interned at the Times Union in Albany, NY and The Sanctuary, where she documented Uptown Summer in the Roots for Resilience solo exhibition. She graduated with a BFA in photojournalism from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2020. Rafferty produces the “Birth Justice” podcast on WOOC 105.3 FM and is currently media mentor to the Water Justice Lab Fellows at The Sanctuary. She’s excited to continue working with the fellows to tell the story of their community and its relationship to the river.

FEATURING

Joseph Ritchie is an environmental justice advocate and the Executive Director of Saratoga Sites Against Norlite Emissions. He is a student at Syracuse University studying Environmental Policy. Joe grew up in the shadows of Norlite.

Environmental Policy Expert Judith Enck founded Beyond Plastics in 2019 to end plastic pollution through education, advocacy, and institutional change. Passionate about protecting public health and the environment, she teaches classes on plastic pollution as a Senior Fellow and visiting faculty member at Bennington College, and was recently a Visiting Scholar at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.

Judith has held top influential positions in state and federal government. Appointed by President Obama, she served as the Regional Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, overseeing environmental protections in NY, NJ, eight Indian Nations, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands – in addition to managing a staff of 800 and a $700M budget. Previously, Judith served as Deputy Secretary for the Environment in the New York Governor’s Office, and Policy Advisor to the New York State Attorney General. She was Senior Environmental Associate with the New York Public Interest Research Group, served as Executive Director for Environmental Advocates of New York and the Non-Profit Resource Center, and is a past President of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. Judith appears on a weekly public affairs radio show on a local NPR affiliate, the Roundtable on WAMC in Albany, NY.

Barbara Heinzen is a long-term strategist and scenario planner with a successful 35-year practice working with companies and civil society, usually in non-Western countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Recent assignments have been with two multi-stakeholder projects concerning the future of energy: one in East Africa and the other in Pennsylvania, USA. In 2011, Barbara Heinzen returned to the USA from central London, UK after buying 20 acres of land along the Hudson River in upstate New York. This property is part of the Barbets Duet partnership. Individuals in East Africa, England and the USA are working with their own land and communities to learn how to manage land for environmental benefit while improving local livelihoods.

Register Here

Arica: A Toxic Waste Scandal with "Our Soil" Panel
2021-04-25 14:00 - 15:30 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/arica-a-toxic-waste-scandal-with-our-soil-panel/
View a special Northern Hemisphere sneak preview of the documentary Arica, then join us for a panel discussion with directors, Lars Edman and William Johansson Kalén, plus local “Our Soil” project leader Professor Abby Kinchy and Professor Sebastian Ureta (Chile) and Rodrigo Pino (Chile).

Register to screen the Arica documentary by Lars Edman, William Johansson Kalén plus join us for the “Our Soil” Panel! You will be sent a link once you register, with a 24 hour window to view the film. The panel will meet at 2 pm. Please view the film before or after the panel!

[Please note: because this is a sneak preview, we have agreed to close registration at 100 people, so be sure to register!]

Arica tells the story of a Swedish mining giant who dumped hazardous waste in Arica in northern Chile. Subsequently thousands of inhabitants are damaged. Now the survivors are seeking justice in a groundbreaking transnational corporate accountability trial.

A Swedish mining company exports 20,000 tonnes of toxic waste to the Chilean desert town of Arica. Thousands of people become sick, many die from cancer. ARICA plunges us into the groundbreaking corporate accountability trial which begins after Lars Edman – born in Chile and raised in Boliden – exposes the scandal.

Alongside his co-director William Johansson, Lars follows the story for 15 years, exposing how decisions made decades ago in Europe continue to affect people in South America. Part personal journey, part courtroom drama, ARICA is the story of an afflicted community fighting for justice against a multinational company desperate to clear their name.

Toxic Colonialism – the export of waste material from rich to poor countries – is on trial.

“Our Soil / Nuestros Suelos”

The city of Arica is a sister city with our local city of Troy, NY, in the project “Our Soil / Nuestros Suelos.”

Funded from a National Science Foundation grant, Our Soil involves community-engaged environmental research (“citizen science”). The Our Soil / Nuestros Suelos teams have been developing a Community Soil Study Toolkit to test soils for three heavy metals (lead, arsenic, and copper) that may be found in urban soils. One of our partners is in Chile, Dr. Sebastian Ureta, has done work with these DIY kits in Arica, Chile.

The research involves The Sanctuary for Independent Media as a community partner, bringing to the project strong record of involving neighborhood youth in environmental projects, such as water testing and urban gardening. Our plan is to hold a series of hands-on workshops with North Troy neighborhood residents, to teach them how to sample and analyze soil from yards and gardens. It is important to note a distinguishing element of the project: unlike soil testing projects that exist elsewhere, NSF has funded us to develop and evaluate a method of collaborative, community-based soil research. It is not merely “soil testing” but a package of interdisciplinary education and collective action, conducted and analyzed by an interdisciplinary research team.

More about the Panelists

Lars Edman

Born in Chile and raised in Sweden, Lars returned to South America to attend the Valparaiso Film School. Toxic Playground was Lars’ first film which went on to win 6 international awards, screening in over 30 international festivals and being broadcast on TV across Europe.

Since completing Toxic Playground, Lars has retrained as a speech and language therapist and now lives in the north of Norway. Arica will be his second feature documentary.

William Johansson Kalén

William Johansson Kalén has worked as a Director, Editor in chief, DoP and Film editor since 2006 and has been working with a number of documentaries, documentary series and TV-programs. He co-directed the award-winning documentary Toxic Playground in 2009 and started as a film producer in 2015 when he also became a shareholder of Laika Film & Television. He is currently producing an artistic documentary about architecture that will premiere in early 2021 and producing a couple of Laika’s projects in development. He has worked as assistant producer on the documentary Cold Case Hammarskjöld and the fiction Beauty And The Dogs and The Man Who Sold His Skin. He is also the Swedish producer in the fiction Jordanian film Farha that premiere in spring 2021.

Abby Kinchy

Abby Kinchy is a sociologist, working in the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS). Her research examines the politics of pollution, in order to illuminate the relationship between science and democracy.

Most recently, her research has focused on “citizen science”–public participation in environmental monitoring. Her goal is to bring concepts of power and social justice into sharper focus in popular and professional discussions of citizen science. What kind of citizenship is implied in citizen science? How can participatory environmental research enhance struggles for social change beyond merely generating data? Her book on this topic, co-authored with Aya H. Kimura, is Science by the People: Participation, Power, and the Politics of Environmental Knowledge (Rutgers, 2019). Kinchy’s newest NSF-funded project, Nuestros Suelos/Our Soil, explores how citizen science could help urban communities to identify heavy metal contamination in soil and to advocate for solutions.

Professor Kinchy is the author of Seeds, Science, and Struggle: The Global Politics of Transgenic Crops (MIT, 2012). She was the PI on the NSF-funded Watershed Knowledge Mapping Project, which examined the practices and politics of environmental monitoring in the context of shale gas development, or “fracking.” She is also a co-organizer of STS Underground, a research network that advances social science research on the technoscientific dimensions of mining, burial, and other forms of subterranean exploration.

Sebastian Ureta

Sebastián Ureta is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Santiago, Chile). He trained as a sociologist, with a focus on science and technology studies. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in sociology from the Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago and completed his PhD in 2006 in the media and communications department at the London School of Economics (UK). Subsequently, he worked as an Assistant Professor at the Instituto de Sociología, Universidad Católica de Chile. From November 2007 to March 2008 he was also a British Academy visiting fellow in the sociology department at Lancaster University (UK). From May 2009 to March 2012 he was a Marie Curie International incoming fellow at the Center for Technology and Society (ZTG), Technische Universität Berlin. Currently he is working on a research project focused on the government of industrial waste in Chile, in particular the massive waste produced by the country’s booming mining industry. In March 2015 he became the PI of the Millennium Nucleus for Energy and Society Research (NUMIES), a new research group studying the interrelations between energy issues and society in Chile.

Rodrigo Pino

Rodrigo Pino is from Arica. Since the beginning of the controversy regarding Boliden’s waste more than 10 years ago, Rodrigo has been quite probably the most important spokesperson of the affected communities.

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Toxic justice is a platform where we discuss waste trade, corporate responsibility and ways to legally challenge human rights abuse by big corporations in the west. The platform is inspired by the case of Arica Victims KB vs. Boliden and the documentary film ARICA, which describes the case. Our goals are prevention, accountability and reparation. And justice for those of us who are affected.

Sponsored by iEAR Presents! and the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Rensselaer, made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Echoes from Lock One
2021-04-30 00:00 - 23:59 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/echoes-from-lock-one/
“Echoes from Lock One” is an evocative call for environmental and water justice from the eyes and voices of youth in Troy, NY.

Personally screen this video and listen to a Q&A podcast with co-creators!

During the Sanctuary’s “Uptown Summer” program, media makers, artists and scientists worked with teens in camera, audio production, script writing, music production, dance, historical research as well as scientific testing, to create this experimental, participatory documentary with a message for change:

“We live along the shores of the Hudson River at the beginning of the Erie Canal, Lock One, the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. The history of the Erie Canal and the devastating effects of industrialization are mostly unknown… even to the people of Troy, who live right next to it. Our river and our neighborhood have been poisoned by a legacy of pollution. This is our call to action. For justice and for our future. No more waiting!”

Featured in:

Environmental Film Festival of the Capital

North Dakota Environmental Film Festival

Kansas City Environmental Film Festival

Mistah Jayohcee is an Artist, Activist, Performer, songwriter, producer, engineer, and promoter – a jack of all trades. He is a First Nations Mohawk Warrior who is also a hip-hop artist. Jayohcee is featured in Echoes from Lock One, teaching youth how to write and perform hip hop for their video, and offering a private performance for them.

Co-created by Youth Media Sanctuary/Uptown Summer Youth and Mentors in collaboration with The Sanctuary for Independent Media, Executive Producer Branda Miller.

The Sanctuary for Independent Media is a place for community-engaged interdisciplinary experimentation, with the overarching goal of shedding light on the intersectional role of media, science and art in the process of building a democratic society. Uptown Summer is a media arts and environmental education summer employment program for local youth to share homegrown stories of hope and justice.

Community Forum to Address Capital Region Health System Merger
2021-04-30 08:00 - 17:00 | The Sanctuary, 3361 6th Ave, Troy, 12180, United States
This event is over but, thanks to the magic of Sanctuary TV, you can watch the video here.

The Zoom chat window is here.

In October 2020, the Albany Times Union reported a planned merger between Ellis Medicine in Schenectady and St. Peter’s Health Partners. Mergers between Catholic Health Systems and secular hospitals have raised concern in communities across the country and they have for many years as evidenced by this 1995 article in the New York Times about Leonard and St. Mary’s Hospitals in Troy.

According to the national group MergerWatch, Catholic hospitals follow a set of ethical guidelines that prohibit the provision of certain kinds of patient care, most often, reproductive, LGBTQ+-inclusive, and end-of-life care.

Concerns about the financial stability of Ellis Medicine and its importance to the community reportedly drive the need for a partnership between two of the largest health systems in the region, a solution that is the result of years of planning.

But religious restrictions and forces of healthcare economics threaten to have a disparate impact on residents who already face barriers in our healthcare system. A knowledgeable panel will discuss, answer questions, and hear comments from the community about:

• How religious restrictions will affect (and how religious biases may affect) equitable access to healthcare services• Possible solutions to eliminating gaps in services through other local healthcare providers• Potential community benefits resulting from the partnership.• History of SPHS’s aggressive medical bill collection• Process required for partnership approval by the NYS Department of Health• The importance of memorializing the community’s priorities in the application for certificate of need, including an effective enforcement mechanism• Opportunities for advocacy and continuing dialogue

Speakers:

Michelle Ostrelich is a Schenectady County Legislator and Chair of the Legislature’s Health & Human Services Committee.

Lois Uttley, MPP, is Women’s Health Program Director for Community Catalyst, a national consumer health advocacy organization. She has worked for more than 20 years to protect access

to comprehensive reproductive health services, LGBTQ-inclusive care and end-of-life options when community hospitals propose to merge with nearby Catholic hospitals. She has published research about the growth of large Catholic health systems and, as Founder/Director of the MergerWatch Project, advised community coalitions in 38 states, including several in NYS. Now based in Manhattan, Lois serves on the steering committee of the statewide Health Care for All New York coalition and coordinators the work of Community Voices for Health System Accountability. Formerly a Capital District resident, she served as Vice President of Family Planning Advocates of NYS, Director of Public Affairs for the NYS Department of Health and an award-winning reporter and editor covering New York State government for the Albany Times Union.

Arthur Butler is the executive director of the Schenectady County Human Rights Commission. Butler helped found the Capital District African American Coalition on AIDS, serving as their executive director for 17 years. He also worked for Hunger Solutions New York and as the national project coordinator of the Framework for Dialogue – USA.

Nikita Hardy, MPA, is the Affirmative Action Manager for Schenectady County She is a well-respected, highly recommended political strategist and community engager with over 14 years of progressive experience, including having held dynamic roles within legislative, state and local government. She recently has taken on several endeavors to further causes impacting marginalized communities. Most notably her passion for birth justice and breastfeeding advocacy led her to organize the Capital Region Black Breastfeeding Empowerment Network, as well as her committed research on Maternal Mortality of Black Women in America. She is an advocate, an educator, a public speaker, full-spectrum Doula and policy enthusiast.

Dr. Debbie Stulberg is a long-time colleague in the work trying to protect reproductive health care from Catholic health restrictions. She was a family medicine resident at West Suburban Hospital in Illinois when it was taken over by the Catholic Resurrection Health System. Since then, she has become one of the nation’s leading researchers on the impact of religious restrictions on patients and doctors.

Glenn Northern leads and implements Catholics for Choice US activities, including advocacy, outreach, policymaker education, legislative analysis and collegial relationships. He directs CFC’s Catholics in Public Life project, a nonpartisan public education initiative that helps Catholic policy makers in the US clearly articulate prochoice positions grounded in progressive Catholicism and sound public policy. He oversees CFC’s strategic relationships with pro-choice Catholics, policymakers, reproductive health providers, religious and secular activists and collegial organizations to inform and influence debates on sexual and reproductive health and rights, social justice and religious liberty. Before joining CFC, Mr. Northern led constituency building and advocacy efforts at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. He holds a degree in political science and women’s studies from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts.

This People’s Health Sanctuary event is sponsored by The Schenectady Coalition for Healthcare Access. The Schenectady Coalition for Healthcare Access was formed to educate the administrations and the public about the risks of losses to our community from Ellis’ partnership with SPHP. In addition to education, members of the Coalition seek to advocate equitable access to evidence-based, inclusive, and comprehensive patient-centered care, including comprehensive reproductive care, infertility care, LGBTQ+-inclusive care, gender affirming care and end-of-life care within our local community. www.schdy.org

Community partners include:Local Care Midwifery, PLLCNew York Civil Liberties UnionRosemarie Pérez Jaquith, Niskayuna Town Board MemberProClergy.comProgressive Schenectady

Community Investment, Not Community Police
2021-05-02 19:00 - 20:30 | https://www.mediasanctuary.org/event/community-investment-not-community-police/
This event is past – but you can watch the town hall on YouTube or below!

Did you know the City of Troy is voting next Thursday to expand the police force by six additional officers?

Join a coalition of groups from Troy in a Town Hall on Sunday, May 2, 2021 as we discuss recent actions by the City of Troy around policing. This gathering is being convened at the last minute as the City Council Finance Committee pushes forward to hire an additional SIX police officers to the Troy Police Department. The proposal passed in this Committee with a 5-2 vote and the full City Council vote will take place on Thursday, May 6, 2021.

Co-sponsored by Troy Coalition of Black Leaders, NAACP Troy Branch, YWCA of the Greater Capital Region, The Justice Center of Rensselaer County, Equality for Troy, and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

Register

Speakers

Jerry Ford (Troy Coalition of Black Leaders)

Renee Powell (NAACP Troy Branch)

Willie Terry (Coalition of Black Trade Unionists)

Diamond Owens (Community Youth)

Starletta Smith (Police Reform & Reinvention Collaborative)

Tasheca Medina (Equality for Troy)

Jessica Ashley (The Justice Center for Rensselaer County)

Deanna Ultimo Swenson (North Central resident)

Background

Recently, the City of Troy, like most municipalities across the State of New York, held a series of discussions on the topic of policing. Governor Cuomo’s Executive Order 203, issued in June of 2020, required municipalities with police forces to examine the policies and procedures of their police department and make recommendations for future changes to address police violence, biased policing, and systemic racism. The measure stated its intention was to provide transparency and build trust, urging localities to hold listening sessions and meetings with community members.

Mayor Madden did not announce the creation or intentions of the Police Reform & Reinvention Collaborative until the end of January 2021. There were nine highly controlled meetings held in February with very little open community participation—the city made little effort to inform residents about the meeting or how to get involved.

Once the report was drafted, in early March, Black leaders throughout the city expressed their dismay and loss of trust in the city about this process. This included all four Black PRRC committee members (Starletta Smith, Executive Director, YWCA of the Greater Capital Region, Inc. and Renée Powell, President of the NAACP, Troy, NY Branch, Pastor Justin Relf of Rhema Revealed Ministries, and Stacey Howard of Troy’s Police Objective Review Board). They released a statement decrying the report and saying that they felt “tokenized throughout this process.”

So why this, why now?

As critiques of policing grow across the country and calls for reallocating funds to expand or create new entities to respond to mental health calls, domestic disputes, traffic stops, and more, Troy is swiftly pushing forward to increase the police budget and add more police to the force. Again, with very little time for dialogue and discussion with community members and community leaders.

While the City of Troy, Mayor Madden, and the Troy City Council avoid input from community members, we are making space for dialogue and discussion. We know that with more investment in social services and community support, communities can better look out for each other and construct the means through which to survive and thrive.In what ways can we call for structural investment to address the history of deliberate marginalization and segregation? How can we invest in our under-funded, under-served, structurally marginalized Black and brown communities?

While Mayor Patrick Madden told the Times Union, “People want police officers out in the neighborhood. They want police officers to know them. They want to know their police officers.” Given the lack of space for open dialogue and discussion, we don’t know who the Mayor is referring to.

We are convening to address the lack of dialogue, alternatives to policing, alternatives to more police and a bigger police budget as an answer, and calls to invest in our neighborhoods and communities!

Join us. Listen. Share your thoughts.

What should Troy be investing in?

Why increase an already large police budget?

The problems of policing in Troy.

What are alternatives to hiring “community” police officers?

Local leaders will discuss their opinions and visions for Troy

What are strategies for moving forward?

You can listen to Renée Powell and Starletta Smith share more about their experience on the City of Troy’s Police Reform & Reinvention Collaborative committee with Hudson Mohawk Magazine producer, Elizabeth Press:
