This Pride Month, we share the loving reminder that RYSE lives and leads in the legacies and present day leadership of Black queer revolutionaries, in the power of Black and Brown queer and trans solidarity, and in protest and persistence to abolish the false and oppressive gender binary.
The future we all need is being created, conjured and called in by LGBTQIA+ youth. One year has passed since last spring when the RYSE Campus fully reopened for young people. One year of at least the next 100 years on land committed to serving Black, Indigenous and Young People of Color. This commitment means naming that we are in a time of escalating violence and terror for beloved queer and trans kin. It means insisting on the existence of loving sanctuaries that queer BIPOC youth deserve. It means that we are still a work in progress, with young people leading their peers and staff in checking our biases, remembering pronouns, in being active allies and protectors of our trans youth. It means activating a Health Justice Center at RYSE that embodies healing justice and liberation for all genders. It means acknowledging that this work is messy and the path through is centering and lifting up LGBTQIA+ young people; queering our programs; celebrating, affirming, bearing witness and listening to them with love.
To all the queer and trans young people in West Contra Costa County, we see you and we love you.
To our adult allies, we invite you to donate to organizations nationwide fighting for LGBTQ+ liberation, including RYSE.
LGBTQ Resources for Learning & Mutual Aid Listed Here:
Follow us to stay posted on our Pride events and programming this month!
Asian Pacific Islander Month
Asian Pacific Environmental Network Youth Leaders painted a mural "Flowers for our Families," a dedication to generations of Asian Americans and the journey of contribution to the present and future.
Photos of RYSE member and staff at the mural unveiling
Flowers for our Families is a tribute to the ways that working class Asian Americans have built power and made home in Contra Costa. Click the button below to read more.
Media, Arts, & Culture
In May, the MAC team supported the Arts Education Alliance of the Bay Area's Mini Conference for Prop 28 at the Oakland Museum of California! Included in this convening was an opening performance by RYSE's Community Arts Partnerships Manager, Reggie Edmonds, who performed their poem "Negro Spiritual for the 21st Century." Click the button below for more information on Prop 28 and how you can support arts education in your local schools.
Education Justice Action Research (EJAR)
EJAR intern Maria hosted her own workshop titled Rooted Wellness! Members had a conversation about the importance of self-care. Maria then shared the wellness wheel and members were asked to select one area from the wellness wheel to use as inspiration to paint for 30 mins.
RYSE Commons Site Visits
With RYSE student, partner, and community tours picking up steam, the latest groups to pay us a visit were Summit Tam Middle School students, Richmond High School students, and courtesy of Women Win's International Sports Exchange, a group traveling all the way from Tonga and Fiji!!
Summer: What's to Come at RYSE
Congratulations 2023 Graduates!!!
Several RYSE members are graduating and transitioning on to the next stages of their lives! To mark this exciting season, young people participated in a cap decoration workshop, adding their own personal imprints on their caps and this special moment.
