Workshops

Can You Hear Me Now? A Digital Security Training for Movement Lawyering

Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe. What does digital safety and security look like in an increasingly oppressive organizing landscape? How do you ensure that your confidential communications with comrades are protected from state interference and observation? Join Ría Thompson-Washington, mass defense expert and president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, for an interactive workshop about digital security and safety for movement lawyers. 

Faciliated By Ría Thompson-Washington

Ría Thompson-Washington (they/she/elle) is an anti-racist activist, Afro-Latine, Queer, nonbinary feminist living on unceded Anacostean known as Washington, DC. They have spent over twenty years, organizing and training Black and Latine people, working on various campaigns in the Labor movement to Occupy Wall Street, and more recently, providing legal support to Movements. She is the president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild and the founder of Rialistic Strategies, a boutique consulting firm that develops creative, strategic campaign plans through digital organizing and narrative construction for base-building organizations and their members.

Other Ways the World Might Be: Creative Practice and Transformative Justice 

Imagination and creative practices do not simply play a theoretical role in facilitating collective liberation but are a necessary part of re-shaping how we relate to the status quo and transformative justice. This workshop will explore how art and embodiment have been integral to radical struggles and invite attendees to explore their creative practice of choice. We’ll focus on strategies for bringing our daily actions in line with our values and strengthening our voices to build power and fight for different ways of being in the world. 

Facilitated by Joshua Aiken and Javi Villatoro

Joshua Aiken (he/him) is a poet and anti-carceral advocate. A Cave Canem Fellow, de Groot Foundation grantee, and Vermont Studio Center resident, Joshua’s poetry collection, to be in & of, won the 2023 Palette Poetry Chapbook Prize as selected by poet Chen Chen. Joshua is the former Policy Fellow at the Prison Policy Initiative, Researcher-in-Residence for Artspace New Haven’s 2020 exhibition on the local chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and current J.D./Ph.D. Candidate in History and African-American Studies. 

Javi Villatoro is a two spirited Zapotec poet. They migrated from Oaxaca ten years ago and have been living undocumented and unafraid on Quinnipiac land since. They are a Chef and worker-owner of Tortillería Semilla Cooperativa and a member of Colectivo Semilla de New Haven. Javi is also an avid reader and a student of armed and non violent revolutionary movements around the world.