>> Thursday: Tear Down the Walls
Wednesday, January 14, 2009 - 06:52 PM
organizing in prison/organizing on campus
a round table on promoting dialogue & solidarity between students & prisoners
Thursday January 15th, 6:30pm
At the Concordia Community Solidarity Co-op Bookstore
2150 Bishop Street, metro Guy-Concordia
(see map at www.co-opbookstore.ca)
With speakers from:
Certain Days political prisoner calendar project
Open Door Books
Prisoner Correspondence Project
ReCon
Project descriptions:
Certain Days Political Prisoner Calendar Project
The Certain Days political prisoner calendar project We work to support, educate about and fundraise for political prisoners through the production of a yearly calendar. The calendar is a project produced by organizers in Montreal and Toronto, with the support of 3 political prisoners in upstate New York. We work with an anti-imperialist, anti-racist, feminist, queer and trans positive perspective to help free our movement's political prisoners.
Open Door Books
We have been sending books to prisons across the US and Canada for over fifteen years. We regularly send to youth detention centres, immigration detention centres, and federal and provincial prisons throughout Quebec and Ontario. Open Door Books relies entirely on donations of books provided by folks living in Montreal. We seek to support and work in solidarity with incarcerated communities. We believe books can be a life-changing resource and a distraction from the grind of prison life. We believe all prisoners have the right to access quality books and reading material of their choice.
Prisoner Correspondence Project
We coordinate a direct-correspondence program for gay, lesbian, transsexual, transgender, gendervariant, two-spirit, intersex, bisexual and queer inmates in Canada, linking these inmates with people a part of these same communities outside of prison. The project also coordinates a resource library of information regarding harm reduction practice (safer sex, safer drug-use, clean needle care), HIV and HEPC prevention, homophobia, transphobia, coming out, etc.
ReCon
Re-Con is a prisoner initiated re-integration program, created in 1999, for lifers and long-term prisoners pending release at the Federal Training Center in Quebec. The motivation behind its inception was to establish a connection between the prisoner and the outside community, after a long period of incarceration. It is Re-Con's main goal to establish links with the community, especially regarding the community resources that may aid in the reintegration process and in diminishing the effects of long-term incarceration (institutionalization).
Presented by the above working groups of QPIRG Concordia as well as the Concordia Community Solidarity Co-op Bookstore
Free childcare is available for this event, with 48 hours advance notice. Please contact workinggroups@qpirgconcordia.org or 514-848-7585 to request childcare or for general info.
