If you can't see this newsletter properly, please click HERE

Dear community,

Together, we are turning inward. The season demands this of us (for those in the Northern Hemisphere) and in this time of global mourning and collective action– so does the world. Passed are the days of Summer and ending are the warmer days of Fall. We have marked the cross-quarter: Samhain in the Gaelic tradition, Hallow’s Eve, Día de los Muertos – the days of balance between darkness and light, where we honor our dead and celebrate the living. Now, together we journey into the darkest days of the year, when gathering around the collective hearth becomes more important than ever. 

November is Indigenous people’s month. This season, may we come together to grieve lives lost over hundreds of years of colonization across Turtle Island and around the globe – and especially today, in Gaza. May we mark this month of commemoration by working towards land rematriation for all peoples, working towards sovereignty and the right to life and thriving. This is our prayer. This is our action.

Youth Passageways has so much to grieve and so much to celebrate in this time. Members of our community are devastated by the sudden loss of one of our own – Irving Alvarez, woven with us through the Youth Justice Coalition. Together we remember Irving and shout out his legacy. As we come together in grief, we also celebrate our resilience as a network – 10 years of gathering as a cross-cultural web. Our tapestry has been fortified in this last season by coming together in powerful ways, both in-person for our annual Spiral Leadership Gathering in Washington and at the Life Comes From it Gathering in Missouri, as well as online for our 10th Anniversary Celebration and Fundraiser. 

The living, breathing organism that is our network is evolving. Through holding each other close and listening for what is most alive, we are finding our way into exciting new forms. We invite you to join us into this next season of things and support us. Our big fundraiser for Giving Tuesday is underway now and this is a potent time to both engage more deeply with our network, and give to help us fortify as we enter into this next season of building together. 

Thank you for your solidarity and relationship. We are bound up in this web together, and stronger for it. 

With care and strength to last us through Winter,

yeshe for the Youth Passageways Team

Want to feature your project or event in our next newsletter?

We want to hear from you! Please share your stories, updates, events, and calls to action to info(at)youthpassageways.org, and we’ll make sure to include them in the next community update. 

YOUTH PASSAGEWAYS UPDATES

This October the Youth Passageways family gathered for our annual Spiral Leadership Gathering! This year we gathered in the Pacific Northwest on Squaxin Island and Puyallup homelands to renew and deepen our connection to each other and this ecosystem of Youth Passageways; review and bring imagination into the evolving futures of the network; and celebrate our collaborative good work. It was a weekend brimming with community magic – from shared meals to circling under the old growth redwoods to dance parties. Together we also marked and honored the “graduation” of founding team member and long term co-director, Darcy Ottey, after 10 years of devotion to this network, and welcomed in new faces into our circle. 

We are excited to welcome our new Stewardship Council Members Akil Bell, Breen Cardinal, Njoli Brown and Tianna Arredondo as well as a new Guardian, Melissa Goodblanket, into the YPW family!

After our gathering, one thing remains clear: our shared love for each other and this work is the bedrock of Youth Passageways, and the lifeblood that keeps us flowing as we enter into this next cycle. We are so excited for all the fresh energy moving in the network!

Want to get involved? Email info@youthpassageways.org and see the flier at the bottom of this newsletter.

The Youth Passageways Community is grieving the loss of an incredible soul –  Irving Alvarez – friend and comrade of so many in our web. To honor Irving’s life and the legacy of working towards justice that he leaves behind, we are sharing some of his story (as shared first by the Youth Justice Coalition) here as well as a GoFundMe link to support his family in this time….

We are heartbroken to share that our comrade Irving Alvarez passed away and transitioned as an ancestor on October 31, 2023.  For years, Irving has been a friend, leader, organizer, facilitator, mentor, and freedom fighter in youth and community justice spaces here in L.A. and across the state. Originally from the state of Georgia, Irving was introduced to movement spaces right here at Chuco’s Justice Center, as a formerly incarcerated young person seeking resources through our @welcomehome_la program. He eventually enrolled in YJC’s on site school at FREE LA High @ybcharter and then became a YJC L.O.B.O.S Youth Organizer, stepping onto the frontlines of dozens of campaigns around police violence, Youth sentencing, the war on youth, war on gangs, youth development, probation oversight, ballot measures, ending the school to jail track and many more.

These are only a few of Irving’s endless contributions to our collective healing & justice work. He was truly a movement butterfly-diving head first into new experiences, organizations, coalitions, partnerships & spaces of healing. We invite you to join us in commemorating Irving's life and legacy with us. Irving will now be watching over us and caring for us as a movement ancestor.

Please DONATE on the GoFundMe link IN OUR BIO to help his family with expenses. 🙏🕊️

Thank you for helping us honor 10 years of Youth Passageways

Restoring Lifeways was a success!  We gathered together as a community in collective prayer, conversation, song, movement and JOY in the midst of hard times to both bear witness to the sorrows and deepen into our collective resilience and ability to gather in honor and celebration of life. 

Thank you to our incredible performers and speakers!

Together we were able to raise over $11k, ⅕ of our $50k goal by the end of the year!!! Thank you to our incredibly generous donors and all those that came out for the fundraiser incredible performers and speakers!  

We still need more help!! Can you help us raise $10k for Giving Tuesday towards our $50,000 goal by the end of the year

Please donate TODAY to help us reach our goal!

Reminder: Restoring Lifeways Auction!

As a part of our upcoming fundraising campaign for #givingtuesday we are auctioning off incredible gifts donated from across our network to support resource flow for Youth Passageways!

From one-of-a-kind, hand-made treasures from artists across our community to mentorship and coaching opportunities with our rockstar YPW leaders, our auction includes truly next-level selection of gifts for yourself or your beloveds this holiday season. The best part? Every penny you spend will go directly to supporting Youth Passageways to continue doing the work we do, as we weave this relational web for healing, accountability and resilience! 

For more info and to BID NOW go to the link in our bio or through this QR code !!

Mark your calendars! Beginning in January 2024, we’ll be offering a 9-month online study course for white, white-assimilated, and white-passing folx committed to generating healthy passages in their lives, families, and communities.

Guided by Darcy Ottey & Shay Sloan Clarke. Stay tuned for more details; applications will open November 27th. Sign up to receive notifications here.

The Taking Off The Mask (TOTM) workshop has reached more than 70,000 students, adults, and corporate teams around the world! This training will be for anyone who desires to help create spaces of connection, community, and authenticity in their schools, community, or workplace.The Taking off the Mask: Training of Trainers workshop will equip school & community leaders to guide participants on a journey that will help them be comfortable in their identity and begin living lives that reflect their true selves - not living to conform to others' expectations.

The Taking off the Mask: Training of Trainers workshop will equip school & community leaders to guide participants on a journey that will help them be comfortable in their identity and begin living lives that reflect their true selves - not living to conform to others' expectations.

Coming March 2024 in Oakland, CA

Learn more here.

Queer Conversation (QC) is a weekly drop-in gathering, facilitated by Queer Asterisk counseling interns. QC is not a therapy group; it is an opportunity to share ideas, thoughts, feelings & stories as people who resonate with queer experience. Together in thoughtful discussion and shared presence, we seek to deepen our connection to ourselves and expand our sense of belonging in community. 

Topics change weekly. Previous topics include mindfulness, intersectionality, BLM, coming out, building chosen family, gender transition, queerness in spirituality & religion, and more. The conversation is fluid, arising from embodied, alive realities of queerness.

Learn more here.

Grief Support at Sacred Groves: In-person and online

Community Grief Rituals are an opportunity to recognize how universal grief is and how helpful it is to give and receive compassionate support in a well-held container.

Upcoming: In-Person Grief Retreat December 1-3

Gwinwood Retreat Center

Lacey, WA

Learn more

A new year long Talking Water series focused fully on Los Angeles is beginning in January.  Registration opening and more info coming soon… 

The Youth Passageways Education & Consulting Collective is available for one-on-one mentoring, organizational consulting, training or facilitation, and cross-initiative collaboration on topics related to:

• Equity & rites of passage
• Culturally-appropriate ceremonial design
• Family-, community-, and culturally-rooted rites of passage
• Transformative justice (including conflict transformation support and culture development)
• Council and other social technologies
• Guidance on individual initiatory journeys
• Ancestral recovery
• Gender and sexuality equity for LGBTQIA+, Queer & Trans communities
• Rite of passage program development
• Anti-racism and anti-oppression education

Learn more here, and fill out the ECC Inquiry and Initial Intake Form to talk more with one of our collective members. 

Donate Today!

In this season of giving, please join the collective prayer that all young people will be held in wholeness, love, and respect on their journey to adulthood by supporting the work of Youth Passageways and our solidarity partners! 

Funds given this winter will help us bring on additional staff to provide more direct support for frontline partners, strengthen communications, and generate resources for the network as a whole. For more information, please reach out to darcy@youthpassageways.org

PO BOX 46631, Kansas City, MO 64188
info@youthpassageways.org | www.youthpassageways.org

You are receiving this email because you are on the Youth Passageways mailing list.

© 2022 Youth Passageways. All Rights Reserved.

Unsubscribe me | Change my information