From Urban Health Council
INVITATION TO JOIN THE HEALTH JUSTICE & HEALING PROGRAMME
Overview of the Programme
This co-learning programme is aimed at health practitioners who want to develop their understanding and implementation of health justice, and explore together how health practitioners can become forces for collective liberation. Health justice is a lens through which we can identify the structural violences that produce mass ill-health and suffering, organise together to disrupt them and build liberated futures based on and a collective, political and ecological understanding of health. Health justice is deeply intertwined with many movements such as environmental justice, anti-colonialism, land back, feminism and queer liberation.
This programme is for those who understand the duty to witness and expose health injustice, as well as to disrupt the systems and structures which create it alongside movements and communities. A key framework of this type of work is learning how to identify pathways of structural violence within the medical industrial complex itself. For example, we will explore how the interplay between capitalism and supremacy structures creates health practices that blame the individual instead of taking an ecological approach. Additionally, we will investigate how this interplay creates physiological risks to people’s health.
This invite is extended to anyone working in healthcare and looking to create pathways for health justice in their work and life, whatever that looks like for them. We hope to build networks of Kin who can continue to learn together and practise health justice beyond the programme. To be able to create deep solidarity and kinship, whilst moving at a gentle speed, we are looking for 5 participants in this first iteration of the programme.
*Health practitioners includes all people working directly with individuals and communities towards healing - this includes nurses, doctors, sexual health workers, traditional healers and more.
You can read more in our introductory pamphlet.
Invitation Questions
We are asking potential co-learners to answer three simple questions, which will help us understand how the programme can fit with your health justice goals. This process is not an application as it is not driven by competition; rather, it's designed to facilitate a deeper understanding of individuals who fit best into the program's intentions and community.
These questions are deliberately designed to be open and simple. Please interpret them as you wish.
Principles of Engagement
We kindly ask all applicants to commit to attending 100% of the sessions scheduled during the program dates specified in the introductory pamphlet. However, we understand that unexpected circumstances may arise, and we are committed to working gently and flexibly to accommodate your needs.
There are no fees associated with this program. For the in-person healing retreat, we will cover transportation expenses and provide an honorarium to compensate for costs you may incur, such as childcare or taking time off from work.
About Centric Lab
We are a neuroscience lab dedicated to creating infrastructure for radical community healing. Our work integrates a biological lens with environmental data, generating geospatial insights crucial to advancing our collective health justice journey. While rooted in scientific inquiry, we recognise that to achieve and enact justice requires more than empirical evidence alone. Thus, we have developed a unique "process for justice" inspired by the ethos of movements such as the Zapatistas and the Black Panther Party, emphasising healing grounded in dignity, kinship, and love.
We see ourselves not as trailblazers, but as vital contributors to a longstanding ecosystem dedicated to seeking justice. Our approach eschews hierarchical structures in favour of nurturing multiple forms of justice within a living, self-sustaining organism. As an ecosystem, we embrace collaboration and cross-organisational kinship as essential components of the journey towards justice. The Urban Health Council is one of our methods in delivering this.
Contact the programme co-hosts
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions!
image © Emory Douglas