Dear OUT team
Thank you for the incredible privilege to facilitate you all in reflecting on what makes your work possible. It is the first time I can honestly say that I’ve worked with a group who truly makes space for everyone to show up authentically. So often in spaces where there are people with lived experience, activists and academics there are inherent power dynamics in the way everyone engages with and understands each other, and it’s really hard work as a facilitator to keep levelling the playing field. But my work with you was easy. Because you have already done so much of that work.
And you’ve managed to create this equitable group dynamic while maintaining a vibrancy that so many other groups lose when they sanitise themselves in the name of belonging - because so many teams fail to understand that belonging can never truly occur if people can’t show up with their whole being. When looking through the notes from the session someone had written “When do you feel our group is most alive?”, and for me I feel like I witnessed an aliveness in you each as individuals and in the shared energy between you all throughout the whole day.
To have held onto that aliveness after 4 years of working together on a topic like Prison Abolition is pretty huge. As someone in the group articulated in their drawing, you are battling against a huge tidal wave. You are slowly attempting to unpick a system and society that has harm and inequity threaded deep within it’s DNA - there is no denying that this is an uphill battle. The lightness and joy you manage to bring to that work is what will sustain you in this battle, and I think there are a few things you do that enable that to be true.
The first and most important thing you do is how you embody the change you seek. There is a deep acknowledgement within the group that this work isn’t just about Prisons, it’s about the entire system and culture we live in. Because of that you are all aware that every moment is an opportunity to embody a different way of being together. And while the time you invest in building trust and relationships might feel like it’s not ‘active’ or ‘campaigny’ enough, it is actually more than that. It is you demonstrating and bringing to fruition the foundations of an alternative future where punitive systems are not required. It is you going beyond just saying what needs to change, and showing everyone (yourselves included) what is possible when you centre different values and beliefs and deeply embed that in how you show up with each other.
I knew I could experiment with how I facilitated you all because you know the power of doing things differently, and of just allowing yourself to experience what is possible when we try out different ways of relating and communicating together. Alongside this there is also a deep groundness among you all, and it feels like you have a real understanding of how to be strategic about the change you are trying to create in the word.
When you are dismantling a monolith, just randomly throwing stones at it won’t disturb the core - and yet so many of us within oppressed communities and within activism know that it’s easy to fall into doing precisely that because we are desperate. In contrast, you have demonstrated a long term commitment to each other and to this work, and it’s clear that over the years you have continued to hone your capacity to think strategically about what you are trying to do and how you are doing it rather than just having kneejerk reactions and burning yourselves out.
I think one of the things that has made it possible for you to remain grounded and strategic in your fight for change is the rituals you implement. While you all joke about the yellow soup you enjoy each meeting together I do think there is power in that consistency. Each time you meet you can be confident that you will be nourished, and be reassured by the familiarity of it all. You also have this with your meeting structures - you know there will be space and time for you to speak to particular feelings or thoughts, you don’t have to panic about whether or not you will get a chance to be heard. And that consistency also makes space for you to be responsive. So that when there are moments when you have to react more swiftly, you can galvanise together because you have the scaffolding you need to work from.
Alongside being ambitious dreamers, you are also realists. As much as you welcome diverse lived experiences into your spaces, and have a million ideas for how to create change, it’s also clear that you are as individuals and a collective quite measured about what you are capable of. You can navigate this because you have a good self-awareness around the value and time you each have capacity to bring. And when someone has a passion for responding to an opportunity or challenge through a particular medium or lens - such as Sam’s map making or Ella’s flag making idea - you bring energy and encouragement and enthusiasm to that person to boost their intrinsic motivation to make something happen.
We all need this type of capacity, awareness and encouragement when working in this sort of space - to deeply understand and utilise the value we can bring. I think you’ve fostered a real honesty among yourselves and that makes it possible for everyone to really see what they can bring to the space and the roles they can play.
There’s so much more that I could say about the thoughtfulness and consideration you put into each other and this work, and I hope I get to learn more alongside you in the future, but to have even witnessed you for a few days has been truly uplifting for me in my work.
Ray
This letter is part of the holding space together series. A collection of letters to and from people who are part of the Holding Space community - if you want to be part of this space you can join an upcoming cohort.