Astraea’s blog, Collective Care Blog: Building the Power & Resilience of LBTQI Movements Now & for the Long Haul, is Astraea’s response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. As a feminist LBTQI funder, we believe it is our responsibility to shed light on the ways our communities are particularly impacted by the crisis, share insights around the criticality of healing justice and collective care, as well as the ways in which we’re digging deep to keep shifting power to the grassroots in meaningful and sustainable ways.

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by Sabrina Rich, Communications Team

As a queer feminist foundation that has been around for over four decades, we know what it is that allows us to survive, thrive, and heal: being in community.

As the impacts of COVID-19 continue to take a toll on our bodies, our psyches, and our everyday lives, we’re reflecting on what it means to truly stand in those communities. This post is an offering in that service. In these uncertain times, we know that caring for community—neighbors, friends, chosen family, and ourselves—is vital and necessary for supporting our collective healing. 

To quote our Healing Justice Report,

 “Over the last decade, we at Astraea have witnessed and been moved by the emergence and rise of healing justice work—resiliency and survival practices that center the collective safety and wellbeing of communities—as an integral part of our fight for collective liberation. We have learned from our grantee partners how these practices and traditions can be tools for building power, and how they can deepen and sustain the long and hard work of movement-building. Rooted in their wisdom, we continue to work to integrate healing justice as a core aspect of our grantmaking and accompaniment to organizations and movements, both in the U.S. and globally.” 

In that spirit, we’re uplifting some powerful healing justice resources that have moved us recently for their social justice and community focused approaches to healing. These resources come from movement leaders and healing justice practitioners who have and continue to prioritize collective care as integral to our freedom, and to achieving justice for all. We hope they will be helpful to you and your communities as you seek to find ways through this moment and beyond.

Some highlights!

• “Healing, as opposed to healing justice, often gets stuck in supporting self care when that is only one impact.”
  • coronavirus and community care… a few weeks in by Susan Raffo
• “We all have a responsibility to protect our cherished elders and those who are also vulnerable and valuable members of our communities.”
  • Decolonizing Community Care in Response to COVID-19 by Jade Begay
• “We are made of communities with deep collective knowledge on how to care for each other and the earth around us. Together, we can survive and build interdependent communities of resistance.” 
  • Asian American Feminist Antibodies: Care in the Time of Coronavirus by Salonee Bhaman, Rachel Kuo, Matilda Sabal, Vivian Shaw, & Tiffany Diane Tso

Healing Justice Resources:

• Prentis Hemphill – Contagion Consent and Connection
• Susan Raffo – coronavirus and community care… a few weeks in
• Auburn Seminary – Fortification Podcast COVID-19 Edition
• AirGo – On the Line with Antonio Gutierrez Podcast
• Una Lee – Care-Based Approaches to Remote Work
• Jade Begay – Decolonizing Community Care in Response to COVID-19
• Mijente – La Cura Podcast 
• Asian American Feminist Collective – Asian American Feminist Antibodies
• Faith Matters Network – Community Care Office Hours 
• Irresistible Podcast
• Adrienne Marie Brown – additional resources for facing Coronavirus
• Maryse Mitchell-Brody – Caring Across Distance: Some Things to Consider Before Movement Gatherings during COVID-19

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