In this issue…
Katal Connecticut Update
Pushing Back on the Reopening of a Youth Prison
Connecticut BLOC Roundtable Meeting
Katal Connecticut Update
Welcome to our new bi-weekly Katal Connecticut Update!
We announced in March that, after nearly 5 years, we’re ending the Katal Weekly Update, and moving to two separate email updates — one for Connecticut, another for New York. Going forward, you’ll receive the Katal Connecticut Update every two weeks, with details about our work across CT.
If you’d also like to keep up what we’re doing in New York, please click here to sign up for the Katal New York Update!
Ok, on to the update!
Pushing Back on the Reopening of a Youth Prison
News broke last week that Governor Ned Lamont is considering reopening the Connecticut Juvenile Training School (CJTS), an abusive prison facility used for incarcerating children, to house young people detained from the border.
Closed in 2018 after years of advocacy, CJTS had a long history incarcerating children in a place designed to inflict trauma and harm, with regular use of restraints and solitary confinement, and a documented history of abuse. Reopening the prison will reverse decades of progress and bring back to Connecticut the practice of incarcerating children.
Katal and our partners are fighting back. No kids in prisons — not on the border, not in Connecticut, not anywhere. For more information, please contact Community Organizer Alycia Gay at alycia@katalcenter.org.
Connecticut BLOC Roundtable Meeting
We held our BLOC – Building Leadership and Organizing Capacity – Roundtable meeting Tuesday night– and it was incredible. At BLOC Organizer Roundtables, new and experienced organizers come together in a facilitated space for peer-to-peer development, coaching, and training, and for collective discussions about the mechanics and practice of community organizing. The Roundtables are a place for organizers to gather, learn, and grow together. Our CT BLOC Organizer Roundtable has been meeting monthly since 2017, led by veteran Black organizers. Dozens of organizers in Connecticut have participated in the monthly CT roundtable, mostly women of color. Roundtables are not issue specific – they include organizers working on a range of issue areas, from housing and immigration policy to education reform and LGBTQI rights, to criminal justice reform and universal healthcare.
Are you a community organizer in Connecticut looking to connect with other organizers? Or just want to learn more about the BLOC Organizer Roundtables? Please contact Kenyatta at kenyatta@katalcenter.org.
Keep practicing social distancing, wear your mask, wash your hands, and check in on your neighbors. If you want to get involved, learn more about our work, or just connect, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Katal works to strengthen the people, policies, institutions, and movements that advance health, equity, and justice for everyone. Join us: web, Twitter, Facebook! Email: info@katalcenter.org. Phone: 646.875.8822.
