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Dear friends,

As you know, I have been doing childcare with Regeneración Childcare NYC
for over a year. It has been really exciting to be a part of building an
intergenerational movement with moms, kids, providers, young people and
volunteers from all different walks of life.

Over the past year, we’ve helped to coordinate several gatherings of
moms and kids from around the city. One request from all the moms is
that they would love to meet parents and people from around the US that
are trying to build community in the same way.

This summer, the first US Social Forum, a gathering of grassroots
communities from all over the US, will be taking place in Atlanta,
giving us an incredible opportunity to encounter and build a movement
for social change with people from all over the country.

Regeneración is committing to helping moms and kids and supportive
volunteers to travel down to Atlanta this June. Due to the challenge of
traveling with kids and being hassled by airport security we’re
organizing a bus caravan from New York to Atlanta for eighty amazing
people. We can’t do it alone and we need your help!

Your tax deductible donation of $25, $50, $100 or any amount you would
like to give will go a long way towards helping us meet our fundraising
goal.

You can donate directly online to the Center for Immigrant families, our
sponsoring organization, at
http://www.nycharities.org/donate/c_donate.asp?CharityCode=1466
Please designate your donation for “USSF Delegation.”

Checks can be made out to Center for Immigrant Families, with ‘USSF
Delegation’ in the memo line, and sent to:
Center for Immigrant Families
20 West 104th St, Garden Entrance
New York, NY 10025.

Below is our vision and a list of the groups that are involved in this
delegation. Your support will go a long way, and once we return, we will
write to you with details on how the trip went, on lessons learned, and
on how the journey will inform our practices here in New York, and
throughout the United States.

Thank you so much for your support!

peace,
onto

Regeneración Childcare NYC
http://www.childcarenyc.org/

PS This network has had a tremendous impact on the lives of mothers,
kids, and communities. We have a long way to go to Atlanta. Please join
us in this work by making your donation now!

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ANOTHER WAY OF DOING POLITICS:
LIVING THE VISION FROM BELOW AND TO THE LEFT

http://www.childcarenyc.org/sites/childcare/files/ussf_delegation.pdf

A delegation of women of color, moms, kids, youth, and childcare
volunteers traveling together from NYC to the first ever United States
Social Forum (USSF)
Atlanta, GA June 27 – July 1, 2007

WE ARE a community of organizations, cultural workers and individual
activists committed to creating an intergenerational movement that is
welcoming and accessible, prioritizes collectively-based work,
integrates self-care, and builds on our cultures of resistance. Some of
us are women, mothers or families of color, some of us are kids or
people who play with kids, some of us are queer, questioning,
transgendered, gender non-conforming, gay, lesbian, or two spirit, some
of us have been locked up or have family members inside, some of us have
experienced police violence or interpersonal violence, some of us are
poor or have limited access to resources, some of us are wealthy or have
abundant access to resources. We contribute critical perspective,
visions and practices of movement building that understand transforming
entire communities and our inter-personal relationships as central to
addressing structural injustices.

THE USSF, inspired by the World Social Forum, promises to be the first
major gathering of grassroots movement building organizations in the
country. Many times, individual paid professionals and “token” community
members represent community organizations in larger strategic
conversations, gatherings, and conferences. The USSF provides an
important opportunity to change this dynamic. Instead of choosing a few
individuals to travel by plane and rent out hotel rooms, we will use a
comparable budget to enable a large group of mothers, children, youth,
and childcare volunteers to attend the USSF. Ground transportation will
enable more participants to attend, particularly immigrants and families
with children.

THE JOURNEY ITSELF will embody our politics, fostering an
intergenerational space of connection, sharing and caring for people
from different communities in NYC. At the USSF, we hope to both learn
from others and to share our own work. Some of the workshops that our
groups are developing are around collective and non-hierarchical
approaches to organizing, addressing violence against women of color
through transformative justice, alternatives to institutional schooling,
solidarity work, and community-generated autonomous visions and
practices. We also hope to learn and build relationships with other
groups of young women, mothers, and immigrants.

UPON RETURNING TO NYC, we will produce a newsletter report-back about
the USSF experience, and a popular education curriculum that builds upon
the workshops we lead and participate in at the USSF. These materials
will be bi-lingual (English-Spanish) and shared with NYC groups to use
in-house in their leadership development work. We will also organize a
city-wide gathering for reflection about lessons learned at the USSF,
focusing on practices and strategies employed across the country that we
could incorporate to strengthen
our work.

SUPPORT US in securing ground transportation, food, and lodging for our
delegation of 100 mothers, kids, youth organizers, and childcare
volunteers, as well as for production of report-back materials and
follow-up community gatherings in NYC.

You can make a tax deductible donation online by clicking here. (please
specify ‘USSF delegation’). You can also send a check to Center for
Immigrant Families, with ‘ussf delegation’ in the memo line, to Center
for Immigrant Families, 20 West 104th St Garden Entrance, New York, NY
10025.

OUR GROUPS INCLUDE

SISTERFIRE: a project of INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence. We are
a network of NYC-based women of color invested in building a
multigenerational movement to end violence against women of color in all
its forms.

SISTA II SISTA: a Brooklyn-wide collective of poor and working-class
young and adult Black and Latina women building together to model a
society based on liberation and love.

SISTAS ON THE RISE: a community organization based in the South Bronx
started by teen moms to develop leadership, promote political education,
and fight for the rights of teen moms and all young women of color
through community organizing.

REGENERACIÓN CHILDCARE NYC: a network of volunteers who provide childcare to
facilitate the participation of low-income mothers of color in building
movements for collective liberation.

CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT FAMILIES: a collectively-run organization of low-income
immigrant women of color in Manhattan Valley (Uptown NYC). Our stories
and lived experiences are central to building a community that works
towards social change and promotes justice, mutuality, love, trust, and
dignity.

KITCHEN TABLE COLLECTIVE: an intergenerational education collective of
parents, kids, elders and babies, currently from West Harlem, El Barrio
and Corona. Through the act of “teaching our own”, we are building
alternatives to the oppressive systems of formal childcare and education
for our families, our communities and ourselves.

PACHAMAMA: THE BUSHWICK CHILDCARE COOPERATIVE: Black and Latina mothers
caring for each other and our children while organizing for collective
liberation.

CRITICAL RESISTANCE YOUTH FREEDOM SCHOOL: connecting low-income mothers
of color with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in order to
build solidarity, develop organizing capacity against prisons, policing
and jails, and imagine solutions to interpersonal harm.

COMMUNITY BIRTHING PROJECT: a collective of women of color working to
support the empowerment of low income women in their birthing
experiences, and to challenge practices of forced medicalization,
unnecessary interventions and controlled decision making.

LIL’ MAROONS: a parent-run childcare cooperative operating from a
child-led African-centered curriculum. In the spirit of maroon
communities children and parents model the principles of independence,
self-determination and cooperation with each other and the world.

HARM FREE ZONE: provides tools and trainings to local communities to
strengthen and develop our ability to resolve conflicts without the need
for the police, court system, or prison industry.

MOTHERS ON THE MOVE/ MADRES EN MOVIMIENTO: a grassroots, membership-led
community organization fighting for social, economic and racial justice

in the South Bronx and beyond.

http://pgtoys.net/flashcard4.html

You can come see the Gender Play-Doh Kit in person at UCSD’s Open Studios show on April 6th in San Diego. More info about that show here.

One from a friend and collaborator and 4 on consignment to a local woman owner, woman positive retailer.

Thank you for the support!

Also, we forgot to mention, but will update the site soon to reflect, that the kits cost $20.00 USD. That’s about cost, we think, but we really just want to spread the ideas and the love. To order a Gender Play-Doh Kit, just email us at pgtoys.net  (At]  gmail  d(0)t  com.

Also, we are pleased to announce that you can now actually see what the Gender Play-Doh Kit looks like and order one by emailing us at pgtoys.net at gmail d0t com!

Here are some of our new photos…

Here’s our press release…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PG TOYS ANNOUNCES THE AVAILABILITY OF THE GENDER-PLAY-DOH KIT
Sculpt and mold your own gender identity!

See the kit at http://www.pgtoys.net

Who: PG Toys
Contact: Pipi and Gigi, pgtoys.net at gmail d0t com
PG Toys would like to announce that their first toy, the Gender-Play-Doh
Kit is now available for purchase! The Gender-Play-Doh Kit comes with a convertible bag, accessories and educational materials to allow kids to sculpt their own gender
identity. If you would like to buy one, or are a store owner and would like to order in bulk or on consignment, please email us at pgtoys.net at gmail d0t com .

Gender play is positive and healthy for children. PG Toys is making this kit in hopes of supporting kids in their exploration of who they are. We want these experiences to be carried throughout our children’s lives. We see gender as a spectrum, a choice and often that choice is taken away. Because gender can make us feel trapped, it is important for kids to gain the confidence to challenge these expectations. We construct gender everyday in our society and it is time for our children to constrcut their own.

http://www.pgtoys.net

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