Home Alive

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Thursday, 02 September 2010

About Home Alive / Home Alive Mission

Dear friends, The members of Home Alive’s Board of Directors, together with the instructor collective, have decided to close as a 501(c)(3) organization and to lay the Home Alive program dormant. We are throwing a party to celebrate and commemorate our 17 years in the community, as well as to look forward together to the ways we can carry on the work and spirit of Home Alive. We hope you will be able to attend! When: Saturday, June 12, 2010 Where: Hidmo, 2000 S Jackson St Time: 7pm-midnight What: Live music, food, a collaborative expressive arts opportunity, free stuff! Please contribute to our celebration by showing up, listening and sharing stories or memories about Home Alive. There will be open mic time and we want to hear from you! Who: YOU! Hidmo is ALL AGES until 11pm (If you'd like to help out with the party, please contact us at the email address below.) As you may know, Home Alive closed our studio in the beginning of 2009 and continued to operate at a very minimal capacity while we successfully paid off our debt. On April 15, 2010, after weighing a variety of options over the last several months, the instructors and board members of Home Alive made the hard decision to discontinue operating as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. While this means dissolving our assets, we intend to make as much of our organization's amazing history and curriculum available as possible to the community (mostly via our website, www.homealive.org). A few instructors will remain available on a limited basis for consultations and workshops. They can be reached at homealive4eva@gmail.com. The awesome work and movement-building that Home Alive has been a part of for many years continues to grow, and you can continue to support it! Check out local and national organizations like the Northwest Network, Creative Interventions, For Crying Out Loud, Feminist Karate Union, Seven Star Women's Kung Fu, Generation 5, Chaya, Queer and Trans Jailstoppers, Break the Silence, Communities Against Rape and Abuse, and Incite! Women of Color Against Violence, among others. Also, Home Alive will be leading a workshop at the US Social Forum in Detroit in late June. We’re incredibly grateful for the support you've given us over the years. Thank you for being a part of the Home Alive community, and we look forward to seeing you on June 12! ---

Teaching Tools for a Life Free from Violence and Hate

Home Alive is a Seattle based anti-violence project that offers affordable self defense classes, provides public education and awareness, and leads local community organizing efforts. We believe violence prevention is a community responsibility as well as an individual issue. Our work in self defense encourages everyone to recognize their entitlement to the basic human right to live free from violence and hate. Our goal is to build a cultural and social movement that puts violence in a context of political, economic and social oppression and frames safety as a human right.

"While the violence was individual, the only solution was collective action."
--Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Key Note presentation UC Berkley, "Boundaries In Question" 2000 Conference

Home Alive assists in accomplishing long-term social change by providing classes, workshops, education and events from a framework of anti-oppression and movement building. Throughout our organization and programming, we integrate a belief that violence stems from power imbalances related to such things as gender, class, race and sexual orientation. Through our classes, events and education we shift people¹s perspectives from focusing on safety as an individual concern to seeing violence prevention as a part of collective action.

Public Education and Awareness

We are dedicated to raising awareness of violence and prevention strategies, and promoting community involvement. In 1999 alone, we gave presentations at 120 schools, workplaces and low-income housing projects and shelters. Other past efforts include:

Awareness Week
Public chalking project
Mediating forums on violence
Music, spoken word and theater events
Participating in panel discussions
Supporting related projects that community members are organizing
Public art installations
Supporting folks interested in organizing in their communities around anti- violence gain the tools and skills to do so.

"I've been on the Advisory board for Home Alive for over two years. I have seen the impact they have made on the people who come to my bars and restaurant. They are leaving with resources and information on just generally being more aware about their safety."
--Linda, Linda's Tavern

Community Organizing

Throughout our organization and programming, we integrate a belief that violence stems from power imbalances related to such things as gender, class, race or sexual orientation. We build coalitions with individuals and organizations to create a shared vision of what we are working towards: safe communities, safe relationships, safe families and safe streets.

Our coalition work includes collaboration with domestic violence and sexual assault organizations and human rights groups. We work with these groups on specific events, provide support and provide skills training.

Our mission, values and goals all revolve around our commitment to changing the environment so that violence, hate, bigotry and oppression are less likely to happen. We are also committed to providing people with skills and tools to address violence in ways that do not victim blame or sustain systems of oppression.

Anti-Violence Workshops and Classes

Home Alive offers classes and workshops on self defense, boundary setting and de-escalation. We provide classes on site as well as on location for organizations and businesses that request them. All workshops are designed to meet the specific needs of each group we work with. Our classes address creating the continuum of safety and give participants not only the skills to address violence and abuse in the moment, but also the tools to prevent violence and the resources to find support when something does happen. Our commitment to making these services accessible has led to a sliding scale payment system, ranging from $0.00 and up. No one is turned away for lack of funds.

Each year our self defense program expands and we reach out to even more individuals, organizations, businesses and non-profits giving them skills and tools for safety and self defense. Currently we provide an average of 24 on-site and 6 in-house workshops each quarter.

In one year, Home Alive will provide over 1000 men, women and children with safety and self defense training and will offer workshops, presentations and demonstrations for local schools, shelters and community groups.

"Home Alive came and spoke at my high school. After their talk, I realized all the things I already do that are self defense. It made me realize I can do what I want to do, and I get to choose how I am going to be safe. That was really empowering for me, especially as a young woman."
--Christina Wallace, High School Student and Organizer

Home Alive is a community-based anti-violence organization that provides affordable self-defense classes, workshops, and educational events for all people within a social change framework.