Communities of Praxis Policies by Social Determinants of Health 2022

Introduction

Community organizers across the nation are advocating for policy, system, environment, and practice changes that address the root causes of health inequities across the social determinants of health. Every year Praxis invites our Communities of Praxis members to share some of their top organizing or advocacy campaigns in their own communities through out annual survey. Community organizers are advancing strengths-based solutions that do not just address the social determinants of health, but the underlying systems that impact communities’ abilities to thrive. We believe we can look to local communities for local solutions to advance health, equity, and racial justice. Explore the policies below or submit a policy.

(In)Justice System

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Shut Down Hutto: Shut Down the Hutto Detention Center (Grassroots Leadership)

  • Just Culpability: A campaign led by women who are sentenced more severely when they are charged/convicted of a crime with their partner (Free Hearts)

  • Counselors Not Cops: Eliminating police presence on campus while increasing mental health & wellbeing supports for youth in Providence Public Schools (Providence Youth Student Movement) 

  • Providing Bail Relief Assistance: Revolving bail fund in Pima County, AZ (Tucson Second Chance Community Bail Fund)

  • George Floyd Resolution: In 2020, Black Organizing Project (BOP) became the first organization in the U.S. to win the elimination of a school police department from a school district, after a nine year organizing campaign. The resolution itself is about the elimination of a police department, but also a very critical step in addressing policing and criminalizing culture and practices beyond just policing entities that exist in schools. In addition, BOP won a co-convenership that allows the community to have decision-making power on policies and practices regarding school safety (Black Organizing Project).

  • Black Sanctuary: A radical reality in which our people can exist free of the harms of policing, surveillance, and criminalization. Black Sanctuary looks like schools and communities absent of policing entities. Black Sanctuary ensures that Black voices and people are heard and valued. It is a vision where Black students, parents, and community are defining and making decisions about the world we live in. Black Sanctuary is what we fight for, a place where Black people are exercising self-determination and collective accountability (Black Organizing Project).

Civic Participation

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

Community Infrastructure

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

Community Safety

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Community Safety: We are developing a campaign to meet the safety needs of trans and queer API people and abolish the Prison Industrial Complex (Lavender Phoenix)

  • Healing Our Hoods: Six-month youth fellowship program to learn more about social justice and the Bronx community to facilitate healing circles (Brown Girl Recovery)

Connections with Neighbors

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • The Well: Offer opportunities for people to learn and practice strategies to support personal and collective liberation and freedom (Acorn Center for Freedom)

  • TransFire Artist Residency: Nurturing Trans*, Non-Binary and Gender Non-Conforming Artists to create connect and build their portfolios. Join the mailing list to learn about ways to provide direct support to artists and attend public events (Acorn Center for Freedom)

Economic Conditions

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Abolish Slavery in TN Constitution: A decriminalize poverty campaign to bring awareness to the amount of money being extracted from families impacted by incarceration and the mountain of unfair legal debt people are impacted by (Free Hearts)

  • Employment Disruption Program: Assistance to marginalized community members to to apply for unemployment insurance and pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) benefits (Pan-African CDI)

Education System

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • SB1273- Repealing School Mandatory Reporting: End the mandate that teachers report every incident that happens in the classroom to the police (Social Justice Learning Institute)

  • Student Equity Need Index (SENI): Campaign to win a $1 billion investment toward SENI in the Los Angeles Unified School District for the 2023-24 school year (InnerCity Struggle)

  • End Pushout Act: Legislation to end the disproportionate discipline Black and Brown girls face in schools (Detroit Women of Color)

  • Decriminalize our Schools: Campaign for healthy school climates and defunding of Los Angeles Unified School District School Police (CADRE)

Food Systems

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Campaign to turn food deserts into food oases by growing food in urban and intercity spaces (Association of American Indian Farmers)

  • Reducing Food Insecurity in Our Community: Campaign to focus on providing healthy foods to community members facing food insecurity during this time of inflation and the ongoing pandemic (Black Women for Wellness)

Healthcare

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Amplifying Community Voices: Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander social media campaign about COVID-19 (Pacific Islander Collective San Diego)

  • Campaign to meet the healing needs of trans and queer API people and contest power from the medical industrial complex (Lavender Phoenix)

  • Native Youth on the Move: Campaign to improve Native youth health outcomes in New Mexico (Notah Begay III (NB3) Foundation)

Hope & Efficacy

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Using healing and trust to revive black cooperative movement through our service " Black Trauma Anonymous" (Parable of the Sower)

  • Care package program to meet the mental health and other needs for Black girls, which includes home visits (Detroit Women of Color)

Housing

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Tenant Bill of Rights (TBoR): Campaign to win permanent tenant protections in Los Angeles County to codify temporary protections that were enacted as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic (InnerCity Struggle)

  • Push for legislation on local and state levels on a tenant’s opportunity to purchase (City Wide Tenant Union)

  • Youth Against Displacement Cohort: Working with other Oakland and Richmond organizations to mitigate displacement through assessment of community needs (AYPAL: Building API Community Power)

Immigration Climate

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

Marketing & Retail Environment

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

Parks & Recreational Spaces

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

Physical Environment (Water, Air & Soil)

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Stopping CO2 pipelines in eastern South Dakota and lithium/gold mining in the Black Hills (Dakota Rural Action)

  • Earthseed Skillshare: Cohort experience where participants learn about self defense, gardening, carpentry, and land based living with focus on self and community healing (Land Based Jawns)

  • Advocacy for Debt Relief/Justice for Black Farmers Act: Developing a Justice for Black Farmers toolkit to support amplification and aid membership with media engagements (National Black Food and Justice Alliance)

  • Campaign to shut down Spruce Coal Plant (Centro por la Justicia)

Reproductive Life

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Injusta Justicia: Campaign aimed at challenging protectionist approaches to adolescents' sexuality and bodily autonomy in Latin America (RESURJ, in partnership with Balance Mexico and Vecinas Feministas)

  • Golden Hours: Provide postpartum and lactation support from highly experienced doulas of color to birth givers who aren't able to pay for services (For Your Birth)

  • Breastfeeding Support Groups: Create a welcoming environment to promote and support nursing and lactation (Pahrump Family Collective)

Transportation

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Campaign to fight for reliable access to subways (Disabled In Action of Metropolitan NY)

  • Campaign to get more wheelchair-accessible taxis and other public vehicles, and to train the drivers to properly secure the wheelchairs and the people in them (Disabled In Action of Metropolitan NY).

  • Alliance for Community Transit—Los Angeles: Coalition to advocate for fareless transit in Los Angeles (SAJE)

Valued Cultures & Identities

Specific campaigns being led by organizers in our network include: 

  • Rural Production Performance Lab: Program to support rural storytellers in accessing the resources needed to develop their work (Mississippi Center for Cultural Production)

  • Cultivating black and brown youth through folk arts (La Fortuna)

  • Creating safe spaces for women, trans and queer Bodies through legislation changes (Centro por la Justicia)

  • The CROWN Act: Legislation to ensure protection against discrimination based on race-based hairstyles by extending statutory protection to hair texture and protective styles such as braids, locs, twists, and knots in the workplace and public schools (Detroit Women of Color)

Submit a community-led policy

Civic Participation, Community Infrastructure, Community Safety, Connections with Neighbors, Criminal Legal System, Education System, Environmental Justice, Food Systems, Healthcare, Hope and Efficacy, Housing, Immigration Climate, Marketing & Retail Environment, Parks and Recreational Spaces, Physical Environment - Water Air & Soil, Reproductive Life, Socioeconomic Conditions, Transportation, Valued Cultures & IdentitiesGuest UserBlog