From the US, the website "A Million Experiments" expands what the idea of safety means in communities
The Radical Monarchs, from One Million Experiments
We're as attracted by the title as anything else.
One Million Experiments describes itself this way: a “virtual zine” that “explores snapshots of community-based safety strategies that expand our ideas about what keeps us safe… a place to browse community-based safety projects for inspiration”.
The context is clearly American, its criminal justice system, and the multitude of ways that American minority communities are responding with their own projects, and visions of safe communities.
We like the way it's designed - with the focus on the projects themselves - and we’re fascinated by the categorisations:
Mutual Aid, with a host of self-help and commons-like projects, all kinds of enterprise;
Not 9-1-1, meaning not calling the US police emergency number, and relying on a plethora of community self-enforcement measures;
Support, which features a range of social care and therapeutic initiatives, helping communities cope with traumatic events.
The mutual-aid initiatives are specifically thrilling:
Cocoa Butter Futures “is a collective of queer, trans Black, Indigenous, people of color, committed to radical redistribution through healing practices and mutual aid” Read More...
Plant-Grow-Share “is a grassroots food justice program in Minneapolis that shows what's possible when neighbors share time, talent and land in accessible and inclusive ways. PGS focuses on investing in neighbors through gardening education” Read More...
The S.H.I.F.T. Cooperative “offers resources to their community, prioritizing Black, Queer, Trans, and Houseless individuals experiencing financial, emotional, and unexpected setbacks and burdens due to the pandemic” Read More...
Relationships Evolving Possibilities (REP) is a network of dedicated abolitionists showing up to support others in moments of crisis or urgency, with care and respect for the full dignity and autonomy of the people in crisis. Read More...
Rogers Park Yard Sharing Network “started in 2011 as a project of a small non-profit called LETS GO Chicago that focused on local solutions to environmental, social and economic issues in our world today”. Read More...
West Ridge Community Response Team “is an entirely volunteer group of neighbors supporting neighbors in the West Ridge Neighborhood of Chicago, particularly with grocery assistance and delivery.” Read More...
The Black Trans Travel Fund ‘is a grassroots, Black Trans led Collective, providing Black transgender women with financial and material resources needed to remove barriers to self-determining and accessing safer travel options.”Read More...
STREET FRIDGES: “In May, two months after Marianne Pita recovered from Covid-19, she heard about a fridge set up on a street corner not far from her house in the Bronx. Neighbors and local businesses could donate food – homemade, store-bought.” Read more...
WE ARE THE ONES FUND “The activist and newly appointed City Council member proposes Durham spend $750,000 on “mutual aid centers” and grassroots organizations to suport embattled Black and brown neighborhoods.” Read More...
We’re always looking for generic examples of CANs (or CANs of CANs), and One Million Experiments seems like a great example. More here.