Event Calendar

Rock Dove Presents....How ILL!: Sickness, Politics, and Self-Determination

Monday, February 15th, 7pm
Bluestockings Bookstore
172 Allen Street
www.bluestockings.com

This event features personal narratives about the realities of living with illness, with a focus on disparities in the health care system, the politics of access, language and terminology, and empowerment through self-determination in accessing care. We will be screening Sara Krugman's film on living with Type I Diabetes, and hearing from the filmmaker, as well as many others who are contributing their stories. We will also being distributing a zine with stories, poems, and art related to living with illness.

Presented by the Rock Dove Collective and friends, including Sara Krugman, Kristin Simpson, Lauren Giambrone and more. The Rock Dove Collective is a radical community health exchange working to address the need for accessible and anti-oppressive health care in our communities. We coordinate a network of health practitioners who provide physical, mental, sexual, emotional, social and spiritual care from a radical perspective on well-being.

Childcare and Translation will be provided upon request.

If you would like to present your story at the event or contribute your story to the zine, please contact Autumn Brown, autumn@rockdovecollective.org.

This will be a relaxed space where you can talk freely about a "taboo" subject and learn about:

· avoiding yeast infections & urinary tract infections

· the latest on sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the (fun) ways of protecting yourself from them :)

· ways of being intimate and sexually stimulated without any risk of STIs or pregnancy

· common myths and misconceptions about sexual health

THIS WORKSHOP IS FOR FEMALE-BODIED PEOPLE ONLY

Please RSVP to rockdovecollective@riseup.net (where you'll get location and direction details)

About the facilitator:
Alana has her Master's in Health Education with a concentration in Human Sexuality and has been teaching adolescents about safer sex for the past year. She’s a founding member of the Rock Dove Collective and is a big
fan of healthy, fun, respectful sex.

Hello all! Please join the Rock Dove Collective for a free
MASSAGE WORKSHOP on WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, at 6pm, at the Center for Family Life located at 443 39th Street (between 3rd and 4th Aves), 3rd Floor, Brooklyn.

Learn how to PREPARE to give a massage by STRETCHING, getting FOCUSED, and learning to pay ATTENTION to others.

Learn how to give YOURSELF massages with your hands and simple tools like tennis balls or doorways.

Learn how to give OTHERS massages in your home.

Learn other methods to RELAX and TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF better.

Please RSVP to rockdovecollective@riseup.net so we can hold a spot for you!

About our massage therapists:
Christina is a massage therapist, having studied at Healing Hands Institute in Westwood, NJ, concentrating on relaxation, deep tissue, and prenatal massage.

Sarah graduated from The Swedish Institute in New York City in 1998, is New York State licensed in massage therapy, and while still maintaining her various critiques of hierarchical ‘formal education’ has also received Reiki attunements in the traditional linear progression up through and beyond the ‘master’ level, and continues her post-graduate studies with a variety of institutions and individuals.

Since 2007, Kaia has been practicing Thai massage for relaxation and wellness. Thai massage involves yoga-like stretching and loving touch along energy lines starting with the feet. She learned Thai Massage through exchange, books, and a Level I & II course (70 hours of formal
study).

The Rock Dove Collective is a radical community health exchange dedicated to helping people get access to the care they need to be well and thrive.

Hello all,

We're excited to invite you to our next skillshare, Crisis Intervention and Support!

ABOUT THE SKILLSHARE:
How can we support others in times of crisis? This participatory workshop will explore practical methods of intervention from a radical perspective. Join us as we share tactics for coping with community members'
experiences of abuse, drug use, and especially, mental health issues. We will also discuss strategies for prevention of and moving beyond states of
crisis. Participants will receive a short resource list.

There will be a $5 suggested donation towards the space, but NO ONE WILL BE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF FUNDS.

Please RSVP to rockdovecollective@riseup.net if you plan to attend.

WHERE AND WHEN:
Monday, Aug. 17th
7-9 pm
Bluestockings Bookstore & Activist Center
172 Allen St
Lower East Side, New York, NY

map and directions at http://bluestockings.com/directions/

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR:
Maryse is an organizer and native New Yorker who believes that well-being is itself a revolutionary process. In addition to her work as a Rock Dove, she has been a part of various community-based efforts for radical,
accessible, and transformative healing. Her primary focus is harm reduction with people in the sex trade and related communities, working with groups like SWANK/SWOP-NYC and CitiWide Harm Reduction. Maryse
received an MSW from Hunter in Community Organization and Planning in June '09.

Learn more about Rock Dove: rockdovecollective.org

We hope to see you there!

Be well,
The Rock Doves

Help women access healthy, natural childbirth!! Join us for an evening with our dear friend Cristina Alonso, Midwife and Director of the Luna Maya Birth Center in Chiapas, Mexico.

Help us continue to work with women to empower, protect and respect mothers' ability to make informed choices about their health and wellbeing.

As many of you know, Luna Maya Birth center has been providing Midwifery and holistic health care services in the Highlands of Chiapas since 2005. In 2008 we attended 62 births, maintaining a 5% cesarean rate. Additionally, we provided pediatric care, acupuncture, homeopathy, free childbirth education, infant massage and well woman care and yoga classes to over 200 families in the area.

Mexico continues to sustain not only some of the highest Cesarean rates (ranging from 40 to 99%) but also continues to practice obsolete obstetric rituals in overcrowded, understaffed, dangerous, and under supplied hospitals. Within a context of poverty and violence, Luna Maya continues to be the only place where women can receive woman-centered care based on choice, informed consent and evidence based care. We provide care on a sliding scale and 20% of the women we attend live in shelters and cannot pay for services. We believe that healthy birth is a human right, that all women should be able to access it, and that humanized birth services can help women transform the cycles of violence in their lives.

We need your help! In order to continue to provide subsidized care we need others to support our work. Our annual budget is $60,000, of which 40% is covered by income generated for services. That means that in order to continue to provide subsidizes services we need to raise $36,000.

We know that these are times of scarcity for everyone, but we also know that abundance comes to those who share it! It costs us $15 a month to provide free prenatal care for a woman. $450 pays the cost of one natural,
woman-centered birth.

Help us to continue to welcome the babies of Chiapas into loving arms, in safety, serenity and consciousness.

Join us at our Brooklyn fundraiser on Monday, March 16 beginning at 6:30pm at Suzanne's house at 383A Sixth Street (between 5th and 6th Aves) in Park Slope. We will be providing snacks and refreshments and will hold a raffle for beautiful handicrafts from Chiapas. Donations are Tax Deductible through M.I.R.A. (Midwives for Research and Action), our sister 501 (c)3. Suggested donation at the door will be $20 and raffle tickets will be on sale for $7-10 each. If you are unable to contribute the suggested amount, please consider bringing a couple of friends who can collectively donate the suggested $20. No one will be turned away!

Any questions? Call Suzanne at (718) 788-1005 or Danielle at (646) 244-5889.

If you are unable to attend, please consider making a donation to Luna Maya directly through paypal or by sending a check beforehand. Your donation will make a difference!

You can view details about the event, a map of the location, and RSVP here: http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?inviteId=KMNXIBNCRFZXDYXZBFJL

Please feel free to share this widely. Thank you in advance for your kind support!

Rock Dove, Danielle, Suzanne, Cris, and Luna Maya

Rock Dove Collective Presents...

Opioid Overdose Prevention and Treatment, and Other Harm Reduction Approaches to Drug Use
A Skillshare Presented by Mike Duncan, in partnership with the Rock Dove Collective
Saturday, Dec. 6 @ 2pm
The Brecht Forum - Library

Opioids are powerful medicine for pain that have a significant potential for risk of fatal overdose. While heroin users are the stereotypical victims of opioid overdose, prescription pain medicine such as Vicodin, Percocet, and Oxycontin in fact cause the majority of opioid overdoses. Participants will learn how to recognize and respond to overdoses, including the use of the opioid antidote Naloxone. This will be placed in the context of looking at harm reduction as a radical-friendly approach to dealing with the personal and social consequences of drug use and as a larger political movement for autonomy and social justice.

Please RSVP to rockdovecollective@riseup.net if you plan to attend. The Brecht Forum is located at 451 West Street in Manhattan, between Bank and Bethune Streets. Near to the A/C/E and 1 trains.

The Rock Dove Collective is pleased to invite you to two exciting events coming up on the same day. On SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, join us from 2-4PM for an OPEN MEETING to learn more about Rock Dove and how to get involved. Come meet your local radical community health collective, learn about our work building a directory of free and low cost services around NYC, hear about our fabulous providers (and maybe meet some of them) and all the
services they offer, talk about how to get this world well, and figure out how to contribute to our work.

...then stay for the next installment of our Herbal Wellness Series with Jacoby Ballard...

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 4-6PM Beating Heart, Nourishing Blood: Herbs for the Circulatory System

This is an interactive popular education workshop about the circulatory system and how to nourish and rehabilitate it holistically. This is for anyone who has a history of heart imbalances or struggles in the family, anyone with autoimmune illnesses, and also for people who simply want to be healthier. We will begin by learning about the heart and what it needs, as well as figuring out what the blood does for the body. We will learn about the herbs and foods to care for the system under different conditions, and conclude by making a medicine that you can bring home to
use for yourself and loved ones. Please bring a SMALL GLASS container (baby food jars work great!).

About Jacoby: Jacoby Ballard is a Brooklyn-based community organizer, herbalist, and yoga teacher. He attended the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in 2004 and has since studied with Robin Rose Bennett, an
herbalist in New Jersey. He currently organizes with the Northeast Radical Healthcare Network, who put on the annual Northeast Grassroots Community Herbal Convergence, intersecting holistic healthcare and progressive politics. Jacoby's favorite herb of the season is burdock and dandelion, from which makes a weekly root tea.

DIRECTIONS & RSVP: Both the meeting and skill share will be held in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, near Eastern Parkway & Underhill. Please RSVP to rockdovecollective@riseup.net for the exact address and directions, and
please let us know if you plan to attend the Open Meeting, Skill Share, or both.

Rock Dove Day of Action!!
Health Clinics for Community Healing
Saturday, June 14th
10:30am - 4:00pm**Meet at Earth Matters Cafe, 177 Ludlow Street (just below Houston) at 10:30am for training and coordination**

Your friendly neighborhood Rock Dove Collective is calling our first ever Day of Action! On Saturday, June 14th, Volunteers will fan out across the city, visiting free and low cost health clinics and gathering information about their services from both the staff and the clients who are there receiving services. Our goal is to use this information to create comprehensive profiles of health clinics in NYC, as part of our ongoing effort to make free and low cost health services accessible to those in need.

We will meet up at Earth Matters Cafe, 177 Ludlow Street (just below Houston)at 10:30am. Over breakfast (and breaking the ice!), volunteers will receive their travel plans for the day as well as a quick training on how to gather information when visiting a clinic. Volunteers will go out in pairs and hit up 1-2 clinics before we all meet up at 4pm to decompress, share information, eat, drink, and be merry!

How to Contribute:
Volunteer! Bring your friends! Join us as we hoof it through the 5
boroughs of NYC (we didn't forget you Staten Island!!) in search of
comprehensive information about free and low cost health services. If you plan on volunteering, RSVP to Freya at freyapowell@gmail.com.

Donate! If you can't join us the day of, please donate food and/or cash so that we can feed our volunteers breakfast and snacks, and help them with metro fare. Contact rockdovecollective@riseup.net if you would like to make a food or cash donation.

Does your body react negatively to certain foods but you eat them anyway?
Does the digestive system perplex you? Did your digestive system change
since going to another country? Do you get gassy or constipated? Have you
ever fasted and want to learn more? No worries! Come to this popular
education-inspired workshop about the digestive system by Brooklyn
herbalist Jacoby Ballard. We will learn about the digestive process and
herbs, foods, and supplements to care for it. We will also make a tincture
or syrup that you can take with you, so please bring a 1-oz container.

The skill share will be held on SATURDAY, MAY 17, from 3-5pm near Prospect
Park in Brooklyn. Please RSVP to rockdovecollective@riseup.net for the
exact address.

About Jacoby: Jacoby Ballard is a Brooklyn-based community organizer,
herbalist, and yoga teacher. He attended the Northeast School of Botanical
Medicine in 2004 and has since studied with Robin Rose Bennett, an
herbalist in New Jersey. He currently organizes with the Northeast Radical
Healthcare Network, who put on the annual Northeast Grassroots Community
Herbal Convergence, intersecting holistic healthcare and progressive
politics. Jacoby's favorite herb of the season is burdock and dandelion,
from which makes a weekly root tea.

We hope to see you there!
Be well,
The Rock Dove Collective

About the workshop
Oooh the mysterious liver; the word sounds kind of gross, and its function in the body is often overlooked. This is an herbal workshop on the invaluable liver and herbal medicines to care for it. The liver is a very
important organ that removes toxins and waste from the blood-come learn how to best care for it! Using the methodology of popular education, we will learn the role of the liver in the body's overall function, what stresses it and what nourishes it, discuss different kinds of cleanses for the liver, and make a milk thistle tincture (medicine prepared in alcohol).

Please bring a 1-oz tincture glass bottle.

About Jacoby
Jacoby Ballard is a Brooklyn-based community organizer,
herbalist, and yoga teacher. He attended the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine in 2004 and has since studied with Robin Rose Bennett, an herbalist in New Jersey. He currently organizes with the Northeast Radical
Healthcare Network, who put on the annual Northeast Grassroots Community Herbal Convergence, intersecting holistic healthcare and progressive politics. Jacoby's favorite herb of the season is burdock and dandelion,
from which makes a weekly root tea.

in Park Slope, Brooklyn
(please RSVP to rockdovecollective@riseup.net for exact address)

Rock Dove needs your help. We are building our directory of free and low-cost services in the city (for you!), and we want to know a lot more about all of them. So please join us on Tuesday, December 4 at 7pm at EarthMatters cafe (177 Ludlow St. just below Houston) for our Open Meeting where we will discuss this and other ways you can become involved in Rock Dove. Please read on for more details!

Annie Ellman, head instructor and founder of the Center for Anti-Violence Education (CAE) in Brooklyn, will offer a basic training in SELF DEFENSE. The skill share will offer an introduction to physical and verbal self-defense skills with discussions on well-being, prevention, and violence de-escalation.

The workshop will be held at 8:15pm on Monday, October 22, at CAE:
327 7th Street
2nd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215

Space is limited, so please RSVP to rockdovecollective@riseup.net. We hope to see you there!

Facilitators: Autumn Brown, Stephen McFarland, & Carter Klenk

2-DAY WORKSHOP at The Brecht Forum
10:00 am - 5:00pm Saturday and Sunday

The consensus process is much more than a decision-making tool. It is a creative process which synthesizes the raw materials and ideas each of us brings to group work. It is a radical method through which we can confront power and reject the outmoded hierarchical forms of group work we are used to participating in.

This workshop focuses on consensus as a revolutionary and liberating practice, exploring its potential as an organizing tool through group discussions, storytelling and games. We look at consensus decision making as a cyclical process, providing a framework for what is often an abstract experience and revealing the flexibility inherent in the structure. In learning the tools used in consensus group work and the individual roles and responsibilities within the process, we come to a deeper understanding of consensus mechanics. We also focus on the specific role of facilitation in the consensus process. Through shared experience, hands-on training, and challenging exercises, we arrive at a deeper understanding of what it means to facilitate the consensus process, what the possibilities and pitfalls of this role are, and what tools are available to empower the facilitator and create a culture of co-facilitation in a group.

This workshop is open to anyone who desires to learn about consensus, or fine-tune the knowledge one already has. It is open to anyone who desires to communicate more openly and work more creatively with others. For more information about training, or the trainers, contact autumnmeghan@gmail.com.

Sliding Scale: $15-$35 per day No One Turned Away
The Brecht Forum 451 West Street New York, NY 10014 (212) 242-4201 mail@brechtforum.org