Editor’s Note from Rivera Sun
Creativity, laughter, tears, horror, and hope: it’s all here. Weaving through these stories are the acts of nonviolence – large and small – done by people like you and me to help care for people and planet. Car motorcade protests are increasing. Worker strikes for health and safety are sweeping the globe. Bursts of brilliant solidarity are buoying our spirits as we mourn those we’ve lost and express justified outrage at the injustices heightened by the pandemic. Extinction Rebellion spoofed Google on April Fool’s Day. Rev. Billy, a notorious activist, planted a Gay Pride Flag at the Central Park hospital camp that holds anti-gay views. Millions in London held an evening “Clap for Caregivers”. An artist remade the classic “Rosie the Riveter” icon to honor frontline workers.
As you can see, nonviolence gives us tools for these times. Nonviolence toward the self aids us in staying healthy and sane. Nonviolence towards others helps us treat our families and coworkers with loving kindness as we all navigate the intensity of the pandemic. Nonviolence toward the whole world demands that we #StayHomeNotSilent and find creative ways to rise into action for social justice. If you’re hungry to learn more about nonviolence, I’ll be teaching and co-facilitating a couple of courses online. Now is the perfect time to deepen your knowledge and build community around nonviolence! Here is more info:
Nonviolence Online Community Course – 6 Week Course with Rivera Sun, Wednesdays starting April 28th: Co-facilitated with Pace e Bene’s Veronica Pelicaric, this online course is intended to provide an opportunity to build community while studying nonviolence. Read more >>
Strategy 4 Action! Webinar with Rivera Sun April 19th, 5pm ET: In this 2-hr webinar with Rivera Sun, learn the guiding principles of how to make change with nonviolent action.
Learn more >>
I hope those help you integrate nonviolence into your life and actions in whatever ways you need.
May Nonviolence News offer some bright rays of hope for you through all this,
Rivera Sun, Editor
A little support goes a long way … all the way around the world!
Thank you for supporting Nonviolence News.
Mississippi School Administrator Steps Up to Deliver 6,000 Meals Each Day: In county where every child qualifies for free school meals, a superintendent embarks on a project – driving 6,000 meals a day. Read more >>
Brooklyn Landlord Cancels Rent for 200-300 People: Mario Salerno posted a notice on the front doors of his buildings: “Due to the recent pandemic … affecting all of us, please note I am waiving rent for the month for April,” it read. Read more >>
Spain Moves To Implement Permanent Universal Basic Income: Responding to the crisis, but planning for a new future, Spain will support a universal basic income. Read more >>
Rent, Utility, Debt Freezes in El Salvador: In order to provide economic relief for those hardest hit by COVID-19, the government of El Salvador has announced a three-month freeze on payments for utilities, mortgages and personal loans, credit cards, telephones, cable and internet, as well as a cash payment of US $300. Read more >>
PUSH Buffalo Waives All Commercial and Residential Rents For April: The leadership of People United for Sustainable Housing, better known as PUSH Buffalo, announced Monday it will cancel rents in April for its low-income resident and commercial tenants. The move affects 99 residential and five commercial tenants. Read more >>
Clap for Caregivers: In a growing international trend, people are taking to their apartment windows and balconies to “Clap for Caregivers”. Watch a video of this here >>
How Disabled Activists Are Fighting Isolation, Collectively: In the Bay Area, mutual aid projects are helping to build community and continue the work for justice despite the restrictions of social distancing mandates. Read more >>
Community Care, An Indigenous Response to Coronavirus: While COVID-19 might not hit all of us hard, we all have a responsibility to protect our cherished elders and those who are also vulnerable. Read more >>
Navajo and Hopi Families Relief Fund Launches Into Action: In response to the escalating health crisis facing Diné (Navajo) and Hopi communities in Northern Arizona, Southern Utah, and New Mexico, the Navajo & Hopi Families COVID-19 Relief Fund has mobilized volunteer emergency food and water distribution throughout the region. Read more >>
Inside The Thai Student Uprising: This burgeoning movement against authoritarian emphasizes flash mobs and veiled online activism. Can they sustain or transition to an open movement for democracy and civil liberties? Read more >>
Activist Jailed in Singapore Over Facebook Post: In risk-averse Singapore, pro-democracy activist Jolovan Wham chose to go to jail rather than pay a fine. He hopes his willingness to risk jail time will help erode the widespread fear of civil disobedience. Read more >>
US Healthcare Workers Hold National Day of Action For Protective Gear: Frontline healthcare workers held a national day of action to demand personal protective equipment, or PPE, for healthcare workers — including employees of nursing homes and long-term care centers. Read more >>
After 42 Test Positive for COVID-19, Nurses Walk-Off the Job For N-95 Face Masks: The walk-off came after 36 elderly residents and six healthcare workers at the nursing home tested positive for COVID-19. Already, two senior citizens at the facility have died of COVID-19. Read more >>
Shipt Shoppers Plan To Walk-Off the Job: For the past several weeks, Shipt has been ignoring its Shoppers’ pleas for hazard pay, PPE, and denied 14 days of sick pay for those of us too sick to work. Earlier this week, they issued a pay cut drastically lowering the payout for canceled orders. For some, this was the second unannounced pay cut this year. Now, Shoppers are planning to walk-off. Read more >>
Philadelphia Car Caravan Demands Decarceration: A broad coalition of prison abolition activists took to Philadelphia’s streets in over 120 cars—most with just one occupant—to demand officials massively decarcerate jails, prisons and detention centers in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. Read more >>
Rev. Billy Arrested For Planting Rainbow Flag At Central Park Tent Hospital Run By Anti-Gay Group: Cops escorted Billy Talen away in handcuffs, as he accused Samaritan’s Purse, the group responsible for the tent facility, of being “right-wing apocalyptic Christians” trying to “take advantage of our sorrow.” Read more >>
Nurses at Sinai-DNC Walk Away From Jobs: After they staged a sit-in, several night nurses were asked to leave. Instead, all the nurses walked out in protest against understaffing. Read more >>
#SavePeopleNotPlanes Demands Fairness in Aviation Bailouts: 250 organizations signed an open letter calling upon governments to use this moment to force social and environmental conditions on the travel industry. Any bailouts, they say, should include proper protection for workers and a planned transition towards climate-just mobility. Read more >>
Amazon Warehouse Workers Walk-Off Again: Just a week after Amazon fired a worker who led a walkout, workers at the same Staten Island warehouse walked off the job again Monday to protest unsafe working conditions as online orders soar during the pandemic. Read more >>
Inmates At Privately-Run ICE Detention Center Launch Hunger Strike: around 100 detained migrants at a private, for-profit prison in Farmville, VA, have collectively gone on hunger strike, demanding their release on medical and humane grounds. Read more >>
Using Online Skits, Virtual Campaigns, and More, Women Around the World Organize Against Violence: Domestic violence has spiked during the social-distancing mandates. But women aren’t giving up the struggle for justice. Here’s how they’re organizing. Read more >>
Challenging Big Oil in Western Uganda: One women’s group in Uganda is showing that the determination to sustain generative ways of life can be unstoppable, even in the face of a powerful extractive industry. Read more >>
Dalit Women Fight For Land Rights In Punjab: In Punjab—where about 32% of people are Dalit—Dalit women are fighting for the right to cultivate land, and they are winning. Read more >>
Mock Google Statement On April Fools Promises To Stop Funding Climate Denial: Playing a cool double bluff, XR New York City rebels masquerading as Google released an online statement declaring that in lieu of their normal April Fools joke, the multinational tech giant would stop funding climate denial.” Read more >>
XR Rebels Around the World Keep Creatively Active: From balcony disco-bediences to 1000-person trainings, Extinction Rebellion organizers are still going strong. Read more >>
#ClimateStrikeOnline: Climate strikers have announced a new weekly webinar series of online discussions with scientists, activists, and other experts. Learn more >>
White Sheets Hanging Out Windows = Rent Strike Coming: A wave of rent strikes is sweeping the globe, and neighbors are signaling their intention to resist with white sheets hung out apartment windows. Read more >>
Campaign for a Homes Guarantee for Everyone Picks Up Steam: A homes guarantee is a set of policies that ensure that housing really is a human right. Read more >>
Groups Sharing Food With Unhoused Persons Face Crackdown During COVID-19: Even before the crisis, repression was increasing. Now, these organizers are struggling to keep providing essential services to the unhoused population. Read more >>
#HateIsAVirus Campaign Uses Face Mask Messaging To Reduce Racism Toward Asians: As reports of hate crimes and assaults on Asians increase, this group is tackling the problem head-on with messages written on their face masks. Read more >>
Never Again Action Projects A Message From Anne Frank and Calls For Decarceration: Jewish activists with Never Again Action Rhode Island projected a picture of Anne Frank that says she “died in a crowded detention center of an infectious disease.” Read more >>
Activists Place Symbolic Body Bags At Trump’s Golf Course: Angry at the poor and cruel responses of the administration to the COVID-19 crisis, activists put symbolic body bags on the front lawn of one of Trump’s golf courses. Read more >>
Artist Remakes Rosie The Riveter Tribute To Frontline Workers: Prints of the beautiful art will be donated to a thousand hospitals across the US. Read more >>
Music Has Been Countering Pandemic Blues Since 1576: There’s a long history of musical uprisings for solidarity and hope. Read more >>
Drive-by Strauss: A Hungarian orchestra is airing concerts from their cars. The musicians drive around Budapest playing ‘uplifting’ classics from loudspeakers. Read more >>
10 Ways To Share During COVID-19: Admittedly, sharing isn’t the first concept that comes to mind in the time of social distancing … but it turns out that there are many (safe) ways to share, and all of them boost our spirits and strengthen our collective resilience. Read more >>
How To Build A Mutual Aid Network That Will Last After the Crisis: If our communities’ response is to be stronger than the virus, we will need to remember older forms of community-building, which translate enthusiasm into robust organization. Read more >>
Metta Center Offers Peacemaker Family Online Course: Nonviolence is not just for marches and bringing down dictators, but for transforming our personal lives too. Our families play an important role in creating a peaceful world—there’s truly no place like home when it comes to putting nonviolence into practice. Read more >>
How Can Nations Best Prepare To Face A Pandemic Or Climate Crisis? Our willingness to prioritize the protection of the community as a whole depends largely on social trust — something the Nordics achieved by rising up against their establishments. Read more >>
Resettlement In Place; A New Model For A Post-Pandemic Society: A group of organizers is proposing a new strategy called ‘resettlement in place’ – it is based on best practices in refugee resettlement and social intelligence, a model to harness local data and lessons learned from previous disasters, including Chicago’s response to Hurricane Katrina. While the pandemic will not force people to evacuate or flee to a new land, most people across our state will be strangers to a new economic reality. Read more >>
Sometimes, Breaking Taboos Opens Much-Needed Conversations: Radical Ugandan activist and academic Stella Nyanzi discusses her recent imprisonment, the power of vulgarity and anti-authoritarian struggle. Read more >>
Movement for Black Lives Releases COVID-19 Demands: Highlighting the disproportionate impact on Black people, the movement has crafted a list of needed changes and responses. Read more >>
Donate to the NYC Black Mutual Aid Fund: This is a fund that supports an important mutual aid network in severely impacted Black communities in the NYC area. Read more >>
#StayHomeButNotSilent on the International Day of Peasants’ Struggle on April 17th: From Palestine to Indonesia to the Mexico-U.S. border, members of the international peasant movement, La Vía Campesina, are highlighting the vulnerability and the urgent need for solidarity with peasants and migrant workers around the world during the COVID-19 crisis. Read more >>
Nonviolence Online Community Course – 6 Week Course with Rivera Sun, Wednesdays starting April 29th: Co-facilitated with Pace e Bene’s Veronica Pelicaric, this online course is intended to provide an opportunity to build community while studying nonviolence. Read more >>
Strategy 4 Action! Webinar with Rivera Sun April 19th, 5pm ET: In this 2-hr webinar with Rivera Sun, learn the guiding principles of how to make change with nonviolent action.
Learn more >>
Organize To #CancelRent #CancelMortgages #HomesForAll: Demand to ensure healthy, stable, thriving communities and a future for us all! Learn more >>
Building A Direct Action Campaign – 4 Week Online Course: Learn how to organize with nonviolent action to make meaningful change. Learn more >>
March For Science #EarthDay Virtual Teach-Ins: In honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, March for Science will convene a virtual international civic forum with curated panels and interactive participation, in the spirit of the first Earth Day teach-ins. Learn more >>