We are so excited to be offering this new camp in 2022. Join us for a special week of programming as we combine some of the fun and community-building aspects of a week at camp with the work of service and learning. Join together as a group of people who are passionate about enacting justice in the world and spend a week intentionally working to live in right-relationship with one another and with the land. We have full scholarships available, otherwise it is pay-what-you-are-able starting as low as just $20 for a week at camp, including food and lodging!
Framing our week together is Annabeth (AB) Roeschley (they/she). Annabeth will help facilitate discussions and conversation circles as well as speak to the self-care and spiritual aspects of justice work. The days will also consist of service projects, mostly focused around sustainability and land stewardship and learning sessions with input given by Mennonite Central Committee staff (Jessica Buller, Saulo Padilla, and Juan Sebastian Pacheco Lozano). The topics of the week include Conversations across Difference, Immigration, Incarceration. Heidi Winters Vogel will be facilitating the use of Playback Theatre (wikipedia link) to help process with our bodies what we are hearing each day as well as a tool for sharing and experiencing each other’s stories. Our evenings will consist of activities, time for reflection, conversation circles on intersectionality, and live music performed by local musicians and bands. You can read more about our amazing line up of facilitators here!
We hope this will not only be an opportunity to learn and be inspired but also a place of rest and renewal as we recognize the heaviness the work of combatting systems of oppression entails. By centering ourselves in community and nature, we hope to all leave the space with more tools and energy for creating conditions for shalom in our society. Come be challenged, inspired, and experience the joys of living in a community of radical peacemakers and advocates of justice. Here are several of the topics we hope to reflect on during the course of the week:
- Conflict transformation and dialogue across difference – facilitated by Jes Stoltzfus Buller. Reflecting on the extremely polarized context we are living in, this session would help young adults wrestle with how to engage conflict and have healthy conversation where difference of opinion and understanding abound. Using hands-on learning, this would offer opportunity for participants to do skill-building around techniques for dialogue and relationship building across differences.
- Immigration – facilitated by Saulo Padilla and Juan Sebastian Pacheco Lozano. Through story-telling, this session would help young adults understand the complexities of migration – why people migrate, its effects, legal implications, and etc. Participants will be challenged to imagine what radical hospitality looks like as a response to migration.
- Transformative justice vs. mass incarceration – facilitated by Jes Stoltzfus Buller. The criminal legal system in the U.S. is a key place to start when unpacking injustice in the U.S. This session would begin to outline concepts of Restorative and Transformative justice, leading hands-on experiences for young adults to grapple with the ways they have been taught to understand justice, accountability and punishment, and help them discover new ways to understand and practice justice.
A schedule for the week is here and speaker bios are here.
Just [come to] Camp … for Justice! Hope to see you this summer.