A Care-Focused Community
When we decided to call our project “Our Will Power,” we did it with a wink. We know it takes far more than our will power alone to survive, thrive, and create the systems that affirm our lives instead of making us invisible, isolating us from one another, starving us of the resources we need to survive, and exploiting and profiting from our situations.
Erasure and isolation speed up entropy.
To combat them, we need community, and a sense of purpose—two things that are often eroded by care work, disability, illness and aging. We are building a community of folks affected by caretaking, disability, aging and illness. We call this part of our work Collective Will.
What We Do
- We curate. We feature writing and other work by care teams in our blog and on our social media feeds. Sign up for our newsletter to receive focused calls, or get in touch with your own proposal.
- We host. Our quarterly, in-person series at The Pile Bookstore in Berwyn, IL features caretaking, disability, illness and aging-focused readers and performers. We supplement the in-person series with occasional virtual offerings. Follow the Collective Will instagram and sign up for our newsletter for event updates, and get in touch if you’re interested in participating!
- We teach. We are eager to share what we’ve learned developing our approach to adaptive writing workshops for care partners. We share writing prompts and exercises for care teams in our blog and newsletter, and are available for coaching, feedback and editing services, and more. Contact us!
Resources
Everything we do is influenced by those who came before, and with whom we strive to be in solidarity now. We are excited to share some of the disability justice and care-focused organizations and resources that have inspired us, and invite you to seek out and support them!
- Caring Across Generations is a national organization of family caregivers, care workers, disabled people, and aging adults working to transform the way we care in this country. Brandon participated in their Care Fellowship, a leadership development program that helps grow and nurture the advocacy and communication skills of people who give and receive care.
- The Negative Space works to change the way caregivers are seen and supported by shining a light on the realities of caregiving, providing direct services to caregivers—including a free, online caregiver support group from which Brandon has benefited—and providing education and tools to those who support caregivers.
- Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a Canadian-American poet, writer, educator, and organizer whose writing and performance art focuses on disability justice, queer and trans people of color, and the interconnection of systems of colonialism, abuse and violence. We especially appreciate these 20 Questions for Disability Justice Art Dreaming, along with their books and other writings.
- Founded and directed by disabled writer, editor and organizer Alice Wong, Disability Visibility Project is an online community dedicated to creating, sharing and amplifying disability media and culture.
- Sins Invalid is a disability justice-based movement building and performance project that celebrates disabled people, centering and led by disabled Black, Indigenous, and people of the global majority, and queer, trans, and nonbinary disabled people.