A virtual training for people who can offer medical, mental and spiritual care for protesters in the movement for racial and social justice will be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m today on Zoom.
The event, hosted by the Chicago-based Trauma Response and Crisis Care for Movements (TRACC), is aimed at helping healers understand how to use their skills to help frontline demonstrators, said Vahisha Hasan, a local TRACC leader.
“The people who are coming to this already have a gift, already have the training, already have the skill,” said Hasan, also director of applied psychology and an assistant professor at Memphis College for Urban and Theological Studies at Union University. “What we are offering for those folks is to get a deeper meaning, deeper understanding of social change in this time and how they can be a very integral part of making that (the movement) sustainable.”
The training is being offered as protests continue in Memphis and around the country in response to the killing of black people by law enforcement or vigilantes, including George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd, 46, died May 25 after police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost 9 minutes.
The TRACC training will highlight mental wellness for protesters and building trust.
“Often, the people who are most outraged are the most marginalized,” Hasan said. “They are those that are most directly impacted, and they often don’t have the means to access resources. And, one of those resources is trust. Why should they go to a person and trust a set of people?”
Hasan will be joined by Teresa Mateus, co-founder and project coordinator of TRACC; Amanda Hill, a community organizer from Detroit; and Diana Quinn Inlak’ech, a licensed naturopathic doctor.
Registration, which includes a sliding fee of $1 to $20, is required for the workshop.
F. Amanda Tugade is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms.
This story is brought to you by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom focused on poverty, power and policy in Memphis. Support independent journalism by making a tax-deductible donation today. MLK50 is also supported by the Surdna Foundation, the Racial Equity in Journalism Fund at Borealis Philanthropy, the Southern Documentary Project at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the American Journalism Project, the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, and Community Change.