Hi friends, it’s been a while….
Hi friends, it’s been a while….
We’re slowly getting back into projects from our reflective break
Like what you read? Share it with your friends! ❤️
Listen to an audio version of our newsletter here 🌻
Hi everyone, how are you? It has been a few months since we published a newsletter from the team so we wanted to share some updates, and we also just missed you and wanted to say hello!
We’ve been away spending time imagining what we want for and from the collective and carving out what the rights collective means to us and others. It has been a period of deep reflection and intention on how we move, and the things we care about. It is an ongoing process but we’ve written about our journey so far below.
We are also very slowly started up some project work which you can also read more about below.
Thank you for staying with us in this transitional phase and we hope to you soon.
In solidarity,
Habiba
☄️Imagining the Collective
Over a year ago now; we posted an article to our blog, sharing our intention to step back from our social media presence. The Rights Collective team had reached a point of burnout; and we needed time away from visibility to rest, regroup, and refresh.
In addition to reducing our social media presence, we massively cut down our workload, as the extent of our project work had become unmanageable for us as a team of volunteers. This sudden move towards slowness really shifted our focus, and we began to realise just how many questions we had for ourselves about who we were in relation to this collective, what we wanted to contribute and how we wanted to show up. What is The Rights Collective? Who are we together? How can we move towards practising ways of being and doing that are grounded in our values?
Since then, our internal processes have shifted dramatically, and building towards creating a collective with robust practices of care, accountability and trust, as well as a sincere determination to continue working with our communities. We want to share our learnings about this time with you - how it felt to slow down in that way, what we’ve learnt and what it means for the future. We’re in the process of co-writing a blog post that encapsulates this. Until then, please know that we’ve missed you, and we can’t wait to meet you again as our whole selves, reinvigorated and ready.
🌙 🌈Crescent Moon
We’re excited to announce the launch of Crescent Moon; a London-based support program for family members of LGBT+ Muslims who want to navigate questions of faith, family, gender and sexuality together.
This 8-month series will provide a communal space of learning and reflection alongside other family members and experienced facilitators. We hope to cultivate a space where we can share our own experiences, hear from others and discuss Islamic ideas and principles as a group.
If you would like to participate or refer a family member, or you have suggestions on who can support us in delivering a session, please fill out the form below.
📚Things we’re engaging with right now…
LISTEN: We’ve been talking a lot about love, showing up in friendships, and relationships at The Rights Collective. We’re sharing this podcast produced by the Atlantic - what do we owe our friends? in hopes you’ll also resonate with the points made.
WATCH: Palestinian poet and writer Mohammed El-Kurd chats with Lex Fridman about the ongoing Sheikh Jarrah campaign, Israeli occupation, and his poetry book; Rifqa.
MEET: Some of us will be this lab in Bristol exploring Life Affirming Organisational Practices. We’d love to meet you - feel free to connect with us over on our Instagram or email if you don’t know how to find us.
Most of our spaces, workshops and events are free but if you feel called to contribute to the community and invest in sustaining our work, please donate here.