Videos from Liberation Acupuncture in Portland, OR 2018

At the Liberation Acupuncture workshop in June 2018, POCA’s Movement Building Circle (MBC) led an afternoon of inquiries into movement building in the context of community acupuncture. These sessions–with video links below–allowed us to learn how folks have been implementing movement building practices in their spaces and to brainstorm ways to be ever more aligned with social justice principles through our clinics. Check ‘em out!

What is Movement Building, anyway?
The Movement Building Circle was created in the Fall of 2017 to encourage clinics to get involved with local movements in their community and create trusting, respectful relationships with folks already doing the work. In this clip, we explore what is MB and what it may not be. We share what the MBC has been up, our mission and vision and encourage folks to join this work. Check it out and see if it’s for you!

Clinic Survey Results on POCA Movement Building Work
In this video, we present a survey of movement building work going on in POCA clinics across the US and Canada. Based on responses from 43 punks and clinics, we learned that POCA clinic members are already engaged with community organizations and social movements, many want to do even more, and everyone wants more information about specific projects and models.

Panel of POCA Clinics and Movement Building Partnerships
Punks and owners from three POCA clinics describe movement building projects they’ve tried, discuss what worked and didn’t, and respond to questions from the audience. Stacey Kelsey and Shanell Rodriguez from Boise Acupuncture Coop share their experiences partnering with a community organization to offer NADA to refugees who survived torture. Cynthia Gorsuch from Community Acupuncture Project of West Seattle talks about the clinic’s monthly special for formerly incarcerated people and family members impacted by incarceration. Gururas Khalsa of Seminole Heights Community Acupuncture describes partnering with and offering meeting space for local chapters of Food Not Bombs, Love Has No Borders, and other organizations.

Barriers to Movement Building
In this clip, we brainstorm the challenges to Movement Building. By identifying the barriers, we hope to better understand them so that we may overcome them. We then brainstorm ways that we can work towards overcoming barriers. We hope this section gives you support to identify your goals, your challenges and seeing the resources we have within our POCA community to better serve our communities.

White Supremacy Culture in our spaces
The MBC facilitated a conversation on white supremacy culture, one of the big barriers to movement building work that we face as a society and community. This section ended with a brainstorm on tangible ways to interrupt white supremacy in our clinics/spaces.  And a conversation that we must continue to work on within our beloved community of POCA. MBC also closes out the day with an analysis from Mark-Anthony Johnson on 'health as a political strategy'.

Author: nicolemaniez