[opirgyork] DisOrientation + River Run + End the Siege on Gaza + More Upcoming Events

[OPIRG York]

Hey Everyone!

Lots of great upcoming events- this week, be part of the DisOrientation
organizing team here at York U, join us this Thursday afternoon for an
organizing DisO meeting at 1pm. If you hadn't planned on coming to York
already, there is an important event on July 31st, the bi-annual River Run-
see full details below. There is a speaking event as part of River Run that
happens tomorrow evening at 6:30pm- all details are below. This Wednesday
there is a demonstration against the ongoing seize of Gaza, in Palestine,
and we encourage all members to go and show their solidarity and support
and end to the siege. Also check out some of the upcoming event being
hosted by two awesome activist groups in Toronto, OCAP and No One Is
Illegal and the End Immigration Detention Network.

If you're interested in volunteering at OPIRG York, or have any questions,
please get in touch with Victoria, at victoria at opirgyork.ca. We always are
in need of volunteers! And stop by the OPIRG York office anytime -- Room
449C Student Centre!

-- OPIRG York


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*TODAY'S DIGEST:*

*//////// OPIRG YORK \\\\\\\\\\\*
1. *DisOrientation 2014 -- Planning Meeting, July 31st, 1pm*

*//////// COMMUNITY \\\\\\\\\\\*

2. *July 29 & 31:* River Run 2014: Walk with Grassy Narrows for Clean Water
and Indigenous Rights
3.* July 30*: End the assault on Gaza! Break the siege! Boycott Israel!
Free Palestine!
4. *August 7*: DTE Community Forum – TAVIS in the Neighbourhood
5. *August 10th: *Prisoner Justice Day: ART and/in MIGRANT DETENTION
6. *August 20th: *COME CHECK OUT THE OCAP NEW MEMBERS MEETING! +
OCAP Community Organizing Course – Call for Participants - September 2014
7. *ONGOING*: Call for participants in workshop titled What Carries Us
Through The World?
8. *NEWS*: The UN has spoken. Its time to End Immigration Detention.

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*1. **DisOrientation 2014 -- Planning Meeting, July 31st, 1pm*

Read about DIsO here: http://diso2014.opirgyork.ca/

*Date*: Thursday, July 31st
*Time*: 1pm - 3pm
*Location*: Room 311C, Student Centre, York University
*Contact*: victoria at opirgyork.ca, victoria.opirg at gmail.com
https://www.facebook.com/events/683448301704616

We have a small team of awesome folks putting together the lineup for this
years DisOrientation. We are hosting 10 events (2 per day) during the week
of September 22-26th! Here are the events that will take place thus far,
and if you have interest in helping making them happen, please join us at
this planning meeting:

1. political comedy night with Aamer Rahman
2. queerness & disability, transformative justice, sex work
3. Alternative Media
4. University Divestment - fossil fuels, Israeli Apartheid, etc
5. End Immigration Detention
6. Program Corporatization (@ York U and universities)
7. gentrification, Jane-Finch community (JFAAP)
8. gender based violence
9. zine making (re. self-care, positive space)
10. art attack (hands-on art - screenprinting, stencilling, etc).

All are welcome! All events will be free and wheelchair accessible!!


*********
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES:
*********

We need volunteers for the following:

Event Logistics Team:
Well organized? Think on your feet? Wanna watch magic happen?
- Assist Programming Coordinator with event coordination
- Be the go-to person on the day of for workshops
- Participate in the DisOrientation events
- Ensure that facilitators have what they need

Promotion/Outreach Team:
Wanna meet people and have lots of energy? This is the team for you!
- Promote and give out DisOrientation programs
- Help staff give class talks
- Poster and leaflet handing out
- Table Schmoozing/chilling

Media Documentation Team:
Love Media? Recording? Video? Wanna learn about these things?
- Audio recording each event
- Film/Video recording each event
- Photographing each event
*All equipment and training will be provided

Anything Else!!

If you're interested and unable to attend, please email Victoria at:
victoria at opirgyork.ca & victoria.opirg at gmail.com

Thank You!

-OPIRG York
www.opirgyork.ca
416-736-5724
opirg at yorku.ca

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*2. River Run 2014: Walk with Grassy Narrows for Clean Water and Indigenous
Rights1. Stephen Lewis Speaks With Grassy Narrows6:30pm, July 29, 2014, 55
Dundas E (Ryerson University)Featuring: Grassy Narrows Chief Roger
Fobister; Judy Da Silva - Grassy Narrows Clan Mother; Leanne Betasamosake
Simpson - Writer, educator and activist and Stephen LewisBuy
tickets: http://bit.ly/GrassyTorontoPublicForum
<http://bit.ly/GrassyTorontoPublicForum>2. River Run 2014: Walk with Grassy
Narrows for Clean Water and Indigenous Rights12pm, July 31, 2014, Walk
starts at Grange ParkJoin Grassy Narrows families and their supporters as
they walk in Toronto for clean water and Indigenous rights this July
31.Contribute to support the Grassy Narrows Womens Drum Group with their
travel costs to Toronto for the River
Run:http://www.grassynarrows.causevox.com/
<http://www.grassynarrows.causevox.com/>#FreeGrassy
#RiverRunwww.freegrassy.net <http://www.freegrassy.net/>Media Sponsors: Now
Toronto and rabble.ca <http://rabble.ca/>Endorsers and Further
details: http://freegrassy.net/2014/05/25/river-run-2014-water-is-sacred/
<http://freegrassy.net/2014/05/25/river-run-2014-water-is-sacred/>*

****************

*3. **End the assault on Gaza! Break the siege! Boycott Israel! Free
Palestine!*

Israeli forces have now killed more than 1,000 Palestinians (including over
170 children), wounded over 6,000 and displaced over 200,000 people in
Gaza. Protests are being organized in cities around the world to respond to
Israeli war crimes and to call for an immediate military embargo on Israel.

As they did during Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2008-09 that killed over 1400
Palestinians, the Canadian government is once again giving its full,
uncritical support to Israel. Canada has supported Israel’s illegal siege
on Gaza since it began over 7 years ago - never calling on Israel to end
the blockage to allow food, medicine, building supplies and other
necessities into Gaza. Canada continues to engage in free trade,
particularly arms deals, with Israel. Canada is deeply complicit in the
crimes being committed in Palestine.

The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid is calling on all people of
conscience to take action against Israel’s war crimes and Canadian support
for these massacres.

Join us on the streets! Bring flags, banners, noisemakers and your voices!

*Date*: Wednesday, July 30th
*Time*: 6 PM
*Location*: Yonge-Dundas Square (the nearest accessible TTC station is
Yonge-Dundas and we will have accessibility marshals.)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1448799872073952

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*4. **DTE Community Forum – TAVIS in the Neighbourhood*

Thursday August 7, 2014
6pm - Community meal
6:30 - 7:30 - Forum
7:30 – 8pm - Social - tea/coffee and desserts
40 Oak St - C.R.C.*
*This space is accessible and has accessible washrooms

Toronto's Downtown East Community is currently being targeted by TAVIS
(Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy) from June 18 -September 8.
While governments pay to send additional police into the neighbourhood –
they refuse to provide the resources for the things that are actually
needed.

We need decent and affordable housing, jobs that pay a living wage and
incomes for people on welfare and disability that enable them to live in
health and dignity.
We need opportunities, training/education and jobs for youth.
We do not need to be traumatized and criminalized by police harassment.
We need an end to targeted policing, an end to racial profiling and an end
to police violence.

The people most directly affected by this attack include, people of colour,
families and youth, people who use drugs, poor people, sex workers, and
homeless people.

We need to come together in solidarity to challenge and defeat this attack.
We need to make demands and organize for what our communities really need.
We will not be priced, policed or pushed out of our neighbourhoods.

We demand the $5-7.5 million dollars they are paying for cops to harass our
community be invested in the things that will actually make this community
safe.

Stopping, ticketing, carding, arresting people will not fix the social and
economic issues facing our communities

Come out to this community forum on August 7th to add your voice and help
us demand that the real needs of this community be met.

Endorsed by: Network for the Elimination of Police Violence (NEPV), Rights
Watch Network, International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement(InPDUM),
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP), Basics

For more information contact: 416-551-7673 or stoptavis at gmail.com

****************

*5. **Prisoner Justice Day: ART and/in MIGRANT DETENTION*

For Prisoner Justice Day 2014, we will be honouring creative resistance in
immigration detention through dialogue, screen-printing and letter-writing.

6-8pm
Sunday, August 10, 2014
227 Sterling Street, #103

We will share experiences of anti-detentions and anti-prison organizing for
the past decade to the present, and centring art as an organizing tool and
art-making as a transformative practice. We will also see a preview of the
forthcoming graphic novel Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant
Detention, which will be launched in Toronto in the lead up to with the
1-year anniversary of the historic mass hunger strike among detainees in
Lindsay, Ontario's Central East Correctional Centre. The evening will
conclude with a hands-on printmaking session of postcards written to
detainees in Lindsay's prison.

Prison abolition must be part of migrant justice and anti-borders work.
Together, we must tear all fences down!

This event is FREE.
*Proceeds from the sales of a newly launched calendar will go towards a
commissary funds for detainees in Lindsay prison.

ACCESSIBILITY: The space does not have wheelchair accessible bathrooms.

This event is organized independently by members of justseeds Artists'
Cooperative, End Immigration Detention Network, and No One Is Illegal -
Toronto.
https://www.facebook.com/events/621525571279487

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*6. **COME CHECK OUT THE OCAP NEW MEMBERS MEETING!*


The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty is a political, direct-action
organization located in Toronto’s downtown east. We fight for low wage
workers, poor people, people on social assistance and those without a
decent place to live. We mount campaigns against regressive government
policies as they affect poor and working people. We believe in the power
of collective resistance.

*Where*: St. Luke’s Church, 353 Sherbourne St.
*When*: August 20th, 6-8 pm
*accessible space w/ accessible WCs. Snacks, tokens and childcare will be
provided.

*+ OCAP Community Organizing Course – Call for Participants - September
2014*

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty is holding a course to offer people
some of the knowledge and skills they will need to mobilize in their
communities to resist poverty and austerity. Since the last course, OCAP
has fought for more shelter beds, a women's drop in, for a raise to social
assistance rates, against cuts to ODSP and against gentrification and
policing in the downtown East.
DATES: 4 consecutive Saturdays – September 6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th
TIME: 2-5pm followed by a meal each week.
Childcare and transportation costs will be provided and the location is
wheelchair accessible, with accessible washrooms.
COURSE OUTLINE:
Week 1 (September 6th): A brief introduction to OCAP. How do capitalism
and colonialism work? How do they produce poverty? What is the austerity
agenda and how is it playing out in our communities?
Week 2 (September 13th): How does the immigration and welfare systems
regulate the poor? How does OCAP organize actions to defend people under
attack by these systems?
Week 3 (September 20th): How can poor people use disruptive action to
defend themselves and win victories? How are effective campaigns and
actions organized?
Week 4 (April 27th): Histories of anti-poverty resistance in Toronto.
Group discussion on what the struggle looks like in our community and how
will we move forward?
This course is for people who want to fight back. Those who participate
will be presented with ideas and methods that OCAP has developed over more
than twenty years of organizing in poor communities. We can offer
knowledge and skills that they don't teach in schools and you won't get
from the newspapers. We intend the sessions to be lively, engaging and
informative. The opinions and proposals of those who attend will be vital
to the success. If you are interested in being part of this course,
contact OCAP as soon as possible. We want to stress that all who agree to
participate should make a serious commitment to attending all four
sessions. Please don't reserve a spot, unless you can make that
commitment. Space is
limited to allow for maximum engagement with participants.

*How to apply:*
**Please email or call us with the following information by Wednesday
August 20th:
Name:
Email and/or phone contact:
What do you hope to get out of the course?
What area of Toronto will you be coming from?
Do you need childcare?
Are there ways we can make the space and the course more accessible for you?
Do you expect to become involved in OCAP?
Send to: the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty at: ocap at tao.ca /
416-925-6939


****************

*7. **Call for participants in workshop titled What Carries Us Through The
World? *

by artist micha cárdenas and presented by e-fagia.

The workshop is for trans people, sick and disabled people, 2-spirit, black
/ indigenous / mixed / people of color, but it is open to allies working in
solidarity at the intersections of disability justice, assistive
technologies, transgender safety, wearable technologies and transportation
in the city. The venue is wheelchair accessible and ASL interpretation will
be made available upon request.

Please RSVP for ASL by August 1st. Otherwise the registration deadline is
August 10th. Attached is more info.

Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/616688251778723

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*8. **The UN has spoken. Its time to End Immigration Detention. *

please visit and share:
http://endimmigrationdetention.com/2014/07/24/untocanada/

Overstaying past your immigration permit should not be grounds for
incarceration. Jailing someone simply for wishing to live and work in a
country not of their birth is not justice. Indefinite detention with no
hope of release on top of that is cruel, inhumane and appalling. Many
people agree: Over a 100 detainees have been on strike for nearly a year,
thousands of people have signed our petition, dozens of organizations have
endorsed our demands, and our report on detention reviews has exposed signs
of government interference in immigration detention decision making.

Now, the UN has spoken out in support. The tide on immigration detention is
turning.

Let’s turn up the volume. Can you contact your MP about this urgent issue?
Fill out the form at
http://endimmigrationdetention.com/2014/07/24/untocanada/ and we will be in
touch.

Today, we are getting unprecedented media coverage from coast to coast to
coast. We need you to amplify our voices even more. Over the next few days
– we need you to share, tweet, email, and forward out this blog post and
share news stories, images and stories from our facebook page and our
twitter feed. We can do this!

(oh and don’t forget about Cross-Canada Day of Action Against Detentions on
September 17th)

*KEY ELEMENTS OF THE UN DECISION*

This is the first time United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights’
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has rendered a decision involving
Canada since 1994 which is as far back as information is available for.

The UN has called for Immigration Detention to be the policy of last resort
but in Canada over 85,000 people have been detained under the current
Federal government. Immigration detention is unjust, immoral, jail without
trial or charge. Now the UN is saying its also against international legal
norms. Its time to end immigration detention.

The UN has reiterated that detention must be for the shortest time period
possible — Canada on the other hand is one of the only Western countries
that does not have a time limit on immigration detention resulting in
people being detained for up to 10 years. Immigrant detainees and their
allies are calling for a 90 day limit on immigration detention.

The UN has issued this Opinion because it found that immigrants in Canada
do not have access to real judicial review processes. This confirms what
government documents have revealed about political interference in
detention reviews, and what immigrants and their allies know — the current
judicial oversight of the program is a farce. You have to seek permission
to go to Federal Court, which usually gets denied. Even if you get
permissions, case-law or previous decisions mean that detention can’t be
challenged. The End Immigration Detention Network is calling for an
overhaul of the Detention and Judicial Review processes.

The UN insists immigration enforcement’s inability to establish someone’s
identity, or to obtain travel documents from countries of origin are not
grounds to detain people. The UN goes a step further – even if those
difficulties arise from non-cooperation of the detainee — there are still
not enough grounds to keep someone in jail. These are the two of the most
common reasons why immigrants are held in detention.  These people must be
released. No one should be held in maximum security prisons.

*MAINSTREAM MEDIA COVERAGE – PLEASE SHARE*
will be updated all day at
http://endimmigrationdetention.com/2014/07/24/untocanada/
please check often


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-- 

-OPIRG York
--
www.opirgyork.ca
416-736-5724
opirg at yorku.ca



*There are many ways to get involved at OPIRG. Apply to be a working
group: **http://opirgyork.ca/working-groups
<http://opirgyork.ca/working-groups>*
Contact victoria at opirgyork.ca for further information.

*We also have two collectives: *PrOPIRGanda Radio and the Radical Reading
Room. You can contact us about ways to get involved in these collectives:
opirgyork at gmail.com.

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