Collective Care Clusters

The purpose of Collective Care Clusters is to nurture small cohorts of disabled and chronically ill people who are involved in cultural work, research, access, organizing, and/or activism. We want to resource those who resource their communities! 

Each of the two Collective Care Clusters consists of four to six participants. Each Cluster will include organizers, artists, writers, and scholars who are working at the nexus of disability justice and chronic illness justice. The clusters will be led by skilled facilitators and meet once a week for nine weeks, from the week of February 1st to April 2nd. 

Modeled loosely on pods, a form of community-building created by Transformative Justice activists rooted in accountability, safety, and transformation, the Care Clusters will provide space for participants to build relationships, learn together, and support one anothers’ community-based work. Additionally, the nine-week program is packed with learning resources, skilled facilitators, and opportunities for robust discourse and skill sharing. 

We will organize two clusters from the application pool. Each cluster will:

• Have 4 to 6 participants

• Meet weekly for 2 hours at a time

• Run for a total of 9 weeks, from the week of February 1st to the week of April 2nd

DescriptiEach participant receives a $500 honorarium (participants can be paid via gift card as needed).

Additionally, each participant will have opportunities to:

• Receive organizing training with an expert disability justice facilitator

• Become a UC Davis affiliate (which includes library access)

• Join co-working sessions with The Nest Collab (the larger project that’s running the clusters)

• Co-create the space and share their unique perspectives and knowledges in the space (see popular education style note below) on text goes here

We invite you to participate as fully as possible in each of the 9 cluster meetings, understanding that our bodyminds’ capacities may change week to week

• Each participant will contribute their assets and expertise to co-creating the space, building a space that is respectful, supportive, and mutually co-constituted

• Each participant will make a blog post about their project seed and/or Cluster experience for our website (approximately 300-500 words)* 

• Openness to develop skillsets of relational organizing including empathy, compassion, community care as self-care 

• Willingness to participate in the Clusters’ popular education style where we all actively participate in a sharing of knowledge in the space 

*other formats can be discussed

Every week during the program, Disability Justice facilitator Elliott Fukui of Mad Queer Organizing Strategies will help you develop a different collective care skillset. 

Examples include: 

• figuring out where your project idea (see below) sits in the robust history of disability and chronic illness organizing

• improving your skills in moving through conflict

• creating maps of where care work is most needed in your community. 

Our goal for this program is to provide resources to people who will, in turn, resource their communities. 

In this spirit, our application asks you to provide a brief description of an idea for a collective care project meant to support community accessibility, education, organizing, art-making, or mutual aid. 

Examples could be: 

• setting up a visiting or social schedule for a few people who are housebound

• creating support structures for people trying to sort through insurance claims, SSDI, or applications for emergency grants

• petitioning your city to fix a busted sidewalk

• experimenting with a new type of accessibility for a creative visual art piece

• building a resource documenting past care work you’ve done that might help others to do the same

The program will start by building foundations for community organizing. Then mid-way through, you will pivot toward focusing on your proposed projects. You’ll build relationships within your cohort and support each other as you develop your project idea. 

Each cluster will function as a community where members hold diverse experience and knowledge, and where you’re able to learn with and from one another. We value the deep expertise and knowledge that people bring from their experiences in the world. We especially encourage disabled and chronically ill people who are marginalized in multiple ways to apply: for example, those who are on Social Security Disability Income (SSDI); Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; immigrants; have significant family care responsibilities, including care for disabled adults; or experience housing and food insecurity.

The next part of the application process will involve participating in an informal interview. We will reach out to selected applicants to schedule an interview by mid-November.

Participants must be 18 years old or older and will be selected according to:

• The extent to which the Cluster program will benefit your work and the communities you belong to

• Your current and past engagement with disability justice and chronic illness community OR your potential and desire for growth in this area

• The alignment of your project seed idea with Cluster goals

• How you might learn from and support other Cluster comrades