>>>>SAVE THE DATE! POWER SHIFT 2023 APRIL 6-8th, 2022!

Hey John, so we’ve danced our ways through the dog days of summer and are now on the other side – even here in Bvlbancha, where the heavy heat of the season persists until late October and we’ve only just started Hurricane Season, you can feel summer slowly retreat. State politicians hold our city’s fragile safety hostage because city officials have chosen to not to actively pursue the police state’s tyrannical anti-choice agenda – in retaliation, the state of Louisiana is withholding vital water pump infrastructure budget funds that might help mitigate some of the effects of flooding in the city. Our power bills skyrocket during extreme economic turmoil while our city’s energy monopoly lies to its citizens, refuses to repair critical infrastructure (yet charges us for supposed repairs), and now Entergy is telling us that if there is a hurricane, we should expect to be without power for a month.

In spite of all of the turmoil and strife going on across the world, we still find ways to center building community and joy. Here at Power Shift Network, we’re busy behind the scenes gathering the ideas, desires, needs, and dreams of our network(s) and the broader liberatory youth climate movement so we can make Power Shift 23 a success! If you’re looking for ways to plug into supporting what will be a brilliant, joyful, inspiring, power-building social and environmental justice event, please reach out! My inbox is always open.

>>>>KEY UPDATES

We hired our new Power Shift Convergence Fellows! We’ve added three lovely new members – Dominic Chacón for Recruitment, Sam James for Logistics and Mayana Nell Torres for Programming – to the team! They’ve been on staff for a month now, and each of them are brilliant and passionate about youth climate and justice organizing. Some of y’all have already been introduced, so I won’t repeat their intros here, but you can read their bios here.

We’re making Headliner Moves! The main themes for PS23 will be:

We’ll have a lot of robust programming of many different types and formats, but we’re working towards having at least one headliner for five different themes. It’s no small task, and here’s where you come in. We’re looking for intros and connections to a few people who we’d love to collaborate with for the Convergence! So if you could loop us in on an intro email or phone call, that’d be amazing! Or even if you’ve got good contact info, we’ll happily work with that as well.

Looking for intros to these folks: Christian Smalls, Imani Barbarin, Noname, Big Freedia, adrienne maree brown, Joy Harjo, Vandana Shiva, Alán Pelaez, Amber Starks, Mariame Kaba.


>>>>>WAYS TO PLUG-IN +/OR SUPPORT!

Planning team needs! Our Logistics, Programming, and Recruitment planning teams are hard at work building out PS23. We’ve got a few asks from each of our fellows.

  • Logistics: if you have any connections in Bvlbancha / New Orleans around free or subsidized lodging for our attendees with financial access needs, or recommendations for accessible, reliable shuttle services, please email Sam here.
  • Programming: If you wanna be involved in programming, contact Mayana. We want to build out some career panels for radical and environmental industries and orgs, so if you’re interested or know someone we should tap for this, please reach out to Mayana!
  • Recruitment: We wanna make sure that our communities are represented and involved in the convergence. If you have specific people or communities you want to invite, or if you’ve got ideas around how we get underrepresented and underserved communities to the table, or if you and/or your network wanna join the recruitment team, hit up Dominic!
Sponsorships for the Convergence! Putting on an event like PS23 requires a lot of work and a lot of resourcing. We have big plans and big dreams for the convergence, including things like language accessibility and interpretation as well as an ambitious goal of getting anyone who wants to be in the room in the room, regardless of financial means. If you’re interested in sponsoring PS23, please reach out to here to Audrey Suarez. We've been reaching out to folks to collaborate and help resource our most audacious goals, and we'd like to thank these folks for committing to sponsoring PS23 and helping us build a more connected, resourced, and powerful community: ActBlue, Action For the Climate Emergency, American Family Insurance, CashApp, Energy Foundation - DEI Team, Green 2.0, National Wildlife Federation, and SumOfUs.

Funder Intros and Leads: I’m looking for connections with funders and sponsors who are interested in helping us resource this ambitious vision. If you know any funders who might be a good fit to support us, email me or Audrey and let me us know!

You can also directly support the convergence! Contributions from our community help us work towards providing registration scholarships, travel and lodging support, inviting non-student youth into the radical climate justice movement, and investing in Black and Indigenous communities in the Gulf South. If you want to contribute to the convergence directly, you can do so here.

Please feel encouraged to reach out with any questions, offerings, contributions or ideas! I hope stepping into autumn feels like a bountiful harvest.


Hvtum cehecarēs,

Sasha Irby, Convergence Coordinator for Power Shift Network
Sent via ActionNetwork.org. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Power Shift Network, please click here.