there's our catastrophe

sodawound:

(TAKEN FROM DIRTYBIRD DISTRO)

For those of u who aren’t familiar, Sisters Inside is an independent organization that provides a number of programs supporting incarcerated women and their families in Queensland. This ranges from inside counseling, advocacy, support for women and their kids post release and heaps more. At the beginning of this financial year they were informed they were going to have funding cut to three of their programs: the special circumstances court program (helps homeless adults charged with minor offences avoid the criminal justice system and be referred to an appropriate service), the work pathways program (providing training to women post release) and the Townsville women’s prison support program (counseling and support services for women at Townsville correctional centre).

The following was taken from the sisters inside values and visions:

“Sisters Inside should relentlessly pursue issues of injustice suffered by all women, especially women in prison and elsewhere in the criminal justice system. We recognise that social change may come at a cost, and are therefore committed to making strategic decisions and taking risks to fight for issues that the organisation feels strongly about. Clearly this will mean that we will be in conflict with those systems that benefit from the current situation. We therefore need courage in dealing with conflict and consequences of conflict as an organisation.”

So this all happened at the same time as alot of other queensland community services and health providers lost their funding and consequently left alot of people without the services they rely on. So what can we do? you can check out the Change.org petition that is compelling the newman government to reinstate funding to this vital service. You can also go directly to the Sisters Inside website and hit the donate now button.

GIVE ME UR STUFF!!

Another thing u can do if u dont have money to donate directly, but u got a ton of old punk merch u feel could be loved by others u can give that to me instead! So im not going to pretend this is my idea, coz i totally poached it off of Jelena from Outright, but in her words “the idea is nothing unless its used and shared”.

So this is the deal:
Step one: u give me ur old shirts/records/patches/watever
Step two: i sell them for cheap at shows
Step three: i donate 100% of the takings to sisters inside

This is a super easy thing and all u need to do is email me at dirtybirddistro@gmail.com and tell me what u got and i will even come get it!

We as punks talk alot about injustices and change and its easy for those words to lose meaning after a while. Its important for us not to forget what we are striving for and to put those words into action, no matter how small the action is.

<3 x

A few friends and acquaintances of mine have done (and continue to do) work for Sisters Inside and the cuts to their funding has been devastating as one of the many blows undertaken this long year under the new conservative government of Campbell Newman and an LNP majority in the state. This fundraiser through dirty bird mostly is relevant to people who can contribute tshirts, patches and records to it in Sydney (although Tara of One Brick Today can also transport donations from Melbourne) but I love the idea of it - being able to recycle shirts that get left at the bottom of somebody else’s pile, newly loved by some other punk and a non profit group being able to benefit from that.

Sisters Inside do good work. Their staff are having their hearts broken at the moment, while the work that they do is already exhausting, it is important that it continues and is funded through some means and is supported in petitions to be rallied up against the LNP government to have state funding, as meaningful as community contributions can give I’m not sure it will replenish what has been cut from their need of resources. It is a exhausting and under appreciated resource for women who are exhausted and under appreciated and have, by the Newman LNP been otherwise left to disappear within the prison industrial complex.

Campbell Newman’s LNP Government makes me sick, but I live here.

leonineantiheroine:

erythrathalassa:

A youth worker says she knows of at least five 16 or 17 year olds being held at a high security unit inside Port Phillip Prison.

This is so heartbreaking. That doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Yep.

Just roughly from the video—they’re in maximum security. Parole board made the decision without giving reasons. 

No natural air or light. It’s either silence or beatings. One prisoner beaten for a day.

Held behind perspex glass and have no human contact. Locked down for 22 hours. No access to rehabilitation, school, mental health practitioners.

People can have hallucinations, psychotic episodes, etc.

In Charlotte, one teenager spent 6 1/2 months to 7 months.

One Aboriginal teenager is in there.  

Department of Human Services have been sent letters re: human rights of the child and whether they are breaking any Declarations. 

(via zeroambit)