In November 2017, SAVAH launched the I Am Not Invisible Campaign to raise awareness about the challenges Indigenous and Black prisoners experience integrating into the community after serving sentences. The SAVAH Division started this campaign with the expertise and inspiration of our Community Legal Worker, Chris Harris, a founder of the Freedom Justice Academy, and Kevin Harp, Native Prisoner Rights Activist affiliated with Native Brotherhood. Freedom Justice Academy engaged former Black and Indigenous prisoners in mentorship and leadership training when they completed their sentences. Overwhelmingly, as reflected in Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action, there is a lack of support for ex-prisoners who are inter-generational survivors, incarcerated due to the legacy of Residential Schools and the effects of colonialism, discrimination and racism. The campaign aims to support ex-prisoners through two public education sessions and organizing a support network for the development of community-based healing and mentorship towards family reunification, and income stability.
The first public education event was held at Parkdale Project Read on November 6th, with 34 year-old Black and Indigenous ex-prisoners Sean Frost (Founder Global Inspiration) and Kevin Harp (Native Brotherhood, Native Prison Rights Activist) to speak about their experience of incarceration. The second educational event was held at A Different Booklist bookstore on January 29th, 2018. Residential school survivor Michael Cheena spoke about the history of the residential school survivors’ movement and its relationship to the struggles of Indigenous federal prisoners in this age of mass incarceration. Kevin Harp also spoke from the heart about his life experience spending his entire youth and adult years in and out of prison, frequently referred to as “Canada’s New Residential Schools” in the mainstream media. Finally, Kevin spoke about the lack of healing and support services for Native prisoners in Toronto.
On May 12th, 2018, the Migrant Detainee Support Coalition (MDSC) organized a teach-in at PCLS on the conditions of immigrant detainees in this era of mass incarceration, to raise awareness about the case of Ebrahim Toure, Canada’s longest held immigrant detainee. SAVAH hopes to build solidarity relations between MDSC’s immigrant detainee organizing and I Am Not Invisible.
On May 22nd, 2018, SAVAH launched the I Am Not Invisible Working Group to organize a support network that will lead the campaign and increase community-based peer, healing, mentorship, and support programs to integrate Indigenous and Black ex-federal prisoners into the community once they’ve completed their sentences. The working group has representation from the following legal clinics and grassroots organizing groups: Income Security Advocacy Centre, Rexdale Community Legal Services, Migrant Detainee Support Coalition, and the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre.