The BIPOC Healing: After-Hours Social on Thursday, June 9th is hosted and organized by Community Race Relations Committee of Peterborough and KitCoffee, located on 144 Hunter Street W in Nogojiwanong | Peterborough. We are joined by the Kawartha World Issues Centre and the Diverse Nature Collective to provide an informed and inclusive space for folks to gather and be held as a community in the process of collectively recovering from the derecho storm – a clear symptom of intensifying climate change – along with the compounded impacts of the recent mass shootings that impacted Black and Latinx communities in the United States.

In light of these events, we recognize the need to radically shift and decolonize the way we respond to collective trauma and move through grief. We are choosing to move away from a cultural narrative that prioritizes productivity and profit over human experiences, expecting us to suck it up and get back to work once the storm is over and the tombstones are raised. White supremacy and the dominance of settler-colonial recovery tactics saturate our spaces and exclude marginalized voices and lived experiences from diversifying the way we heal and recover. So, we are making spaces for us, by us.

Let’s eat, drink, share stories, laugh, cry, and vibe together as we decolonize our spaces and our healing in solidarity.

In peace, love and gratitude.