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Community Care Kit Project

Community Care Kit Project Logo
Image Description: On a yellow background, “Community Care Kit Project” appears in red text. At the bottom right is a blue toolbox with a handle on top and a yellow UIC Disability Cultural Center logo on the front.

Mission

The Community Care Kit Project is a cluster of practice-based explorations that aim to expand our notions of what counts as care. One of its missions is recognizing the harm in thinking of individuals as solely responsible for their own care. When do practices of self-care become another demand that we condition ourselves for ever greater productivity, or another niche for consumer culture? In the tradition of abolitionist feminism, the project is simultaneously critical & creative, grounded in recognizing our interdependence and dreaming ways to put it into practice. Given that institutionalized routes of care fail many of us and create harm, how can we build care structures for ourselves?

We want to thank our previous graduate assistant Sylvie Rosenkalt and recognize the care she put into developing this project in its incubation; she in turn wanted to thank Mimi Khúc, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Rae Parnell for their wisdom, guidance and labor towards this project in all of its iterations.

 

Plain Language: 

The Community Care Kit Project wants to explore what care is. Some people think we are the only ones who are supposed to take care of ourselves, and if we have needs that aren’t met we are doing something wrong. We disagree. Sometimes we don’t have what we need and it’s not our fault.

We don’t want care to be used to get us ready to do more work, or to work harder or faster.  We also don’t want companies to make money off of our care needs. We don’t want care to turn into control of our bodies or lives.

When the government or big companies try to take care of us, they often fail. They can hurt people instead of helping. We would like to stop that from happening and learn new  and better ways to take care of each other.

People have been thinking about these ideas and organizing for a long time, calling this way of thinking “abolitionist feminism”. They are critical and bold about naming things that we need to get rid of, and also creative in thinking up new solutions. We want to build on their work.

We know everyone needs each other. We want to learn new ways to care for each other.

 

Community Care Cohort Internship Heading link

Community Care Cohort Logo

The Community Care Cohort is the cornerstone of the CCKP.

The Community Care Cohort (CCC) internship is an opportunity for undergraduate students to learn about care work, and experiment with co-creating and leading a care project within a supportive environment. Interns will engage deeply with the questions raised in the Community Care Kit Project mission statement.

Interns will learn about different histories and practices of care work, focusing on disability justice and healing justice. Interns will also build skills (facilitation, one-on-ones, consensus decision making, etc.), make intentional connections to build relationships, and map existing personal networks/pods of care. CCC interns will also engage with guest speakers from care work projects from the Chicago-area and beyond. 

Check out our 1 page overview of the internship here

For a plain text version of this handout, check here.

For a large print version of this flyer, click here.

Check out the internship page for more information and to apply!!

 

I’m grateful that I am learning, cause … so many people in so many different situations of oppression have found ways to find a light and community…it gives me hope… it’s just nice to know that I don’t have to sit and just take things as they are, and there’s other people who feel the same way and… things don’t have to be how they are.

CCC Intern

Community Care Cohort Take me to the internship page!

Upcoming Events Heading link

Highlighted Tools Heading link

Submit to the Care Kit Heading link

The Virtual Care Kit  is community sourced. What does this mean? Instead of a resource-sharing model where an expert “helps” a non-expert, community-sourced care affirms collective wisdom and knowledge-sharing, valuing and trusting our peers’ experiences of particular tools as helpful. That means we need you to fill the care kit.

Submit Your Tool

Past Care Projects: Fall 2021 CCC Care Project Heading link

ID: Multicolored block cut-out letters spell out “Take Me WIth You” on the top of the image. The rest of the image depicts a doctor’s waiting room with a half-blue, half-grey wall in the background. There is a white door on the left of the image and the words “waiting room edition” in white are on the wall above blue plastic chairs on the right side of the image. The Community Care Cohort and Disability Cultural Center logos are on the bottom left and bottom right of the image respectively.

Take Me With You: Waiting Room Edition

Have a doctors appointment coming up? Take this new #CommunityCareCohort zine with you! Our interns have compiled some poems, coloring pages, games, tips and music to keep you company in the waiting room.
“Going to the doctor’s office has always been a worrying experience for me…We can’t control everything, but being able to control what I read or how I spend my time helps to ease the other worries.”

 

Access Info: Screenreader Friendly Version, Image Descriptions, Free

Past Care Projects: Spring 2021 CCC Care Project Heading link

Line drawing of a flower in purple with a yellow square and purple text,
Line drawing of a flower in purple with a yellow square and purple text, "It's raffle time!" In the upper right is a Community Care Cohort logo with a blue DCC toolbox icon

Request a DCC Community Care Kit

It’s time to care for you and your community!

In these times of loss and uncertainty, are you feeling stressed? Are you looking for some way to care for yourself and spread care around?

The Disability Cultural Center wants to care for you! The Spring 2021 Community Care Cohort Interns have developed kits for interdependence and self care. We have been exploring the importance of community care, solidarity vs charity, and different types of care.

These care packages include supplies and activities that offer ways to care for yourself, with options to spread care to other people who are important to you. Each package will have a variety of goodies: care for a plant and propagate it to share! write a letter to yourself or a friend!

We have a limited number of care packages: if you live in Illinois, identify as disabled,*** and want a package, fill out our form to be entered into a raffle! We’ll close the form on April 16th.

How does the raffle work?

We will be raffling off 10 care packages. To be included in the raffle, fill out the form linked above before April 16th 2021. We will randomly select 10 people to receive a care package in the mail. The form will ask you about accessibility options, and everyone who submits a request will receive the packages’ digital elements.

***Who counts as disabled? We define disability and disability experience broadly to include any kind of body or mind that doesn’t fit into norms about what a body/mind should be and do. This can include physical disabilities, sensory disabilities, psychological and/or mental disabilities, traumatic brain injury, chronic illness, chronic pain; it can include mental health conditions, Crohn’s, dyslexia, neurodiversity, et cetera. And we welcome those in our community who think they may have a disability but aren’t sure. Whether you have an official diagnosis or not, this kit is for you!