Prisoner Correspondence Project – a support project for gay, queer, and trans prisoners

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Join Prisoner Correspondence Project for the first of our monthly
letter-writing nights for outside penpals!

Cozy up with a warm drink in the backroom of le Cagibi (there will be
food and drink specials for the night!), meet other outside
participants in the project, and write some letters or get matched up
with a new penpal! Everyone is welcome, whether you’re a seasoned
penpal through the project or you’re interested in getting matched up
for the first time.

Prisoner Correspondence Project collective members will be around to
chat about the project and available to talk about our experiences as
outside penpals, and to support you in any questions you might have
about your letters.

This will be the first of monthly letter-writing nights, the first
Monday of every month from 7-9:30 pm at Le Cagibi, 5490 St. Laurent, Montreal, QC.

We are always looking for new non-incarcerated folks to become
penpals! If you are interested, check out the get involved section of
the website and then get in touch!

Hope to see you there!

((poster by Johnny Forever))

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It’s official! We’re launching an open house series the last Friday of every month between 12 and 3pm.

Spend a Friday afternoon curled up in QPIRG’s sunny lounge and get to know the Prisoner Correspondence Project! Join members of the collective as we work on filling requests made by our incarcerated pen-pals. Our waiting list of folks inside prison who are requesting a pen-pal is long and getting longer, and we are actively looking for new people outside prison who are interested in corresponding.
Mark your calendars, we’ll be around February 24th, March 30th and onwards. Drop by, read through letters, find yourself a pen-pal or help us send out resources from our library. Also, if you have any questions regarding involvement in the project or your current pen-pal relationship, this would be a great time to come by and talk.

QPIRG is located at 1500 de Maisonneuve W. Suite 204. (Metro Guy-Concordia).

Our member Farah’s contribution to the Nous Vivons Ici: Community Fundraiser for Emergency Housing put on by ASTT(e)Q:

QPIRG-Concordia’s disOrientation presents:

Dance Schmance, a fundraiser for the Project

Friday, September 24th
9pm until late into the night…

Il Motore, 179 Jean Talon Ouest
$5-10 suggested donation, no one turned away

Featuring:
(early)
* Free food
* A launch for the School Schmool 2010 Agenda and the QPIRG Poster Archive Project
* Activist Speed-dating
* Skills Auction (see below for details)

(later)
* Sweet dance beats with DJ Bratface, DJ Sensible Seven, DJ Mussels, DJ LL Chaos Kitty, DJ Oocee and more! Read the rest of this entry »

Discussion et présentations sur la criminalisation du transmission de VIH

JEUDI LE 12 AOUT — 18 h 30 a 20 h 30
Association Sportive et Communautaire du Centre-Sud –
2093 rue de la Visitation (entre Sherbrooke E. et Ontario)

*** traduction simultanée en anglais et en français ***

Cette conversation réunira toute une gang de gens intéressé aux sujets de la prévention du VIH et des enjeux juridiques relatifs à la transmission du VIH, au risque et à la non divulgation dans le contexte canadien des tendances à la criminalisation. La discussion modérée explorera le prix qu’ont les personnes séropositives à payer suite aux nouvelles applications des lois; il y aura une discussion également sur comment s’opposer à ces tendances.

Les conférenciers feront des discours en anglais et en français, la traduction chuchottée bilingüe sera offerte. Cet évènement spécial aura lieu jeudi le 12 août de 18h30 à 20h30, faisant partie de la Journée de la justice pour les prisonniers, une commémoration des vies de ceux et celles qui sont morts dans les prisons et centre pénitenciers, y compris les nombreux victimes du système pénitencier qui sont mortres du sida “à l’intérieur”.

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Cette discussion est présenté par: Le projet de correspondance pour prisonnier(e)s, Politi-Q, AIDS Community Care Montreal.

Criminalizing risk:
Discussion and presentations on the criminalization of HIV transmission

THURSDAY AUGUST 12TH from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Association sportive et communautaire Centre-Sud at 2093 rue de la Visitation (between Sherbrooke East and Ontario)

*** simultaneous whisper translation into french and english ***

This community dialogue and panel discussion will bring together a host of people involved in HIV prevention and HIV legal issues to discuss the recent legal shifts in Canada that have seen the deepening criminalization of HIV transmission, risk, and nondisclosure. The panel will speak to the costs and harms to HIV positive communities brought about by these shifts, as well as how we might confront – and reverse – this trend.

Speakers will present in both french and english. Whisper translation in both directions will be provided. This event will take place as a part of PRISONERS’ JUSTICE DAY efforts across the country, an annual commemoration of the lives of all prisoners who have died while in custody, including the many Canadian prisoners who have died from AIDS related illness while in prison.

***
This discussion is co-presented by: the Prisoner Correspondence Project, Politi-Q, and AIDS Community Care Montreal

with the participation of Douglas Foremen and Denis Carrière, prisoners at La Macaza federal penitentiary.

“All the Querelles of the Fighting Navy! Beautiful sailors, you taste sweet, like wild oats!”

June 18th
22h30
Bar Woof: 1661 Ste Catherine E.
$5-$10 No One Turned Away.

click here for costume inspiration or just to enter this gay sailor dreamworld.

djs:
Bad Faith
Querella
Her Madgesty
Baby got Bakunin
and more…

****all proceeds go towards the project****

Feminist Troubles with Protection in a Prison Nation
–a panel featuring Erica Meiners followed by a presentation by the Prisoner Correspondence Project

THURSDAY, MARCH 18th, 2010
4:30-6:30pm
H-760 (7th floor, Hall Building, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West)

Using recent work by anti-prison theorists and community-based activists who are working against prison industrial complex in the US, this talk links prison abolition to feminist frameworks to question escalating sex offender registries and community notification laws that are the state’s response to sexual violence against children and women. This will be followed by a discussion on the queer history of sex offender registries in the United States and their growth in the last two decades, the foundation to use current shifts in the U.S. juvenile justice system, and how using abolition as a possible framework to shift public dialogues about safety and conceptions about childhood and family.

This event is wheelchair accessible; elevators are located on the ground floor of the Hall Building, accessible via de Maisonneuve or Bishop street entrances.

If you require childcare for this event, please contact us 48 hours before the event.

The Prisoner Correspondence Project is a working group of the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) at Concordia University.

This event is presented by the Simone de Beauvoir Institute.

QPIRG Concordia’s “Keeping it Reel” monthly Subversive Cinema Series, in collaboration with Q-Team, the Prisoner Correspondence Project, Queer Concordia, Queer McGill, the 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy, and the Union for Gender Empowerment present:

Criminal Queers– A Montreal Film Premiere and Directors’ Talk

Friday, November 13th @ 7:30pm
Concordia University, Hall Building
1455 de Maisonneuve Ouest, Room H-110

Criminal Queers visualizes a radical trans/queer struggle against the prison industrial complex and toward a world without walls. Remembering that prison breaks are both a theoretical and material practice of freedom, this film imagines what spaces might be opened up if crowbars, wigs, and metal files become tools for transformation. Follow Yoshi, Joy, Susan and Lucy as they fiercely read everything from the Human Rights Campaign and hate crimes legislation to the non-profitization of social movements. Criminal Queers grows our collective liberation by working to abolish the multiple ways our hearts, genders, and desires are confined.

Criminal Queers brings together powerful abolitionist voices like Angela Y. Davis (who plays herself in the film), with a fictional, campy world of queer insurrection. Reworking what a queer history might mean for the possibility of surviving the present, the program centers the devastating effects the prison industrial complex (PIC) has had on transgender/ gender non-conforming and queer communities.

The program will include a lecture by the California filmmakers Chris Vargas and Eric Stanley, giving historical and contemporary analysis and examples of the ways in which queer communities are impacted by forms of state violence; the feature film, Criminal Queers; and a question and answer period with the artists.

[This event was also made possible, in part, by the generous support of the Arts and Science Federation of Associations at Concordia, the Concordia Students Union, and T. Waugh, Concordia Research Chair in Sexual Representation.]

Discussion with the Prisoner Correspondence Project for trans-identified folks in Montreal -

Monday, October 26th @ 7pm

ASTTEQ – 1300 Rue Sanguinet

This discussion will be chance to touch base with a few members of the Prisoner Correspondence Project (an organization that works to support trans and gay prisoners in Quebec and across the US and Canada) and share our ideas about experiences of police profiling of our communities, and how this makes trans folks in particular to prisons and incarceration.

The discussion will be a chance to discuss ways we can work to support prisoners and ex-prisoners, and in the process, build broader strategies of self-defense and survival against policing and prisons.

Supporting Work Within and Against Prisons

Saturday October 24th from 4pm to 6pm
at the Comité Social Centre-Sud at 1710 Beaudry (metro Beaudry)

***

Featuring:

- Gisele Dias – Prisoner HIV/AIDS Support Action Network (PASAN), Toronto
- Peter Collins – HIV/AIDS activist and prisoner at Bath Institution, Ontario
- Amazon Contreraz – jailhouse lawyer, trans activist and prisoner at Corcoran, California
- Sadie Ryanne – DC Trans Coalition (DCTC), Washington DC
- Farah Abdill – community organizer, Montreal

Beyond Prisons, Toward Community Strategies will be an afternoon of community organizations and individuals coming together to discuss the ways we can expand our existing models of support and service provision, as prisoners, exprisoners and allies, and work towards a broader movement to end our reliance on prisons.

The presenters–made up of prisoners, ex-prisoners, and allies–will introduce their current projects, which include gay and trans prisoner support, HIV prevention, advocacy for prisoner self-determination, and local initiatives to support folks inside.  How can we confront the violence of prison expansion, deepening rates of in-prison HIV transmission, medical negligence and isolation? Through these discussions, we hope to forge coalitions between different community groups and strengthen the day to day struggles both within and against prisons.