Gabrielle
Posts By: Gabrielle Villar
Building Resilience through Care
We’re all familiar with self-care at this point. In popular culture, it’s become a great go-to excuse for indulging yourself, a la Parks & Rec style. And for this reason, it’s also become co-opted by brands and commercialized. Brands use it as an excuse for you to buy their products or use their services. And we have to be careful because we are young and we are broke. But moreover, it’s not a sustainable way to take care of yourself. Self-care as we know it in activism is about resilience and the radical act of survival. We need to be able to engage with self-care in a way that can nurture us for as long as we need to continue our work. We can be distracted by ableist notions of… Read more »
Having Pride in Wichita
On September 29th, URGE Kansas members had the opportunity to be part of Wichita Pride and march in the parade. For me, it was my first time at Pride in Wichita, and for many of our members, it was their very first Pride! It was also the first time that URGE has had an official presence in the parade here. Overall, we had so much fun together, and we even had a few people shout out in support of our #AbortionPositive banner. For me, it was so transformative to see this side of Wichita. For too long, the local queer community had felt like it was only the small group I’d come to know through my time at college. And while there were many familiar faces, there were so many… Read more »
Organizing Around Public Transportation
As school starts up, my attention has been turned towards public transportation. Since I am a college student without a car, that means I have to take the bus to school. Well, more like two busses to get there and two to get back. For my area, public transportation means the bus system, paratransit (for those with disabilities that prevent them from using typical routes), and a few trolleys covering the center of the city. Right now I’m navigating the city while living at the corner of “you need a job to get experience, but they won’t hire you without experience” and “you need a car to get a job, but you need a job to get a car.” So when I saw this video from Patriot Act about public transportation, it… Read more »
