"What Chance?" podcast with Adventurous Alisha Kohn, AVP NY Treasurer
"What Chance?" podcast with Mystic Margaret Lechner
AVP New York's 2020 Virtual Annual Gathering
We missed meeting in-person for our annual weekend at Powell House. That time of connection, reconnection and recharging is important for us as individuals and as an organization.
And we had a wonderful virtual Annual Gathering this year and because we were virtual, people were able to join in for specific areas of interest.
Many thanks to Adventurous Alisha Kohn, Jumpin Jill McLellan, Joyful John Sheridan, Charismatic Coralie Joseph, Funny Valentine Doyle, Youthful Yolanda Lewi and Triple C Carolyn Polikarpus for your work in making it happen!
We began Friday evening with fun community building and a virtual Walk Across New York video that Alisha put together from photos of AVP New Yorkers' home turfs and workshops. We are sorry that the we cannot include the songs Alisha added to the video because of copyright issues, but Triple C Carolyn Polikarpus's actual walk is narrated by her.
On Saturday morning, Mystic Margaret Lechner and Jumpin Jill McLellan led an information session on how to use Zoom for virtual workshops.
Saturday afternoon offered three breakout sessions: Funny Valentine Doyle and Terrific Tyson (Dominic Dupont) led a discussion on Prison Workshops after COVID; Friendly Fred Feucht's session on Outreach and Recruitment Strategies; and Adventurous Alisha Kohn, Curious Coran Klaver and Sharp Spencer Dean led a third session on AVP and LBGTQ Inclusivity. We look forward to continued work and exploration on all fronts.
On Sunday afternoon we held the Annual Meeting. Minutes are available to AVP Facilitators. Please call Shirley at 315-604-7940.
Many thanks to all who made the Annual Gathering fun and informative!
AVP New York 2019 Annual Gathering
I Was a Prison Hospice Aide. Then Came Coronavirus.
Thomas Gant, a.k.a. Terrific Thomas anchored the AVP program at Attica Prison for many years. Since his transfer to Wende Prison some years ago, he has been active in that program as well.
AVP New York's work in 2018
In 2018, AVP New York held 141 full (18 -22 hour) three-day workshops and 13 short (10-16 hour) workshops for a total of 154, down from 157 in 2017. The number of active incarcerated facilitators also dropped from 226 in 2017 to 212 in 2018, while we again grew the number of active outside (civilian) adult facilitators from 92 in 2017 to 108 in 2018 and five youth (under 18) facilitated a full workshop and eight youth facilitated mini (four-hour) workshops.
The number of hours our volunteers put in is consistently impressive. Inside (incarcerated) facilitators volunteered more than 15,000 hours and outside facilitators more than 8,390 hours to hold more than 3,400 in-session workshop hours with 1,977 participants in full (18 hour minimum) workshops and 313 participants in mini (half-day) workshops. These hours do not include the weekly, bi-monthly or monthly maintenance sessions that many prison programs hold.
The Rochester Landing Strip continues to meet twice monthly at the Gandhi Institute and at a café. Landing Strips provide a support community for people returning from prison and meeting with community people interested in AVP. The schedule and location of the Rochester Landing Strip is on the website: www.avpny.org Due to lack of participation, the Bronx Landing Strip no longer meets. People returning to any community in New York State are invited to call the AVP office and they will be connected with facilitators in their communities.
Consistency in many of our prison programs remains elusive. In 2018, we lost our program at Sullivan due to the suspension and subsequent resignation of our outside coordinator there. In addition, we held no workshops at Eastern due to the prison administration’s attempts to control the program—choosing facilitators etc. We are happy to report that we are back at Eastern now and relations have improved. We have not found a new coordinator for Sullivan.
Our suspended volunteers at Groveland have both been reinstated. We are sorry to report that both our outside coordinator and another long-time volunteer at Sing Sing have been terminated as volunteers as a result of not immediately reporting that they had received obscene notes from an inside facilitator. Fortunately, we have a new outside coordinator and a team of facilitators to carry on at Sing Sing.
We received invitations from Clinton and Fishkill to start programs. Steve Bradley accepted the challenge of coordinating at Clinton as well as FCI Ray Brook and they held their first workshop at Clinton this past February. We continue to seek volunteers to take on Fishkill. We also need local volunteers at Attica.
We held 134 full workshops inside fourteen prisons (including one federal prison) with 1,766 participants completing. Two of those workshops were in Spanish and three bi-lingual, at Sing Sing and Auburn. One all-facilitator workshop and a facilitator day focused on strengthening our facilitation skills. We trained 197 new apprentice facilitators inside the walls.
Our annual Forum Day was held at Cayuga Prison in 2018 and fourteen inside facilitators joined with eleven outside facilitators from across the state. The inside team wowed the outside facilitators with their skills and personalities and the inside team truly enjoyed meeting facilitators they had heard or read about and connecting with people from their home towns.
Special topic advanced workshops in prison focused on anger, trauma resilience, parenting, a follow-up to the training for facilitators workshop, self-esteem, domestic violence, re-entry, relationships and women of courage.
We held 27 full workshops with 150 adult, 50 young adult or teen and 46 youth participants. We trained 20 adult and 11 teen and young adult apprentice facilitators. We also held 19 mini workshops with 19 adults and 239 youth. Three facilitator days provided opportunity for 28 facilitators to hone skills and share new exercises.
T. Haywood and his team at the Osborne Association continued their work with teens and young adults in the Bronx, holding four workshops with 50 participants and training 11 new apprentice facilitators. Seven of these young people with two mentors joined in the work at the AVP NY Annual Gathering at Powell House. Separately, the Bronx and Westchester Area Councils trained ten more facilitators, at Lehman College.
In Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood, we held a Basic with area pastors. We hope to continue with this group.
Central New York Area Council trained six new apprentice facilitators in Syracuse and held a Basic workshop with ten people completing. Seven facilitators spent a day at On-TECH high school in Syracuse for the six mini workshops with 9th graders (see below).
At Eco-Village Ithaca, Elmira Area Council held a mini workshop with three teens and seven adults.
Genesee Valley Area Council held a Facilitator Refresher Workshop with eleven facilitators at the Gandhi Institute as well as a Basic Workshop in the same locale with four participants completing.
Mid-Hudson Area Council held a one-hour introduction to AVP with six from Hudson Valley Community Services in Newburgh.
Niagara Frontier Area Council held five short (less than 16 in-session hour) workshops with forty-three adults. Special topics included Trauma Resilience and Liberation. Six Congolese refugees participated.
Westchester Area Council held six full workshops with sixty-two adults in Purchase and Scarsdale. Bill Leicht, Milton Roman and Paul Linden (via Zoom) led a special topic on Embodied Peacemaking (Aiki AVP) with four apprentice facilitators trained in this workshop at the AVP/USA Gathering. Seventeen participated. One training for facilitators workshop graduated four new apprentice facilitators. Two Facilitators Days brought together sixteen and fifteen facilitators—some attended both.
When Noelle Granger was a student at Walton Schools, she participated in AVP with Florence McNeil. When she became a teacher at neighboring Franklin School, she introduced AVP there and in 2018, she returned as a teacher to Walton Schools and was on-team for a Basic with 26 students and four youth facilitators from Franklin and Walton Schools. She also coordinated four mini (4 hour) workshops with 6th graders, three minis with 7th graders and four minis with 8th graders, reaching about 180 youth. When teens facilitate, the younger kids really pay attention! Thank you Noelle!! And Thank You Walton and Franklin Schools!!
Central New York Area Council held another full Basic workshop over eight days and five weeks with 5th graders at Bellevue Elementary in Syracuse. At On-TECH high school--a new charter school for kids with emotional and mental health challenges, also in Syracuse, we held six mini workshops with 59 ninth graders and their teachers.
The Genesee Valley Area Council held a mini workshop with seven youth peer mediators and two adults from Franklin High School in Rochester.
Niagara Frontier Area Council continued their work with youth who are homeless or close to becoming homeless at the Compass House Resource Center in Buffalo. They held two ten-hour short workshops with eight youth completing.
Westchester Area Council held a basic workshop with six youth at the Mamaroneck Congregational Church Peace Camp.
Several AVP New York facilitators attended the AVP National Gathering at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana.
Nadine Hoover continues her work as coordinator of Friends Peace Teams' Asia West Pacific Initiative. In 2018 she was again instrumental in bringing together more than forty people from eleven countries for the annual international peace training in Indonesia. Nadine was on-team for Mini Workshops in North Carolina and Flagstaff, AZ; for Basic Workshops in Jeju Island, Korea; Portland, OR; Odessa, Ukraine and Nashville, TN; and for Special Topic Trauma Resiliency Workshops in Nashville, TN; Flagstaff, AZ; Gwangju, Korea and Gwang-myeong, Korea. In Nepal, Nadine was on-team for a 48-hour workshop with peace workers and she coordinated a second 48-hour workshop with participants from the Nepal National Land Rights Forum and Community Self-Reliance Center.
Many thanks to all who do this work and who make this work possible.
Thanks to our donors, we came within $1,500 of reaching our 2018 fundraising goal of $26,000 in public support. The changing stock market meant our income from dividends was also less than anticipated (by just over $3,200). Our expenses were also less than anticipated but, nonetheless, exceeded our income for the year by $3,182.
Your support means we can:
- provide manuals to area councils that are unable to purchase them
- cover travel expenses for facilitators to attend the AVP/USA annual gathering
- hold our annual Forum Day and Annual Gathering
- support Landing Strip meetings in the Bronx and Rochester
- staff an office that:
- promotes AVP and advertises community workshops
- fields inquiries from potential participants
- stays connected with facilitators coming home from prison
- maintains our website and presence on social media
- tracks and publishes workshop statistics
- works to foster a positive relationship with NYS Dept. of Corrections and Community Supervision
- publishes two newsletters annually, giving voice to inside facilitators
We also need financial support. Please also consider making a financial contribution. AVP New York, PO Box 6851, Ithaca, NY 14851-6851, 800-909-8920 or 315-604-7940 or info@avpny.org
Jason Quinones, a.k.a. Joy Jay, spoke at Green Haven's Volunteer Recognition Lunch
November 7, 2018
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. First and foremost, let us thank the administration for recognizing all the volunteers and allowing this special day to happen. I would especially like to thank Father Fernando, the AVP Staff Advisor for over eighteen years and his commitment to the cause of AVP. Also, to Mr. Medbury for always being there when AVP needs him. I, myself, and speaking for all other inmate organizations / religious groups, graciously appreciate all you do to make programs like AVP change people’s life. Our special thanks to Ms. Irizarry of Volunteer services for putting together this celebration of those who come into the prison system to donate their time for our rehabilitation.
My name is Jason Quinones and I am representing the Alternatives to Violence Project.
I have been incarcerated for over seven years and I have been an AVP Facilitator for over five years. I have been the Inside Coordinator for AVP for about ten months. I started facilitating in Wende Correctional Facility. AVP was the first ever volunteer program I took. Since then, I have gone on to facilitate ART (Aggression Replacement Therapy), Project Build / Exodus, Transitional Services, HIV Peer Educator, and began my own ministry group for young men in prison.
Working with the AVP outside volunteers allowed me to realize how important these people who volunteer to our programs are. Five and a half years ago, I walked into my first three-day [AVP] Basic Workshop and I didn’t know what to expect. I signed up for the program because of my father’s insight. He is currently incarcerated, doing a twenty-five-year sentence in Sing Sing Correctional Facility. He told me there was two ways I could do my bid: in the yard doing the same thing I was doing in the street or educating myself and getting involved in programs like AVP. He spoke from experience: he did AVP and became a facilitator. This advice was given because he wanted the best for me since he was in jail all the time and never really was a father to me. He wanted me to get home to my son and be the father he never was. I wanted something different in my life. I was searching for my true identity and purpose in life. I took his advice and this is where it all began for me.
As I walked into the room where the workshop was being held in Wende, I was greeted with a bunch of frowns from other inmates who looked like they would rather be somewhere else. I sat down and waited for instructions. As I lingered, two elderly men walked into the room and my first impression was that one of the men looked just like Santa Claus. I didn’t know who they were but I thought they were just guests from Albany.
They greeted everybody with big smiles, shaking hands, and very excited to be in prison. Their names were Tino and Bill, better known as “Talented Tino” and “Blest Bill.” I remember Talented Tino because he would bust a rhyme after we graduated from the workshop. They were both so energetic and enthusiastic. They didn’t know any of us from a hole in the wall, didn’t ask us where we were from, what we was in prison for, or what religion we preferred. This was nothing like what I experienced dealing with other prison officials. They showed us love, gave their time and was committed and dedicated to the program while making everybody feel welcome and safe. They left me in awe the whole weekend. They stayed with us all morning, afternoon and left late at night to drive all the way home while spending their own money on gas just to come back the next day and do it all over again. The craziest part of the workshop was that they ate state food with us and liked it. That was a weekend I will never forget.
It was because of those two men, their commitment, the love they showed me, their non-judgmental attitude that made me feel human again. I felt in my heart that I not only needed to make a change but that I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to be part of the solution that AVP offered to the population and was willing to give up my time and commit myself to this project.
I went on to finish the [AVP] Advanced Workshop and took the [AVP] Training for Facilitators Workshop to be a bigger part of AVP. My journey to change had just begun. Because of good behavior, I was able to stay ticket-free and was able to get a preference transfer closer to home. I arrived here at Green Haven Correctional Facility, the Mecca of AVP.
Why is Green Haven the Mecca of AVP? In 1975, after the Attica uprising, five hundred men were transferred to Green Haven C.F. A group of those men realized there was no programs to address the violence that occurred within the prison system. They came together and formed the “Think Tank”. The room is still in Building 12 where it existed back then. They reached out to a hundred different organizations and only one responded: the Quakers. They formed what is now AVP. This project is now world-wide, in fifty different countries and over thirty states, forty-three years in Green Haven and still counting.
Here at Green Haven, I was introduced to a larger family of facilitators and volunteers. That is when I met the mother of AVP: Carolyn [Polikarpus], better known as “Contagious C.C.” a.k.a. “Triple C”. she has been our Outside Coordinator for over twenty years. Her backbone, a man that has been involved for over eleven years is “Easy Ed” [Dabrowski] or as we know him as “Crazy Ed”. There have been numerous other volunteers to our family that deserve to be mentioned: Peaceful Pat [Patrick Ryan], Genuine John [Gallagher], may he rest in peace, and now we welcome Genuine Judith [Leipzig], the widow of Genuine John.
Carolyn and the rest of the volunteers has inspired me to be, not only a better facilitator, but a better father, a better man, a mentor and a leader. If it wasn’t for all of you men and women who are sitting here this afternoon, who have dedicated your time and lives to come into this prison system, these programs, inmate and religious, would never made it this far—I would have never made it this far. We all thank you, we appreciate you, we honor you today, and salute you for all the hard work you put in, for influencing our lives and helping us become better men and assisting us to be better suited—better, productive members—in society and to return into the communities that we once destroyed to aid the youth to be better than we were.
Each and every one of you, the volunteers who are being honored here today, mean the world to us. Each organizational volunteer, from inmate to religious, has given us something that we can carry out to the world beyond the forty-foot walls that surround us.
AVP New York 2018 Annual Gathering
Thirty-five AVP Facilitators and soon-to-be facilitators and some just stepping into the pond shared a weekend of building community, fun and learning with each other at Powell House Retreat and Conference Center in Old Chatham, NY, September 7-9, 2018.
TNT Haywood and EL-Sun White and seven mentees from the Osborne Association in the Bronx brought enthusiasm and leadership. Some of the young adults led the Saturday evening session--Sharing Pictures and Stories of our work around the world.
Neighborly Nadine, Your Smile Youngsil and Migratory Margaret led us in a new way to present Transforming Power--the heart of AVP. That version will be posted to the facilitators' page of this website in the coming days.
And we have some new people in leadership roles in the organization.
Find more photos from the gathering: www.facebook.com/AVPNewYorkState
Secure Shirley
Greetings AVP Family:
Front (left to right): King Keith Harrison, Respectful Roger Webster. Seated (left to right): Dedicated Deacon (Walter Brown), Builder Bruce Ortlieb, Brilliant (Ronald) Burgess, Determination Demetrius Gonzalez, Mini Van Lewis, Artistic Armond Perry. Standing (left to right): Wandering Wyatt McDonough, Dedicated Dean Faiello, Maintaining Mugs (John Muggleberg), Modest Mike Dishaw, Miracle Mike Messina, Positive P.O.P. (Darnell Dexter).
AVP New York's 2018 Forum Day at Cayuga Prison
Seated (left to right): Trusty Trudy Buxenbaum, Lucky Lili MacCormick, Questing Karen Reixach, Secure Shirley Way, Funny Valentine Doyle, Courageous Kathleen Gale. Standing: Exceptional Xenia Becher, Jumpin' Jill McLellan, Joyful John Sheridan, Quintessential Kathryn Slining Haynes, Youthful Yolanda Lewi.
AVP New York's work in 2017
In 2017, AVP New York held 157 full (18 -22 hour) three-day workshops, down from 174 in 2016. The number of active incarcerated facilitators also dropped from 256 in 2016 to 226 in 2017, while we again grew the number of active outside (civilian) adult facilitators from 80 in 2016 to 92 in 2017. Six youth facilitators served on-team in 2017.
- provide manuals to area councils that are unable to purchase them
- cover travel expenses for facilitators to attend the AVP/USA annual gathering
- hold our annual Forum Day and Annual Gathering
- support Landing Strip meetings in the Bronx and Rochester
- staff an office that:
- promotes AVP and advertises community workshops
- fields inquiries from potential participants
- stays connected with facilitators coming home from prison
- maintains our website and presence on social media
- tracks and publishes workshop statistics
- works to foster a positive relationship with NYS Dept. of Corrections and Community Supervision
- publishes two newsletters annually, giving voice to inside facilitators
Farewell Royal Rudy Cypser, 1924 - 2018
AVP/NY Annual Gathering
Sept 8-10 at Powell House, Old Chatham, NY
Thirty-one AVP facilitators and participants and two family members gathered from across New York State and Connecticut to build community among us, share news of AVP in our regions and support the work of the organization, AVP/NY.
We formed an Outreach Committee charged with strengthening our Area Councils so we have the capacity to increase the number of community workshops we offer.
We celebrated the re-activation of the Bronx Area Council.
In her plenary presentation "Peace is Possible and Necessary: The Politics of Peace and the Role of AVP Today," Nadine Hoover offered her amendments to and modifications of the Basic Workshop, invited us into the work of making war illegal and challenged us to push ourselves to share the tools of Transforming Power broadly as they are what the world needs.
AVP Resiliency (Level 2) Workshop
June 9-11 in Westchester Cty, NY
"This workshop is awesome!"
"I felt honored to hear the stories."
Last month, twelve participants and five facilitators spent three days together drawing, talking and role playing in small groups -- remembering, honoring and celebrating our losses and reconnecting with ourselves and what's true.
The focus is on building resiliency, not on the trauma we have experienced so we are calling the workshop AVP Resiliency instead of AVP Trauma Resiliency.
Here are some snippets:
"I knew it would be heavy, rough and intense and it was but there was a sense of togetherness that I didn't expect. The small groups made it more intimate and personal. It is needed inside Bedford Hills [Prison]."
--Credible Claude Millery
"Trauma takes on a different meaning in the neighborhood that I live in. My hope is to be able to facilitate this workshop. Losing my son is not as traumatic as it was."
--Just Josh (Alphonso) Simmons
"I came to this workshop expecting to not touch on certain things and I found myself saying things I don't even say to myself. I was continually learning. I have a deeper understanding of where I've been and how to proceed. The group really went for it--wasn't holding back in the work. It's a gift to be a part of it. I feel like I really saw and really heard each person by the end" --Compassionate Ken Johnson
"There's this group that's in the room and then there is a whole other group of people loving, nurturing and challenging."
--Questing Karen Reixach (on left)
"With trauma you get stuck in a moment. But with resiliency, there is a future. This has put a bow on top of everything. What I thought I was going to focus on was not what I focused on at all.
--Magical Michelle Mathison (on right)
"This workshop is awesome. I won't need another workshop for a while. My feet are on the ground." --Faithful R. H. Francis O'Hara (facing on left)
"This workshop grounds me in the work I need to do [as a counselor working with people in transition]"
--Cool Chris Payton (facing on right)
"When you open this space and give permission to say 'no' the 'yes' comes. There were things that my mother said that I never got to hear until today."
--Mystic Margaret Lechner (on left)
AVP New York's Forum Day
It was a day of connection and re-connection with new and old friends.
Six outside (civilian) facilitators traveled from across New York State (and two from Connecticut!) to join with the outside team of four at Wende Prison. The inside (incarcerated) team of eight facilitators planned the day. Wende has a population of people who are hearing-impaired. Two of the inside team are sign language interpreters and that allowed a hearing-impaired facilitator to lead us in a not oft used Light and Lively "Car Wash". It had everyone laughing heartily.
[We were not permitted to have photos taken during the day, therefore, there are no photos here of the inside team.]
The AVP Forum at Wende C.F. was an incredible experience. We, the AVP facilitators, at Wende C.F. remained open-minded and eager to learn, share and exchange ideas with our outside AVP family in regards to all aspects in which AVP is built upon.
I personally am humbled by the experience and extremely appreciative for the time and great energy at the Forum.
Together our AVP family transformed power despite the circumstances of being incarcerated presents. The transformation filled me with me a positive power of freedom mentally and spiritually in which I will hold in my heart forever.
Ralph Alicea
The AVP Forum at Wende Correctional this year was fabulous and a great experience overall. Our approach was a little different from past Forums. However, just like the old AVP mantra "trust the process," we did and it was memorable.
It was so wonderful to see AVP family from previous facilities and a blessing to meet new ones. We had an opportunity to discuss ideas and practices that are done at other facilities. We picked up some very helpful tips. We laughed and shared but the highlight for me was learning that there are so many great AVP facilitators throughout the state (and the world).
I left the Forum with a smile across my face and my heart. I can hardly wait until the next one. I am blessed to be a part of AVP.
Thomas Gant
The AVP Forum was a bit unconventional but very effective. AVP has become a safe haven for so many people incarcerated. Meeting people who are so different in everyday life but yet have so much in common. The sharing and community was truly that of people who have known each other for years. There is a lot of valuable work being done.
But thank you much to the men and women volunteers of AVP.
March on!
Robert Wallace
AVP New York's work in 2016
In 2016, AVP New York held 174 full (18 -22 hour) three-day workshops, up from 155 in 2015. While the number of active incarcerated facilitators dropped from 281 in 2015 to 256 in 2016, we grew the number of active outside (civilian) adult facilitators a bit from 77 in 2015 to 80 in 2016. Seven youth facilitators served on-team in 2016.
The number of hours our volunteers put in is impressive. Inside (incarcerated) facilitators volunteered more than 15,750 hours and outside facilitators more than 8,750 hours to hold more than 3,800 in-session workshop hours with 2,369 participants in full (18 hour minimum) workshops and 120 participants in mini (half-day) workshops.
Landing Strips in Brooklyn and Rochester are lively—meeting weekly and monthly respectively. Our new Landing Strip in the Bronx met occasionally in 2016. (In 2017, we are pleased to announce, our Bronx Landing Strip has found more stable footing, meeting weekly!) Landing Strips offer a welcoming hand to people coming home from prison as well as to people in the community who are interested in AVP. Schedules and locations are on the website: www.avpny.org.
Our Work in Prisons.
We held 148 full workshops inside sixteen prisons (including one federal prison) with 1,972 participants. Four of those workshops were in Spanish (Sing Sing CF and Bedford Hills CF). One all-facilitator workshop focused on strengthening our facilitation skills. We trained 164 new apprentice facilitators inside the walls.
Our team at our first federal prison in many years—FCI Ray Brook—was honored to learn that AVP has been named a Model Program by the Federal Bureau of Prisons! Congratulations to Outside Coordinator Steve Bradley and the team at Ray Brook!
Our annual Forum Day was held at Elmira Prison this year and fifteen inside facilitators joined with fourteen outside facilitators from across the state. The Elmira team led us in a fruitful and fun day.
Special topic workshops in prison focused on re-entry, responsibility / accountability, anger, manly awareness, relationships, women of courage, grief, forgiveness, parenting and trauma resilience.
In 2015 we reported that our program at Green Haven Prison had been severely cut in terms of the number of workshops allowed and the number of hours permitted for each workshop. We are pleased to report that in 2016 the administrative staff allowed a few more workshops and our workshop hours have been restored to the full 22-24 in-session hours. We are grateful for Outside Coordinator Carolyn Polikarpus and the team’s patience and persistence in finding ways to work with what was possible.
Our relationship with the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision continues to be challenging. We acknowledge that we have not adequately trained outside coordinators in that work. We plan to address this going forward. We also understand that following the escape from Clinton Prison in 2015, and the subsequent Inspector General’s report that harshly admonishes DOCCS, all staff and volunteers throughout the system are under much closer scrutiny.
In 2015 our Outside Coordinator at Attica Prison lost her volunteer status with NYS DOCCS due to correspondence with an inside facilitator. We are grateful to DOCCS for not suspending the program at Attica and to Hannah Brown for ably stepping into coordinating there.
In 2016 our Outside Coordinator at Elmira Prison was suspended by NYS DOCCS for sharing an article about the nationwide prison strike with inside facilitators. Again, we are grateful to DOCCS for not suspending the program and to Kathleen Gale for ably stepping into coordinating.
In 2016 our program at Groveland Prison was suspended by NYS DOCCS. At this writing we are still not clear on the reason for the suspension but we have received encouraging signs from DOCCS that the program will be restored soon.
In 2016 the administration at Eastern Prison confiscated all of the AVP manuals from the inside facilitators and commenced an investigation of our manuals. Subsequently DOCCS Central Office has become involved in the investigation that continues at this writing.
These challenges have renewed our faith in Transforming Power. We remain open and ready to listen and revise our position, seeking to carry the conversation and the relationship with DOCCS forward, trusting that all involved deeply value AVP and seek ways to make it workable for all.
Our Work in Communities.
We held 26 full (18 hour minimum) workshops with 218 adults and 42 youth and trained 26 adult and 13 youth apprentice facilitators. We also held six mini workshops with 50 adults and 25 youth. Two facilitator days provided opportunity for 19 facilitators to hone skills and share new exercises.
Catskill Area Council held a mini workshop that served as team-building for staff of the Delaware County Public Health Services. Three youth facilitators served on-team.
Genesee Valley Area Council held an advanced workshop with seven participants in Rochester. Nadine Hoover led a series of workshops in Alfred. Drawing students from Alfred State College and Alfred University as well as people from the community, eighteen completed both the basic and a special topic on trauma resilience. Nadine and team also held two, thirty-hour intensives, the first on practicing peace and the second on practicing conscience, with twelve and eleven participants respectively.
Niagara Frontier Area Council continued their work with youth who are homeless or close to becoming homeless at the Compass House Resource Center in Buffalo. They held a full basic (Level 1) workshop and a ten-hour mini with thirteen youth. The area council also held a basic with four participants at Arcade United Church of Christ and another basic with ten participants, including some seminary students, at Columba-Brigid Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo.
In an experiment with a different schedule for a basic, Fenna Mandolang and Nadine Hoover held one-session monthly Sunday afternoon sessions for two months in 2016, continuing for two more months in 2017 with fourteen participants. The experiment is working well! Participants held a mid-month potluck to discuss the material. Everyone came.
At Osborne Association in the Bronx, T. Haywood led two workshops with young adults. At the Redemption Center in Brooklyn, Mark Graham led all three levels of workshops, training six new apprentice facilitators.
Central New York Area Council held a mini workshop with 22 (including 12 youth) from Alliance of Communities Transforming Syracuse (ACTS) in Syracuse and a basic in Ithaca with nine participants.
Westchester Area Council held eight full workshops with seventy-two adults and one youth in Purchase, White Plains, Scarsdale, and Yonkers. Two training for facilitators workshops graduated twenty new apprentice facilitators. A mini workshop with twelve American Friends Service Committee interns was held at the Quaker United Nations Office in Manhattan.
Our Work in Schools.
Our Catskill Area Council’s program at Franklin and Delhi Schools trained thirteen new apprentice facilitators.
At Friends Academy on Long Island, John Scardina coordinated two workshops with middle and high school youth, parents and teachers.
Our Work Outside of NYS.
Several AVP/NY facilitators attended the AVP/USA Annual Gathering in Denver, Colorado and Milton Román and Bill Leicht presented an Aiki/AVP mini workshop there.
Through Friends Peace Teams’ Peacebuilding en Las Americas, Shirley Way and Fazilee Buechel served on-team with Salomon Medina (PLA’s Country Coordinator for AVP in El Salvador) to hold three basic workshops and a training for facilitators workshop in El Salvador. Basic workshop participants were teachers and staff at a Friends school, women from a rural community and parishioners from and evangelical Christian church in San Salvador. The newly trained apprentice facilitators were from the organization, Co-Madres—women and men whose loved-ones were disappeared during the civil war. This work feels like just the beginning for both Shirley and Fazilee.
Nadine Hoover continues to coordinate Friends Peace Teams in Asia West Pacific, supporting AVP-Indonesia administratively, and hosting the annual International Peace Training in Pati, Central Java, January 4 - 10, with participants from the U.S., Australia, Philippines, West Papua, Sumatra, Java and Nusa Tenggara Tenggah, covering AVP Basic, Trauma Resiliency and Developmental Play. A similar workshop was held in Langkat, North Sumatra, January 16 - 22. She visited AVP-Aceh, but the program there has waned.
Nadine spent most of the year writing Creating Cultures of Peace which describes all the activities on the core special topics that Conscience Studio is using in the Basic Empowerment, Trauma Resiliency, Developmental Play, Liberation from Oppression, Liberty of Conscience and Discernment workshops. She began working on understanding and thinking about discernment as the consensus of conscience, and what implications that has for AVP.
A Call for Facilitators and Support.
We are grateful for our facilitator base and we always need more facilitators to grow AVP in New York State to allow us to reach more communities, schools and prisons here and around the world. Please consider taking the three levels of workshops to become an apprentice facilitator. See www.avpny.org and contact Shirley Way (see below).
We also need financial support. Please also consider making a financial contribution. AVP New York, PO Box 6851, Ithaca, NY 14851-6851, 800-909-8920 or 315-604-7940 or info@avpny.org
Our Gratitude.
Many thanks to all who do this work and who make this work possible.
Dear Friend of AVP New York,
Thanks to our donors, we came within $1,000 of reaching our 2016 fundraising goal of $28,500 in public support. Although our expenses ($44,450) exceeded our income by $1,079, we still have a positive net income of $3,400 for 2016 when the increased value of our investments is factored in.
- provide manuals to area councils that are unable to purchase them
- cover travel expenses for facilitators to attend the AVP/USA annual gathering
- hold our annual Forum Day and Annual Gathering
- support Landing Strip meetings in Brooklyn and Rochester
- staff an office that:
- promotes AVP and advertises community workshops
- fields inquiries from potential participants
- stays connected with facilitators coming home from prison
- maintains our website and presence on social media
- tracks and publishes workshop statistics
- works to foster a positive relationship with NYS Dept. of Corrections and Community Supervision
- publishes two newsletters annually, giving voice to inside facilitators
So we thank you! We cannot do this work without your support--your emotional, spiritual, and financial support.