Unthinkable Imagination: A Creative Response to the Juvenile Justice Crisis is a collaborative exhibition steered by an advisory panel made up of Syrita Steib, Dolfinette Martin, Gina Womack, Aaron Clark-Rizzio, and Ernest Johnson and with the support of their respective organizations Operation Restoration, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, and Ubuntu Village.
Operation Restoration was formed in 2016 and is led by formerly incarcerated women. Operation Restoration’s mission is to support women and girls impacted by incarceration to recognize their full potential, restore their lives, and discover new possibilities.
INSTAGRAM operationrestorationtheor
Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children is a grassroots, state-wide, membership-based, inter-generational organization working to transform the systems that put children at risk of prison. Through empowerment, leadership development, and training they strive to keep children from going to prison and support those who have and their families. From the street level to the state level, from meeting rooms to the state capitol, they are working to build a society based on the principles of racial justice, human rights, and full participation through our tireless fight for justice for youth.
INSTAGRAM fflicla
Ubuntu Village fights for social, economic, and transformational justice for children and communities. They work primarily with families of youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system. They help families advocate for their rights and those of their children by educating them and helping them navigate the juve- nile system. At Ubuntu, they believe that those directly affected by incarceration should be at the forefront of efforts to reform the system. They work with parents and young people to conduct participatory action research, analyze inequities in the juvenile justice system, and advocate for changes that would make the system more humane, antiracist, rehabilitative, and just. In all our programming, they prioritize providing immediate economic opportunities to participants and families as well as developing strategies for long-term economic sustainability.
INSTAGRAM ubuntuvillagenola
The Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights is a nonprofit law office that stands with kids in the justice system no matter what. As the juvenile public defender in New Orleans, they represent over 90% of children in the city who come into contact with the juvenile justice system, providing each child with a holistic team—a lawyer, social worker, investigator, and youth advocate—to address both the causes and consequences of an arrest. They also represent the majority of children in Louisiana who are facing life without parole sentences, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional in all but the rarest cases. They provide holistic legal defense to address children’s needs both inside and outside the courtroom and tackle the systemic issues that criminalize mostly poor, Black youth in the first place. Their goal is to keep kids out of a harmful system so that they can thrive where they belong—at home, at school, and in our communities.
INSTAGRAM lakidsrights