2020-2021 TorchPassing Ceremony: Richard Boyd Pathway to Empowerment
The Richard Boyd Pathway to Empowerment Fellowship calls on a select group of formerly incarcerated fellows to undertake an incredible and daunting journey to heal one’s personal traumas, develop their political awareness across eras and harness community organizing and develop themselves as leaders for liberation.
Amidst the pandemic of Covid-19 the 2020 fellows Marvin G, Gloria Schroeder, Carnell Mayfied and Mica Herrera accepted this challenge, navigated the pandemic and grew tremendously from this past year.
Fellows participated in extensive leadership development training and joined campaigns and research projects that expose the inhumane conditions and trend towards incarcerating women, young girls and non binary individuals and moving to providing youth care and not incarceration in Contra Costa.
If you haven’t had a chance to meet the fellows, you can watch the replay of our webcast of the Meet and Greet Fellows Virtual Event from earlier this year.
At our Torchpassing Ceremony each fellow has prepared a presentation for their vision of what they plan to do after their fellowship. We will hear their vision of how they will work towards the liberation of themselves and our future. Afterwards the 2020 Fellows will announce and pass the torch to the 2021 Richard Boyd Fellows.
We hope our community can join us and show that they are not alone in advocating for justice!
Facebook Live Event
@SafeReturnTeam
January 7
7:00 PM
We will also be honoring three very special community based partners chosen by our fellows this year as our 2020 Mass Liberation Community Partners. This award will go to an allied community based organization that has worked with us over the past year and helped achieve mass liberation in our communities through their community service, collaboration and advocacy.
We will also be presenting for the first time ever the Richard Boyd Bridge Builder Award.
Richard Boyd was someone who believed that nobody is beyond repair. We all deserve the opportunity to rebuild ourselves, repair relationships and take care of our community.
This award will go to an individual or organization who reflects these values and demonstrated them in practice in the past year.
All donations made now at Safe Return.We.Did.It will get a mention during the program!
If you would like to sponsor the event we encourage you to view our sponsor page and reach out to us directly!
Thank you!
Safe Return Team
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Who was Richard Boyd?
Richard Boyd means alot to Richmond. He was someone that radiated peace and unity. Where the outside world sees broken and troubled people Richard saw resilience, inspiration and the future. As you would be inspired by him, he would be inspired by you. On his own he mentored countless leaders in Richmond including Safe Return Project’s current Executive Director Tamisha Walker Torres. Although he passed on in 2018, The Safe Return Project honors his spirit, legacy and inspiration by giving back to the very people that need it the most and establishing The Richard Boyd Fellowship to radically transform and develop incredible leaders from formerly incarcerated individuals and their families that will then transform the incarceration system itself.
The Richard Boyd Empowerment Fellowship
The Richard Boyd Empowerment Fellowship supports formerly incarcerated people to lead the work to reform the criminal justice system. There are many organizations throughout the state of CA that are doing great work with this population in the form of advocacy and service provision, however, few are investing time and resources in building the leadership of those directly impacted by the system itself. Supporting and building the leadership of people who have been incarcerated to have a voice in change takes an incredible investment of time and resources which would not be possible without the support of funders like you. Together we can empower and increase the visibility of those directly impacted by the system to ensure that we are building a community that values all its citizens.
The Fellowship program provides 4-6 formerly incarcerated individuals a year of hands on training and gain valuable skills and exposure to professionalism in non-profit spaces, community organizing, communication with both organization and public, community action & civic engagement strategies, coaching and mentoring and personal transformation & healing.
Our Vision:
Our vision for the program is to grow a community of formerly incarcerated community organizers and leaders to lead the movement for mass liberation and begin that work here at home in Contra Costa County. We want to develop leaders that will advocate and speak truth to power, analyze and put together data to tell the story of truth and light the path for others to follow in their footsteps as they boldly lead us to a new future and way of living.