Announcing the Aki Institute!

toward justice, care & peace

Friends,

This has been over five years in the making, and I am so excited to finally announce the launch of The Aki Institute For Peace and Justice.

The Aki Institute seeks to change the world through rest, responsibility and resistance. We are dedicated to promoting social justice, environmental sustainability, and human rights.

Our team is committed to challenging the status quo and creating a more equitable and inclusive society. Through advocacy, education, and community engagement, we aim to inspire individuals to become agents of positive change in their communities. Join us in our journey to build a better world for all.

The logo of the institute was designed by Megan Gambino , and is the peace lily, a flower that represents universal ideas and embodiments of peace, unity, care, and love.

My partner, Travis Curtice, and I wanted to create this institute to house the work we hope to do in the world, things like:

• retreats for tired activists, authors/artists and academics

• workshops for folks to talk about resistance and care

• building community through relevant policy work

• promoting human rights

• fostering conversations about care for Mother Earth

• creating and sustaining relationships between people who foster justice in the world

At the end of the day, we want to move toward justice, care & peace in a world that is deeply hurting.

How are we going to do this work?

We’ve created three pillars that will move us toward a future of justice, care & peace:

First, Rest.

Academics, authors and activists are tired. In an era marked by the fast pace of change, keeping up with our work can feel challenging.

Doing equitable work in the world within systems that are not meant to sustain care and rest can often leave us experiencing burnout and exhaustion. Our capitalistic society rewards the hustler, but we want to fight for rest, because it is our birthright as humans. The Aki Institute is committed to making space for rest through organizing retreats, providing resources about rest, and facilitating conversations about care.

Second, Resistance.

Resistance happens in our personal lives and also on the collective level. We rally around one another and ask what resistance means and how we can practice it. We resist with the books we read and the people we listen to; we resist by decolonizing and fighting and dreaming of a better world.

Third, Responsibility.

As academics, authors and activists, we each have a responsibility to care for each other in sustainable ways. The Aki Institute is dedicated to naming and practicing this responsibility toward one another and Mother Earth.

We are committed to sharing the work of those on the ground fighting for a better world, developing relevant policy reports, and holding space that brings people together around this work including online and in-person gatherings.

Here’s where you come in.

Please explore the website and share it with your friends, networks, community. If you represent an organization or retreat center and you’d like to partner with us, please reach out.

Next, think about how you want to see our three pillars show up in the world—rest, resistance, and responsibility. Send us a message and let us know how you think we could get involved in this work—through conferences, online workshops, retreats, book lists, etc. We’d love to hear from you, so we can best know how to show up to this moment.

And lastly, if you feel called to be a deeper part of this work, please donate to our organization—any amount is a great start to our seed fund & will usher us forward in the work that we are already doing and in the ways we want to show up to this moment.

(feel free to donate to my Venmo @ Kaitlin-Curtice if you don’t have Paypal)

And finally, follow us on Instagram! Where we will be sharing news about upcoming events and ways to get connected.

I am so excited to launch this initiative. It feels like it’s been a decade in the making. As always, thank you for your support here. Let’s build a better world together.

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Upcoming Event:

This is a two-hour long creative writing workshop happening next FRIDAY, February 6th (12-2pm ET). I’ve hosted this specific workshop once before and it was absolutely wonderful.

Come with a small piece of writing, and together we will examine our writing from different angles, asking it questions, and exploring the power of our own storytelling.

Please come spend some time writing & building community with us!