As a health justice organization believing that healing touch should be available to all people, we’re sure you can imagine how much the events of the last several months have changed and continue to shape our work.
Before Governor Baker issued stay-at-home orders, People’s Medicine Project made a quick pivot to provide services via phone and contact-free delivery. We recognized that the folks we work with would be more isolated and vulnerable than ever, and that we needed to find ways to provide meaningful connection even when we could not see them in person.
See more below for how we responded to COVID-19 this spring and what it meant to our clients.
We also recognized that as a health justice organization, we have an important role to play at this moment in time. COVID-19 brightly illuminated existing health disparities based on deep, long-term, intentional, and systemic racism. The term “health disparities” even became a nationally mainstream term (though sometimes, we argued in June, used out of context). The June Newsletter, “What Covid-19 and Police Violence Have in Common,” lays out these connections in the context of our nation’s colonialist and racist history. If you didn’t read it earlier, we invite you to take a look now!
Like many organizations in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and subsequent uprising, we paused to do inquiry. We are grateful for this pause in “business as usual”—it necessitates that we all assess the work we were currently doing in the context of white supremacy, look at places where we may be perpetuating harm, and identify places that need attention. We found time amidst COVID-related closures to pause, build new relationships, relate less transactionally, and consider what’s next for People’s Medicine. We’re moving at the speed of trust, and we’re excited to share more when the time is right.
And now, we’re working hard to integrate what we’ve learned into finding ways to creatively and safely expand and continue services in the fall.
