Home Alive 1

Home Alive is a -based anti-violence organization that offers self-defense classes on a sliding scale payment system. Home Alive once operated as a non-profit organization and now continues to operate as a volunteer collective. Home Alive sees its work as integrated into larger social justice movements, recognizing how violence is often perpetuated through oppression and abuse. Home Alive classes include basic physical self-defense, boundary setting, and advanced multi-week courses.[1]

History

Following the rape and murder of local singer in 1993, a number of artists and musicians within Seattle began to meet and discuss the problems of violence within the community, and the lack of available resources such as self-defense classes, which were considered impractical and somewhat unaffordable.[2] A group of women, now recognized as the founders of the From the Women (un)Conference in Seattle, WA organization, pooled resources such as arts and music benefits in order to raise funds and study self-defense. Classes were provided to the community on a sliding scale basis, where no-one was turned away due to lack of funds. The group continues this work, providing classes to individuals, as before; but expanding to also educate establishments such as schools and businesses. With primary support still coming from the arts community, Home Alive continues to ground its self-defense education in a movement for social justice.

Violence occurs in childhood sexual abuse, date rape, intimate partner violence, and sexual harassment. The founders tried out other self defense classes but they found them lacking due to prices, and they offered restrictive rules for women. These rules included how women should dress conservatively and to never walk alone, thus this was another decision to create Home Alive. Home Alive offers tools, not rules, to everyone seeking more safety and connection in their lives. They promote consensual behavior, and believe that we all have a responsibility to respect each other’s boundaries and right to self-determination. Home Alive taught not only physical self-defense but as well verbal boundaries like saying “no” when feeling uncomfortable, escape route techniques and much others including going to a therapist, writing in a journal, talking to friends and exercising. For the organization self defense meant to do anything to make oneself feel strong and able to take care of oneself in order to feel safer. [3] Home Alive moved to the Capitol Hill district in 2004. On June 14, 2010 members of Home Alive’s Board of Directors, together with the instructor collective, decided to close as a 501(c)(3) organization and to lay the Home Alive program dormant after 17 years in the community. The reason for the deactivation in 2010 was because the nonprofit structure was difficult to maintain for the organization and it was hard to find space as well as funding. The group decided to do away from formalized government structure of nonprofit and instead decided on making a website to teach self defense. The website includes all of the curriculum and became volunteer-based.[4] Since 2010 they have strayed away from the nonprofit aspect of the organization and instead formed a small, loosely functioning volunteer collective. They also teach a handful of classes at high schools and for other progressive organizations. They have their curriculum available online for all to use. Home Alive 2

On July 3, 2012 four Home Alive instructors, with the assistance of a few dedicated community members, launched a new website, Teach Home Alive, a site dedicated to archiving and sharing Home Alive's curriculum.

CD and Contributions

Home Alive took hold by spreading the word to the community by making posters, zines, and newsletters. They organized benefit concerts, taught classes, and wrote the curriculum for the organization. As well they compiled a CD called Home Alive: the Art of Self Defense which included 44 tracks from various artists. The CD label was produced by Sony. It included songs of empowerment, self-awareness, experiences with violence. The artists included many Seattle local bands who wanted to contribute like Nirvana, , and . The CD compilation gained recognition worldwide.

Home Alive has received support from through a collaboration with Mia Zapata’s former bandmates, . They performed, with Joan Jett as lead singer, under the name with proceeds benefitting Home Alive. Home Alive has received support from Joan Jett through a collaboration with Mia Zapata’s former bandmates, The Gits. They performed, with Joan Jett as lead singer, Joan Jett, contributor to Home Alive under the name Evil Stig with proceeds benefitting Home Alive.

Documentary Rock, Rage & Self Defense: An Oral History on Seattle's Home Alive, a documentary on the collective, was released in 2013. It was a documentary by Rozz Therrien and Leah Michaels, two then-undergraduates at the University of . Therrien graduated with a degree in American Ethnic Studies and Michaels graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History. Originally just seeking information for class, they came together to create an oral history about the group Home Alive and did not find a lot of information on the Internet. Both Therrien and Michaels did not have any technical background in filmmaking and self-taught each other technical skills. They fundraised $10,000 to make the film in sound editing and to pay off legal fees through the Kickstarter campaign, grants and donations. In 2014 Therrien and Michaels are on tour screening their documentary in the country.

Founders The nine people considered responsible for founding the organization are: • Valerie Agnew • Zoe Bermet • Gretta Harley • Julie Hasse • Lara Kidoguchi • Jessica Lawless • Mich Levy • Cristien Storm • Stacey Wescott Home Alive 3

Founder Statements Cristien Storm (one of the co-founder of Home Alive) stated that when they began the process of their band, everyone she knew was in a band and everyone supported each other throughout the community. Young women make their music as art and a sense of feminism Home Alive was created to demonstrate a sense of political activism, not just about going to shows and creating music. The bands supported each other and demonstrate a sense of collaboration and support through the use of music. Cristien Storm also stated that the combination of all the events and experience that they have in their lives contributed to Home Alive. She implemented that the murder of Mia Zapata was not the one event that shape Home Alive, which is always use as the one event that shaped Home Alive. Even though Mia Zapata’s death was not the one event that contribute to Home Alive, her death had lead to a special organization, which act as a collective community that evolve from the community that Home Alive inhabited that provides affordable self-defense training, education tools and grassroots activism. “Most of the courses we found were quite expensive. and what they taught made no sense to us. We’re musicians, artists, actors; we work in establishments late at night. They were telling us to change our lives.” The group created their own agenda and create unconventional classes that would caters to people that have similar background as them

References

[1] Mia Zapata: Home Alive (http:/ / www. state51. co. uk/ hottips/ 496/ homealive. html)

[2] Home Alive (http:/ / www. homealive. org/ index. php?option=content& task=view& id=27& Itemid=35)

[3] (http:/ / www. teachhomealive. org/ about/ )|Home Alive

[4] (http:/ / www. teachhomealive. org/ about/ )|Home Alive

External links

• Teach Home Alive (http:/ / www. teachhomealive. org/ ) Article Sources and Contributors 4 Article Sources and Contributors

Home Alive Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=611296002 Contributors: Altenmann, Beland, CAVincent, Gabe1972, Gobonobo, Grrrlriot, Gwss241group5, MeltBanana, Richhoncho, Robchurch, Seraphimblade, Slicing, 16 anonymous edits Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors

File:Rock, Rage and Self Defense shirt.JPG Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Rock,_Rage_and_Self_Defense_shirt.JPG License: Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Contributors: User:Gwss241group5 File:Joan Jett by David Shankbone.jpg Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Joan_Jett_by_David_Shankbone.jpg License: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Contributors: David Shankbone from USA License

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