SURVIVORS
ALLIANCE FOR HEALING AND JUSTICE
Survivors Leading Transformative Change and Community Reinvestment
Survivors Alliance for Healing and Justice
The Survivors Alliance for Healing and Justice (SAHJ), a project of Communities United, is a survivor-led, intergenerational racial justice initiative. It is through our body of work over the past 20 years that has led us to formalize what we call our “Healing through Justice” approach. “Healing through Justice” develops the sustainable leadership of low-income survivors of color to create safe communities and social change.
This approach provides an alternative to what healing looks like outside of clinical approaches and top-down interventions. The building blocks include a focus on developing community healing practitioners that play a leadership role in building communities of support where present-day and historical trauma is acknowledged, root causes are examined and addressed through collective action to transform systems, and networks are developed to address issues of interpersonal harm and healing outside of the justice system.
The Survivors Alliance for Healing and Justice engages leaders from across Chicago communities as well as partner organizations such as Broken Winggz, a survivor-led group whose mission is to give support to people who are paralyzed from gun violence and their families, and build alliances to advance a common goal for safe and healthy communities.
PROGRESS MADE
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We engage leaders from Broken Winggz, a survivor-led group whose mission is to give support to people who are paralyzed from gun violence, their families, and building alliances to advance a common goal for safe and healthy communities.
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SAHJ and members of the Reducing Barriers to Recovery campaign are leading efforts to end the failed policies of the war on drugs that have caused significant harm in our Black and Brown communities over decades.
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Through Girls Empowering & Motivating Sisters (GEMS), a group out of our Survivors Alliance for Healing & Justice, cis and trans girls and young women of color have led a year-long story collection project focusing on mental health and wellness and its intersection with race, trauma, and healing. Building off of GEMS’ project, girls and young women of color are partnering with institutions to support community-led efforts and healing approaches led by girls of color.
MEET
RESOURCES
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RECENT MEDIA COVERAGE
Since he was shot decades ago on the South Side, Eric Wilkins has committed his life to violence prevention.
While President Donald Trump has called the city a “killing field” and threatened to deploy the National Guard, Wilkins argues it’s those most affected by violence who know how to keep Chicago safe.
“Trump is using all his tactics to tear the city apart when we’re working from the grassroots to put it together,” Wilkins said Tuesday. “No, we’re not going to stand for it.”
When Eric Wilkins first heard that President Donald Trump was considering deploying National Guard troops to Chicago, he said he couldn’t help but think it sounded like a “bully tactic.”
Wilkins, 54, was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot about 26 years ago. Now an organizer with Communities United, he said community groups are using other, more effective methods to prevent gun violence, such as jobs programs and sports leagues.
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Black and brown youth organizers breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday afternoon. A months-long debate over the controversial “snap curfew” ordinance had come to an end. An effort to override Mayor Brandon Johnson’s veto of the ordinance failed in a 27-22 vote during the Chicago City Council meeting; 34 yea votes were needed to overturn it.
