Our Community Advisory Council provides oversight and guidance to TAVP’s documentation, collections, programming, and advocacy work. Led by our Community Advisor Julieta Suárez Calderón, the Community Advisory Council is composed of people who have prior experience or familiarity with our work and mission and who drive our programs, advocacy, and documentation efforts in thoughtful and meaningful directions. The Community Advisory Council serves as a compass for not only where TAVP goes but how TAVP gets there. Each Community Advisory Council member brings their lived experience as survivors of state violence and/or practical experience in documentation, archives, and memory work to quarterly meetings that hold space to discuss both the day-to-day and long-term vision of TAVP’s work. Quarterly meetings are held over Zoom and are 90 minutes long, and there are additional, optional opportunities in between quarterly meetings to collaborate with advocacy events, our Visions After Violence Community Fellowship program, and more.
There are five Community Advisory Council members, and TAVP is looking to fill all five positions. There are no formal educational requirements. The most important qualification for joining the Community Advisory Council is direct lived experience and deep interest in oral history interviewing, community memory work, abolition, and transformative justice, or those who are currently engaged in or have experience similar documentation and advocacy efforts. Community Advisory Council members are required to live in the United States. We especially welcome applications from BIPOC communities that have been directly targeted by white supremacist patriarchal violence past and present. We know that undoing these legacies of violence requires recentering those most harmed by it.
Responsibilities for the Community Advisory Council
- Provide input, insight, and guidance to the best of their ability.
- Attend quarterly meetings on the day they have been scheduled, and participate to the best of their ability. (If someone is unable to attend the scheduled meeting, they agree to provide reasonable notice and/or attempt to re-schedule and meet separately to discuss items and ideas discussed.)
- Offer feedback and reflection after participating in meetings, events, and/or projects to support TAVP’s ongoing efforts to evolve and finetune our own approaches and practices.
Expectations for the Community Advisory Council
Members of the Community Advisory Council will follow the community guidelines, such as:
- Demonstrate through words, actions, and participation TAVP’s mission and vision statements.
- Treat others with respect and actively listen to each other on the Community Advisory Council & TAVP team.
- Maintain a virtual space that is empowering and accepting, and enact restorative and transformative justice values.
- Not compound harm while collaborating, listening, or working together.
Community Advisory Council Compensation & Term
TAVP offers compensation of $150 per quarterly meeting, plus a $30 food stipend per meeting, a payment total of $720 per advisor per calendar year. This commitment is for one year (four quarterly meetings).
Proposed Timeline
- Application window from December 12th – January 16th. TAVP invites folks directly impacted by state violence (including having been harmed by incarceration, police violence, the death penalty, or punishment due to immigration status) to apply. Share with anyone you think would be interested!
- Notification for applications will be sent out by January 24th, 2025.
- Community Advisory Council meetings will occur in March, June, September, & December of 2025.
