All Power to the Students!
139 campuses and counting are using encampment as a tactic to pressure their administrations to divest from genocide in Gaza and war profiteering. We are witnessing—and participating in—the most widespread significant college organizing this country has seen in several decades. At the encampments, we see the other world that we know is possible glimmering through the shell of the old: free food, mutual aid, liberatory political education, security without cops, and the courage to try something new.
At the same time that these tent cities are growing in the US, we’re seeing the sickening images of another set of tents—those in Rafah, where the Israeli government is bombing temporary refugee camps filled with families and children, and destroying what precarious safety could be found there.
We’re with the students. Now is the time to escalate!
As a young people’s organization, we are in a moment where we need to open our doors, orient, and support. Please review the options to support below, connect with your chapter, and find a buddy with whom to take action this week.
Orient:
Open our Doors:
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Please encourage newly activated students with class privilege to attend RG 101 on Monday June 24th and be welcomed into an organizing home (perhaps one of many!).
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In the meantime, you can encourage newbies to fill out the intake form.
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Are you interested in taking action in support of Gaza and/or in support of students’ demands? We are currently working on some relevant programming for the future. Check out our interest form here!
Move Money:
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Resource Generation members have been supporting Grassroots International’s Palestine Emergency Fund since Fall 2023. Grassroots International has shared this one-minute video with their supporters which can be shared on a number of platforms (including Facebook and X). Note: it contains graphic footage of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. GRI’s community-based partners in Palestine have provided:
- over 84,000 families including patients and staff at hospitals in Rafah and Khan Younis with food and meals
- 150,000 people with clean water
- 4,000 sheep farmers with feed to sustain their livestock
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5,000 displaced households with essential aid packages, including food, water, blankets, clothing and hygiene kits
- 30 mobile medical teams, providing emergency medical response, mental health support, sexual and reproductive health care, and more
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documentation of human rights abuses, communications and legal work holding Israel accountable for war crimes, and advocacy for 6,000 Gazan workers in Israel who were displaced to the West Bank
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The American Muslim Community Foundation has opened a fund specifically to support student encampments.
In Solidarity and Struggle,
The RG Organizing Team
P.S. We are celebrating the news that Fidelity Charitable has now reinstated the United Nations Relief and Works agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the largest international aid organization in Gaza, as a legitimate 501c3 charity on their platforms.
Following an unsubstantiated political attack, many governments including the US cut essential, life sustaining funding to UNRWA. Fidelity followed suit and blocked donations to UNRWA in March. Donors using the Fidelity Charitable donor advised fund were not longer able to give money to the US arm of UNRWA. Thanks to behind the scenes pressure from many donors, including from Solidaire and RG, Fidelity Charitable has now reinstated UNRWA. This is a case study for the power of donor organizing!
Thank you to our friends at Solidaire for the language for this update.
