July, 2018- A Month in Review
by: Brandon Curran: NOHC Marketing and Events Manager
As the hot summer months slowed life for much of the city, The New Orleans Healing Center continued to move forward in full swing throughout the month of July. We saw beautiful successes within The Healing Center, our silos and many of our beautiful partners. Even being a little sweaty, The Healing Center community pushed through and accomplished some beautiful projects and initiatives.
Public and Community Health
We were extremely excited to partner with Unity Healthcare and Brotherhood Incorporated to host Rainbow Friends Working to End Homelessness in the LGBTQ Community Celebration that allowed LGBT folks experiencing homeless a chance to come together to share their voice, receive free medical care, get a new outfit and more. The event also highlighted the heightened number of LGBT homeless folks (especially transgender people of color) in New Orleans and strategized ways to support them. The Healing Center was touched to allow such powerful and important groups to utilize our space to host such a significant event to support this beautiful community.
Additionally, we were excited to assist NOAH (New Orleans Animal Health) in their ongoing mission to give affordable and high-quality vet care the Marigny and St. Roch communities. They recently secured a full laboratory to perform affordable bloodwork. Since joining The Healing Center community about a year ago, it has been beautiful to watch Dr. Charolette and her team continue to break down financial and socio-economic barriers for pet care. We are excited to watch the practice continue to grow and develop and offer more specialized treatments for The St. Roch/ St Claude community’s loving pets.
Finally, The Healing Center’s very own Wild Lotus Yoga offered their ‘Intro to Yoga Four-Week Course that helped break down barriers for beginning yoga student by offering affordable and approachable classes for beginners in a space free of judgment of ability or body type. It is exciting to see Wild Lotus Yoga be part of the national conversation about creating more inclusive yoga spaces than previously existed.
Local Arts and Culture
Nobody gets sweatier in this Louisiana summer than Moe Joe from The Moe Joe Gallery. This month she hosted a workshop for a city-wide flash mob that was inclusive for people of varying abilities and supported folks in wheelchairs who wanted to learn this community dance. It was beautiful to see community members of varying abilities be able to come out and utilize our space for this initiative.
Additionally, The Second Story Gallery hosted Coop Members and Collaborators show that featured Co-op members and friends showcase the diversity of local artists. The show secured two new Second Story Gallery Cooperative members including; Michael Alford (Documentary Photographer and Conceptual Artist) and Belinda Flores-Shinshllas (Visual Artist, Poet, Painter, Printmaker). Its always impressive to see this gallery continue to grow.
Diversity and Inclusion
After a month-long hiatus, The Healing Center team coordinated and hosted a revamped Daring Discussion that focused on turning conversation into action and brought speakers from different community organizations to come out and understand how to get involved to register voters. We were excited to use this moment to develop Voter Registration efforts that begun in August.
In addition to these initiatives and events, The Healing Center has been gearing up for a very busy fall! Stay tuned for our most engaging and dynamic fall season in Healing Center History.
