As the state focuses on increasing police presence on college campuses and banning TikTok, students all over the so called "US" and around the world are protesting against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Palestine. Inspired by student protests, a group of Garden(ers) began an encampment in the lawn area near the beach.
The encampment began on Thursday, April 25th at 3pm PST/6pm EST. A few hours prior, Fab (she) posted the idea of the encampment in the everyone chat and asked if others would want to join her. "I started it because of seeing all the encampments that I can't physically get to and virtual actions are important so I knew garden attendees would be down. Plus this is covid safe," Fab said.
She started off with setting up a tent near her desk, then later decided on setting up in the lawn area. This is a regular encampment where folks can come and go to learn, grieve, and be in community.
A group of almost a dozen Garden(ers) spent the afternoon sharing links of college students protesting, staff sharing encampment updates, tweets and other media.
Here's what a couple folks at the encampment shared:
Algebra (He/She/They) said, "currently I don’t live around any colleges, so I can’t support directly but I like sharing this space with others who share similar values in protesting the US and Israel’s genocide...We’ve been discussing the encampments more with the escalation of the University of Columbia. Some have even participated in some in NYU and given their accounts of the protest firsthand! My biggest hope is that these protest will give more opportunities for like-minded people to stand up against government oppression as well as open the eyes of others who aren’t as aware of what’s currently happening."
Ashley (she/her) said, "I am excited to see what folks decide we'd like to do with this Garden encampment and to support in all the ways I can. In terms of some hopes right off the top of my head, any small way that we can collectively grieve the genocide and mobilize together to help to educate the BIPOC still coviding community about this genocide, amplify the calls of students for colonial institutions to divest, collectively urge for a ceasefire, and perhaps provide mutual aid too in the ways we are each able to."
"I am hoping we can learn together and stay up to date because so much information will be skewed in the mainstream media so we can help each other see what it actually happening with a covid cautious lens," Fab added.
Anyone in Garden is welcome to join, and encampments will stay in the lawn area of the beach until the in person encampments end.
If you're already a Garden(er) and you want to visit the encampment, go to the visit page and click the encampment link. If you're not a Garden(er), join Garden to get access to the link.
Students from UPENN, NYU and Columbia are asking the public to help support them by sending emails urging the college presidents to listen to their demands! Please take a few minutes to send out emails.
That's all for now, until next our avatars meet!
😸Gata
PS: Have a one-time-event or a recurring event and need a place to host? Email us at info@meetatgarden.com
Garden is a free 24/7 space, but it does cost money for us to maintain it on GatherTown. If you'd like to donate to this work, consider throwing some money in the pot here.
