Weekly Call to Action: We Want Safety & Decarceration
GirlTREK SOS Dispatch
Saving Our Sisters | Saving Ourselves
Weekly Monday Motivation for a Million+ Strong
Opening Word
I breathe in peace and exhale fear.
I breathe in courage and release every chain.
Knowing my body is a sanctuary,
my steps a testimony,
my freedom God-given.
Knowing no cage can hold me,
no system can define me.
I walk today knowing safety is my birthright
and liberation is our destiny.
Welcome to the SOS Dispatch
This is GirlTREK’s new weekly series where we share how we are saving ourselves and our sisters, and exactly what to do now to get involved. Each dispatch is rooted in our 10-Point Joy & Justice Agenda — our plan to confront the three deadly I’s of inactivity, isolation, and illness, and to help Black women live longer, healthier, lives.
This week’s demand: We Want Safety & Decarceration.
We are walking for it — as Black neighborhoods across the country face over-policing, mass incarceration, and the daily criminalization of our sisters and daughters.
Systems Change Partner Spotlight: Justice for Black Girls
“At Justice for Black Girls (JBG), our work is rooted in dismantling systems that criminalize and harm Black girls while building alternative structures that center care, safety, and the transformative power of Black girlhood. Through youth-led organizing, research, and policy advocacy, we work to disrupt school discipline policies, the policing of Black girlhood & the growing incarceration rate of Black girls nationally. We believe safety must be defined by Black girls themselves, rooted in ancestral roadmaps and expanded by their unique joy and imagination. We believe in building a world that decriminalizes Black girlhood by building spaces where Black girls are free to learn, fail, interrogate, and build from the safe spaces they’ve co-created. We pledge to Black girls liberation and safety, legacies of resistance, and generations of Black girl futures.
This is collective work, and we’re deeply grateful to be in community with dynamic organizations like GirlTrek, who share our vision around safety and decarceration, and more importantly, are unconditionally committed to building the world Black girls have always deserved. We share these recommendations in love and solidarity.
Listen to young Black girls. Continue building sacred intergenerational community with the young Black girls in your life. Create safe spaces for them to question and challenge the schooling experiences that don't feel good to them.
Advocate in your local school district against disproportionate school suspension rates, unjust hair and dress coding, and police presence in schools. Ask for the data, attend your local hearings and school board meetings.
Read Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Dr. Monique Couvson, and watch youth-led sessions interrogating the criminalization of Black girls in schools on our YouTube channel.
Amplify the End Pushout Act, federal legislation aimed at ending the discriminatory practices that disproportionately suspend, expel, and criminalize Black girls in schools, while investing in culturally responsive, trauma-informed approaches to support their learning and well-being.
Recognize the leadership capacity of young Black girls in real time. Affirm the genius & power of Black girls in real time, not just in the future. Our girls hold the solutions to the issues impacting them.”
Want to uplift another organization calling for Safety & Decarceration? We want to know about them! Click here to tell us a bit more.
Next Gen Spotlight:
This weekend, Hailey Darby, Director of Partnerships and Engagement from the national team (pictured below alongside national team member Marcie Thomas, Director of Community Care), led her second listening session, this time in Atlanta as part of our national organizing tour around the 10-Point Joy & Justice Agenda. Hailey began as a youth organizer in GT16 — GirlTREK’s first youth organizing core — and today she is leading national work that is driving our agenda forward.
Do you have a daughter in the movement who is doing inspiring things that we should know about? We want to spotlight her. Please email, her name, and a short blurb about what she is doing to our Next gen organizer, Nyra Govan at Nyra@girltrek.org.
And across the country, Mommy & Me walks brought mothers and daughters to the pavement — creating joy, healing, and safe intergenerational spaces. This is exactly what our partners at Justice for Black Girls call for: places where Black girls can walk, question, imagine, and lead. These walks are proof that when we center Black girls, we build the world they deserve.
Black Business Spotlight
Trekker Shakiethia Wheeler — Southern Women In Motion Foundation Inc. (S.W.I.M.) | Atlanta, GA
A proud mother of four and a justice-impacted leader, Shakiethia advances criminal justice reform through supportive housing, wraparound services, and re-entry programs for unsheltered women directly impacted by the system. With 21 years in entrepreneurship, business management, and real estate, she’s building solutions to mass incarceration, housing injustice, and inequality in Black and Brown communities.
Events | Where to Show Up
Sisterhood Saturday: “I Am Walking For…”
This Saturday, Aug 30 at 9:00 AM ET, join sisters nationwide for a powerful Walk & Talk with Yolanda, GirlTREK’s lead organizer for our Justice Initiative work.
Here’s the call to action: Lace up your sneakers, step outside, and dedicate your walk to a woman or loved one behind bars. Say her name. Carry her story. Walk in her place.
As we move together, we’ll gather live on Zoom for a 30-minute Walk & Talk to share who we are walking for. This is our collective act of remembrance and resistance — a declaration that no sister is forgotten and no cage can contain our love.
You can watch this powerful new mini-doc featuring Yolanda and other members of GirlTREK. This documentary was made in partnership with our supporters at Direct Relief, and we are grateful for their support.
20 Years Since Hurricane Katrina — #RideTheStorm
Honor Gulf South communities still fighting for climate justice: move 7 miles (walk, ride, roll, or run) in solidarity. This is not a GirlTREK event but was shared by friend of the movement Baratune Thurston, so we are sharing it with you!
[Register Your Ride or Join One Near You]
Katrina 20th Anniversary Trek
Audubon Park, New Orleans
Sat, Aug 30 at 7:00 AM
Join our Louisiana crew leaders for a powerful remembrance walk and community connection.
Your SOS Assignment of the Week
Mission: Walk for Safety & Decarceration
Commit to your High Five Week — walk 5 days for at least 30 minutes.
Dedicate one of those walks to a sister or loved one who is justice-impacted. Call her name. Carry her story. Don’t forget to register for Yolanda’s Walk & Talk here.
Share your walk with #IAmWalkingFor and #NoSisterLeftBehind so we can witness each other and walk together.
In Sisterhood & Solidarity,
Your GirlTREK National Crew