2011 Childcare and Children's Program
Still need childcare volunteers for Saturday and Sunday. Inquire at volunteers@anarchistbookfair.net if interested in helping with childcare and other volunteering tasks.
The NYC Anarchist Book Fair is committed to creating a family friendly environment and will support parents and children to the best of its ability.
Though childcare and kids' activities are provided, we ask all book fair participants to be supportive of parents and children wherever they are (see concrete ways to support below), as we do not discourage them from attending any part of the venue, including workshops. We do not require presenters to tailor their presentations to children (though we encourage it), but accept that 'kid noises are the sign of a growing movement' (quote from prison abolitionist Jason Lydon of the Community Church of Boston) and ask that all participants share the sense of community responsibility needed for a supportive environment.
Although there is a designated childcare area, we do not require properly supervised kids to be confined within it. At any point in time, the workshop you are attending may be briefly but unapologetically interrupted by a children's snake march. The first will be led by Spiritchild Saturday afternoon and repeated as necessary throughout the weekend to relieve the boredom of the kids and overworked childcare providers.
We do not have the capacity to babysit for the big anti-war march on Saturday. We require parents to be in the general vicinity of the venue while their children are present unless previous arrangements are made with the childcare group. Direct inquiries about anti-war march childcare to the march organizers.
Thank you for supporting a multi-generational movement.
NYC Anarchist Book Fair
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Kids' Workshops
While the NYC Anarchist Book Fair provides childcare and children's activities every year, the quality of childcare and the success of sustaining a multi-generational movement depends on the community. As the workshop presenters below have been generous enough to share their time and skills with kids in the space (in addition to presenting their original workshops), we hope that participants will be willing to to the same. To inquire about childcare, help out, RSVP or share ideas for children's programming, please email info[AT]anarchistbookfair[DOT]net.
Arts, Crafts, reading and games all weekend
Face Painting and Reading Corner (Time TBA)
Saturday - 11:00am-12:30pm Institute_Institut FOCUS WORKSHOP #5: the self and its image
The Panoply Performance Laboratory
What is an individual? What is an "institution"? Using live-feed video that allows kids (and parents) to see themselves move onscreen in real time, we will explore the place where our selves are often asked to "feed" into structures such as school, work, and family. Kids/parents may play an interactive game that examines the mechanics of institutional engagement and invites subjective critical analysis of any current institutional relationships that the participants may have. Smaller kids may choose to play with their own image and their endlessly repeating, smaller and smaller images continuing off into the distance.
Saturday - 12:45pm-1:45pm Coalition of Immokalee Workers Kids' workshop
Do you know who grows the food you eat? From the tomatoes in your shopping cart to the lettuce on the shelves, all food has a story, a story that is connected to farmworkers. Join us as we reveal the hidden history behind the food you eat, and as we talk about a group of farmworkers in Southwest Florida (the Coalition of Immokalee Workers) who work in the agricultural fields and fight for their rights! Let's ensure that the food we eat is not only healthy for our bodies, but healthy for the workers, too!
Saturday - 2:30pm-4:00pm Hip Hop workshop and Kids' Parade
At 2:30pm Spiritchild will conduct a hip hop workshop in the childcare space, then lead the First Annual Children's Snake March throughout the book fair venue and outside, weather permitting. The march will end at a more adult friendly hip hop workshop at 4:15pm, where everyone can join in and the children can continue their musical education if they so choose.
www.movementinmotion.com
www.minmcollective.blogspot.com
Sunday 2:30-4:00 - Alternatives to Capitalist Economics (for adults and kids)
At Manhattan Lab and our Trafalgar Square make-lab, we have charged our faculty and staff to create an “affinity”-based model of student-driven experimentation that targets early childhood to post-graduate learners.
Sunday 4:15-5:45 - "Tech Security Basics" workshop by ATS (Anarchist Tech Support // Anarchistes pour des technologies solidaires) and Plankhead. Teens welcome, no prior knowledge necessary, bring a laptop if you can.
Others to be announced
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Concrete Ways to Support Parents and Children in Your Community/Movement (compiled at the La Rivolta! Anarcha-feminist conference, March 2006)
1- Give Children Attention. Say something to them: just be your true self, whatever you are thinking, they are open to that. Children act better when they get attention. In the beginning of a meeting if a group gives the children some attention, they are often happier and better behaved for the rest of the meeting.
2- Develop childcare as an ongoing relationship with a child – it takes some time to get to know a child before they are comfortable with doing stuff with you away from their parents.
3- Offer a slot of time, to spend time with a child on a weekly basis
4- Integrate children and adults: it’s more pleasant to watch children with other adults to talk to; it’s more pleasant for the children to see adults enjoying each other and not feel a burden to them.
5- Include children in the planning of any activity, like a sewing workshop for instance.
6- Doing something child-friendly? Ask a kid if they want to come along. (Lizxnn has been taking Siu Loong for Critical Mass rides for three years and she loves it.) Children can benefit from activities their parents don’t do and parents can benefit from the time to themselves.
7- If a baby is crying because it needs to be held and the parent has their hands busy and can not hold it; offer to hold the baby.
8- If a child is making a disturbance in an area, offer to go outside with the kid so the parent doesn’t have to leave the event.
9- Meet parents at their level: come visit them at home or where ever their spaces are. Let parents talk about being parents: realize having a child is like having the most intense love affair you have ever known (says one parent. Another says – not.)
10- Acknowledge children: don’t treat them like they are invisible
11- Give us a smile!
ALSO - When providing child care at political events (and every event should have child care!)
12- Visit the children and childcare providers in daycare – and say “Hi!” Childcare providers can feel isolated from others at the event. Have a cup of tea with them! (suggested by Siu Loong, age 5)
13- Parents with different aged children have different needs. Parents with younger children or children who aren’t comfortable leaving their side yet would benefit from childcare that was off to a side of the same room or more central to the main events. Parents with older and more independent children benefit from having them in a different room or floor. Either way, childcare must be assessable.
14- Parents need to give more input to the day-care providers, about their and their children’s needs during the planning of the event. At least tell them you are coming and the age of your child/ren.
15- It’s comforting for parents to know childcare is available, even if they don’t use it
AND - Contemplate
16- How much work/consuming being a parent is: 24/7; in the beginning years it’s hard to even think straight: one is still adjusting to being a parent and young children’s needs are very intensive
17- That radical parents don’t fit in at mainstream places, like their children’s schools - so when they go to an anarchist gathering and don’t feel supported by their own culture – how bad that feels.