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OUR STORY
At the intersection of education and social justice.
ORIGIN.
Tutors for Igniting Impact once functioned at UC Davis under the name 'Tutors for Inmates' which the group agreed to be problematic and revised in 2017. We established tutoring and GED programs at the Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility in Woodland and at CSP Solano in Vacaville.
In addition to on-site programming, our group maintained an on-campus presence and hosted various events, book drives, and discussion nights as part of our 'Awareness Committee.'
Due to many of our members graduating and a weakened team, we were unable to fully follow through with our programs and TFII had to cease our relationships with partners in 2019. However, this past year we have been restructuring, rebuilding and reevaluating our group. At this point, as we transition into a rigorous internship and Group Study with elevated standards, we aim to draw from all of our experiences and collectively organize a well-thought-out program, grounded in solidarity with incarcerated people, and a strong team to implement our visions.
ACTION & IMPACT.
Throughout our time at Yolo County Juvenile Hall, we tutored over 20 youth and supplemented existing high school curricula to help our students obtain credits towards graduation. We tutored Spanish-speaking English learners and hosted a couple of book drives to gather supplies for our Youth. We also spearhead a mentorship program called 'Storm to Success,' which entailed small group activities, discussions, and toolkits.
​At CSP Solano we also held tutoring sessions but in larger groups. In 2018, we began to extend our tutoring program to offer transitional workshops (e.g., How to prepare for a job interview, etc.) for incarcerated individuals who were scheduled to be released within 6 months.​
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In addition to our impact in these facilities, we have also tutored various system-impacted youth in our community and helped them prepare for the SAT, ACT, and GED.
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On campus, we have held various events that center the voices and experiences of incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and system impacted individuals.
CURRENT CONTEXT.
Tutors for Igniting Impact operates within the current context of mass incarceration in the United States. As Lisa Jessie Peterson describes in the documentary 13th, mass incarceration and the Prison Industrial Complex is a 'beast [that] eats Black and Latino people for breakfast, lunch, and dinner." We operate within the shadow that this beast casts on the lives of our brothers and sisters who are currently incarcerated and all the silent victims who are impacted by the carceral system.
At TFII we have seen and experienced firsthand how, currently, the carceral system extends beyond prisons and jails and into the lives, hopes, and dreams of our youth. Pipelines such as the School-to-Prison pipeline, Foster Care-to-Prison pipeline, and even Cradle-to-Prison pipeline ensure that youth in the U.S. are bound for the tragedy of mass incarceration.
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Even more expansive but nonetheless, equally tragic, is the reach of the carceral system into the everyday lives of black and brown individuals all throughout the U.S. which manifests itself through police brutality, disenfranchisement, poverty, and theft of opportunities. All of which perpetuate the racism that the carceral system was originally founded on.
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This is the context in which we operate. This is the context that we battle everyday.
FUTURE FOCUSED.
At TFII we seek to battle, dismantle, and abolish the carceral system and all of the symptoms it causes in our society such as mass incarceration, police brutality, disenfranchisement, and dehumanization of people.
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We seek to dismantle the stigma toward incarcerated individuals and system-impacted people and support them in any way possible. We know that a future without stigma is a future where all individuals are recognized for their humanity and not their labels.
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Our focus has and will continue to be, to work together to fight for the empowerment, advancement, and liberation of all individuals.
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We are currently working toward establishing a stronger and more sustainable program that can persevere through time and obstacles and ensure that our mission and vision continue having an impact in our community.
DEFINING OUR APPROACH
01. BEGIN
By educating ourselves on the extensive impacts of the carceral system, mass incarceration, school-to-prison pipeline and 'checking' ourselves for implicit bias, propagation of stigmas, and the language we use when discussing these issues.
02. CENTER
Our students, their stories, voices and experiences, and humanity in the first few sessions together. The goal is to create a safe environment from which students can positively engage in academia while exploring and unlocking their passions.
03. TUTORING
Continues with culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and academically rigorous lessons that meet our students where they are at. We view our tutoring as a pathway to mentorship and empowerment to help our students succeed.
04. DISCUSS
Our approach in focus groups and with our students in order to seek feedback that helps us create a more robust and humanizing pedagogy. We always seek the input of our students and community recognizing that we cannot do this work alone.
No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.
- NELSON MANDELA.
Our students are a testament of our nation and societies' character. They have a lot to teach us about who we really are as a nation.
OUR STUDENTS.
Our students come from all different backgrounds and each has a story of their own. They have aspirations, hopes, and dreams and the mistakes they have made do not erase away their humanity. They carry a stigma for the various labels that our society has placed on them and, as a result, are usually looked down upon and lack many opportunities to rehabilitate and grow from their mistakes.
Below are some of the facilities/organizations we have partnered with in the past to work with our students.
YOLO COUNTY PROBATION & YOLO COUNTY JUVENILE HALL,
WOODLAND
CALIFORNIA STATE PRISON,
VACAVILLE
INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS IN OUR COMMUNITY,
YOLO COUNTY