Freedom Side Commons

At Freedom Side Commons families, educators and organizers work across prison walls to build a home where we learn together, care for each other, and grow our movement toward abolitionist futures.

Freedom Side is deeply embedded in the fabric of the community of families impacted by incarceration and in the broader landscape of progressive education and education advocacy. Freedom Side Commons is where we take the values of Freedom Side beyond the classroom and into the communities and contexts we inhabit.

At Freedom Side Commons…

…we develop and disseminate abolitionist teaching methodologies.

Freedom Side is rooted in a robust community of family members who are fighting to end mass incarceration in Pennsylvania. We facilitate participatory support services for family members who have been impacted by incarceration, host joyful events for the community to gather and connect, and create space for mutual aid projects led by community members.

…we facilitate mutual aid and peer support projects led by and for people impacted by incarceration.

Through site visits, workshops, and professional development opportunities we engage with educators in the work of creating a robust set of abolitionist practices for the elementary school classroom and implementing those practices in schools across the country. We develop tools and resources for abolitionist curricula and pedagogy that are widely disseminated.

…we learn and practice healing justice as a community.

We offer workshops and community learning spaces in which we teach and practice concrete tools for addressing harm and conflict in ways that center healing and transformation. We create and disseminate resource materials to support community members to develop skills as facilitators of restorative practices and community accountability processes.