Repair’s mission encompasses a very wide range of social problems, and also provides us with freedom to work on interventions, solutions, and systems change. We don’t hesitate to keep our horizons broad, and since our inception have 2014, have introduced programming on a range of topics, from human trafficking to white nationalism to plant medicine to disability law and policy. Our methods also vary – and include classically academic programming, policy analysis, training and curriculum for practitioners, and fun and energizing community-based events.
Although we have an expansive set of concerns and a diverse programming toolkit, we also maintain some cohesion. Approximately 90-95% of our programming falls within our priority areas, which remain consistent for at least three years at a time. In addition, every project we take on is driven by responding to one question: How can we use our finite resources most powerfully and effectively to address the disabling consequences of violence, exploitation, and inequity?
Our responses can focus on healing opportunities and community-building for survivors, or on training and capacity-building for practitioners who work with survivors. Much of our programming engages specific sites and social problems -- such as homelessness, mass incarceration, food insecurity, intimate partner violence, commercial sexual exploitation of youth and adults, and elder abuse – with an emphasis on health and disabling dimensions of those social problems. We also engage in programming – such as voter registration training or civics education – geared towards helping communities engage in direct systems change work about the many issues we care about. Our broad foci and flexible approaches to programming allow us to embody what we believe – that the social ills we face are all inter-connected, and that we need to organize in response using every tool we have available, bringing our hearts, minds and hands to the work of repairing our world.