Community Action Team

June 17, 2020

The definition of action is the “state of doing something or being active.” The Community Action Team (CAT) is a collective of students, staff, and faculty who came together to elevate and support efforts that practitioners, organizers, and community partners identified as a result of the first wave of COVID-19.  Our CAT would like to express its heartfelt appreciation for the overwhelming support over the last 3 months. Through the sharing of your time, networks, and resources we were able to have a huge impact.  To learn more about these efforts please read our attached newsletter. Our collective efforts reflect how we as a school community can mobilize in response to global pandemics.  Thank you for your advocacy, your volunteerism and for championing the needed change that our world deserves.

Now the CAT turns its attention to another public health pandemic that requires significant action — police brutality (as evidenced through the brutal murder of George Floyd) and the ways that structural and interpersonal racism negatively impact community health and well-being, particularly of our Black and Brown communities. George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor were victims of murder perpetuated through racist and anti-black policies and practices in the United States.  Racism is a public health emergency! CAT centers its mission in racial justice and stands in solidarity for the liberation of all forms of oppression. Black lives matter then, now, and always. Black lives matter. We stand in solidarity with members of our school community who are working to listen to and lift up the voices of our Black students, staff, faculty, and communities, in order to inform and to enact the kinds of change required at multiple levels that combats the effects of racism.

While our group, which is mainly comprised of volunteers, pauses for the summer we look forward to re-engaging with you in the Fall. We invite new members to join us as we regroup and continue to organize and centralize opportunities for you to plug into in response to current public health emergencies.  We can still be reached at engagesph@berkeley.edu, but given our limited people power through August, may take additional time to respond.

If you are moved to do something today, take a moment to read through this list of anti-racism resources and stay tuned to how you can get involved in the work of equity and justice with SPH leadership. 

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
—Martin Luther King, Jr