We are reaching out to our community partners and supporters with hope and fierceness in this current climate of oppression and fear.

Organizer, educator, and writer Mariame Kaba says “Hope is a discipline.”

RISE embraces this philosophy. RISE transforms culture around bodies and beings here in our little conservative neck of the woods–and beyond. And this work has never been more important–and possible. How? Here are just a few things RISE has been up to recently.

Program development

RISE wrote and launched two facilitator programs and a new curriculum this year: Accessible Sexuality Education facilitator training and Stellar Sex Ed curriculum and facilitator training. Both programs approach education about bodies, relationships, and identities with honesty, compassion, and curiosity and actively dismantle stigma. In addition, we work with other community partners to develop programming, including:

•  “Consent Is Like Pizza,” with A Step Ahead Tricities and the ETSU Adolescent and Young Adult Clinic.

• “Listening Circle Facilitator Training” developed with our partners in Appalachian shOUT, a collective impact initiative dedicated to making sexual and reproductive health resources accessible to youth in SW Virginia and NE Tennessee.

• “Rising Voices” panel processing workshops for healthcare providers developed with the TN Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence.

Youth empowerment

• Teens RISE, a youth-led initiative that includes education, advocacy, and service, recently presented programs for the Robinson Middle School gay-straight alliance and the Carter County Drug Prevention Coalition’s youth group. Youth also participated in state-level legislative advocacy for the second year.

• Appalachian shOUT Listening Circles, an opportunity for youth to share their ideas about what reproductive and sexual health information and resources they want/need/have access to.

Trauma-informed programming

• RISE continually offers programming about trauma responses from a variety of perspectives. From “Trauma-informed Approaches to Ministry” to “Educating Survivors About Their Own Trauma Response” to “Removing Barriers to Care for Trauma Survivors of All Genders,” RISE partners with organizations like Mountain Home VA Hospital, the TN Coalition, and Holston Valley Unitarian Universalist Church to facilitate conversation and culture change around trauma and response behaviors with participants from around the country.

• RISE continues to offer trauma-informed responsible, inclusive sexuality education for people of all ages throughout our community.

How do we do it?

We do all this work on a shoestring budget with a load of fantastic volunteers. However, as our programming increases, so does our need for paid staff and office space.

We receive grant and partnership funding, but we need significant support from our community to sustain and build on this work.

Programs launching this fall

• YAS!–YAS! is an acronym for “You Are Safe!”--a program that will provide information about what sexual assault is, affirmation and resources for survivors, and programming that can begin to change culture around sexual harassment and assault. This program responds to needs identified by a survey of local sexual assault survivors. RISE is working with public health graduate students and local organizations to develop this program.

• Health on Wheels--On Tennessee public school campuses teachers cannot demonstrate proper condom usage, some sex ed materials can only be distributed to married students…think about that…, and “facts” often are not reliable. Health on Wheels is a pilot program that offers factual sexual and reproductive wellness information free of judgment, information about local resources and services, a way youth can ask questions anonymously and receive answers on Instagram, and internal and external condoms, dental dams, and lubrication. Health on Wheels will park across the street from school property so all students have access to these resources.

The challenges

We all have seen proposed Tennessee legislation that denigrates and even seeks to “disappear” queer people, trans people, and people of color. Tennessee legislators continue trying to censor educational content, block access to best healthcare practices, and reduce people with uteruses to vessels. And that doesn’t even touch the fight against reproductive freedom happening in the U.S. Supreme Court. It can be discouraging. Frightening. Infuriating. And dangerous for Tennesseans.

As you know, Northeast Tennessee has deeply engrained social biases and any talk about sexual and reproductive health happens in a fog of shame and fear. However, Teens RISE peer sex educators identified values we share with legislators and local conservatives, and we lean in to these every day:

• Wellbeing of the public and communities

• Wellbeing of children

• Loving one another

• Safety in schools

• Educating and supporting our youth

• Crime prevention

• Suicide prevention

• Economic benefit

• Personal freedom

• Small government oversight

Practical, compassionate, and creative

RISE is doubling down on the life-saving work we do. With your help we will continue developing practical, compassionate, sometimes subversive solutions to cultural challenges.

Hope is a discipline. Thank you in advance for your generous contribution toward keeping hope alive.

Your donation of any amount will help AND we encourage you to dig deeply if you are privileged enough to be able to. We are a small community nonprofit doing big things people don’t like to talk about. Your help literally makes all the difference.