Focusing on global initiatives
of healing & reparations
About
The Global Circle
In 2021, twenty-three organizations were selected by the John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation as part of its Equitable Recovery Grant Initiative. Believing in the utmost importance of capitalizing on this moment, the cohort, calling themselves the Global Circle for Reparations and Healing, began to meet regularly to develop strategies to amplify and support each other’s work.
Our Operational Framework
The Global Circle has developed an operational framework that will help the network achieve collectively developed objectives in 2023 and beyond. This operational framework builds on 2022 activities by creating six working groups addressing key issue areas identified by the Global Circle:
Global Institutions, Structures & Economic Policy
Work plan will focus on interventions related to international institutions (e.g. G20, UN Security Council, World Bank, WTO, IMF)
Political Actors & Power Dynamics
Will assess the political dynamics of strategic targets, conduct power analyses, conduct research and fact-finding on key political targets, and will support overall strategy with information gathered
Media & Narrative-Building
Work plan will focus on the advancing the reparations narrative at the global level and providing framing that influences the discourse toward the goals of the Global Circle
Partnerships and Movement Building
Will focus on building relationships across continents, forging partnerships with key allies, and strengthening existing relationships to help advance collective strategy
Interreligious Actors (The Vatican, etc)
e.g. The Vatican – Work plan will focus on advancing the Vatican Action as well as other interventions with religious institutions
Inter and Intra-community Healing
Will develop a work plan for advancing the global inter and intra-community healing agenda
Our Work
The work of the GCRH consists of actions withn six strategic areas of the global reparations and healing movement. We call these area our Operational Framwork. To plan and achieve the goals within each area of action, the GCRH is led by a The Steering Committee and Working Group Leaders.
Bellagio Convening
A convening in Italy at which experts from around the world deepened their understanding of the role of the Global North in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and its legacies of colonialism, neocolonialism, racism, apartheid, genocide, and plunder.
Held in Bellagio, Italy at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center upon the invitation of Howard University Knight Journalism Professor and Creator of the 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones. That convening produced 15 Commitments to which attendees agreed will serve as the basis for global collective strategy development.
The Vatican Action
A meeting with the Roman Catholic Church on the issue of accountability for its role in initiating and facilitating the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
The Global Circle held a meeting at The Vatican in Rome, Italy with key Vatican Leadership. We issued a formal Reparations Presentment and discussed a plan for accountability for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the initiation of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Out of this meeting, the cohort developed, with input from Vatican leadership, an engagement strategy and list of contacts of key individuals and groups from the Roman Catholic Church around the world. Follow up meetings will take place with the Vatican in early 2023.
Accra Summit
A global summit bringing reparations and racial healing practitioners together to learn about the current reparations and racial healing landscape, increase the knowledge base to include information about practical steps currently being implemented internationally to advance reparations and healing, and lay the groundwork for relationships upon which to develop collective action.
