Underground Scholars Santa Barbara

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Register today. This is going to be a great event.

Graduates in Underground Scholars all shared their future endeavors following their graduation from UCSB. Fourth-year sociology major at Santa Barbara City College Lisandra-Barrera Rising said upon graduation, she wants to pursue her passion for social work and therapy and continue the work of helping others she’ conducted as an Underground Scholar.

“Being a social worker will give me more opportunities in doing what we do now — allocating resources to people that need it,” Lisandra-Barrera Rising said.

Lisandra-Barrera Rising emphasized the importance of providing access to therapy to prison system-impacted families needing therapists.

“Being incarcerated and being system impacted — it just affects whole entire generations,” Lisandra-Barrera Rising said. “Families are always interrupted and displaced … So if we can have more therapists that are culturally sensitive to these families, then we could probably see a lot more families staying together despite the circumstances that they’re going through.”

https://dailynexus.com/2022-06-17/gaucho-underground-scholars-celebrates-graduating-seniors/

Gaucho Underground Scholars Celebrates Graduating Seniors | The Daily Nexus Gaucho Underground Scholars is a campus organization that works to provide peer-driven support and guidance to formerly incarcerated and system-impacted students.

The Gaucho Underground Scholars cooking classes with Apples to Zucchinis Cooking School was so much fun. This month we made sushi rolls.

The first ever Formerly Incarcerated Student Graduation Celebration at UCSB organized by the Gaucho Underground Scholars Program was a great success.

This program was created by formerly incarcerated students for formerly incarcerated students.

UCSB gave us know funding for this event we used funding that we raised ourselves to pay for this celebration.

Still to this day UCSB has not invested into our program we have no financial support and we hope that this first graduation celebration where over 9 formerly incarcerated students graduated with high honors and were accepted into PhD programs opens up this campuses leaderships eyes and next year they invest in a huge graduation celebration for the next cohort of graduates and also give us our own space and hire on a full time director and employ more formerly incarcerated professors and staff to support us. We would also like to see scholarships and grants to support us formerly incarcerated students.

This is what the Formerly Incarcerated class of 2022 wishes for the future of this much needed program here at UCSB that has proven successful outcomes. Enjoy our graduation celebration pictures and if you are feeling generous and would to help support our program please click on this link and donate to our cause. Thanks for your support and solidarity with our movement to build a better community for all.

https://giving.ucsb.edu/Funds/Give?id=397

We did it!!! The first ever Formerly Incarcerated Student Underground Scholars Cohort of UCSB. Total of 5 graduates 3 we're accepted into PhD programs. We celebrated five formerly incarcerated students from Allan Hancock Community College and SBCC three were accepted into the University for the Bachelorette. This is what it's truly about creating upward mobility for the most marginalized group in our communities. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FORMERLY INCARCERATED GRADUATE CLASS OF 2022!!!

Our documentary preview enjoy!! https://youtu.be/L7ab9-i8R5Q

Building-The-Prison-To-University-Pipeline Documentary Trailer This documentary follows formerly incarcerated students at the University of California Santa Barbara as they develop the first ever program for formerly in...

Gaucho Underground Scholars fully support El Congreso's demands and ask all of you to call Chancellor Yang today at 805-893-2231 and tell him you support El Congreso's demands and ask him to make sure they all get met. Chttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1EwiJ_X35Qh4xRxXtFcJ01rdZZ-AIDXHm/view?usp=drivesdk

El Congreso HSI_El Centro_CLG_CRCs_Housing Demands.pdf

We are happy to announce that we have been accepted into El Congreso and are now a recognized student organization and student led program underneath El Centro. We are so humble and grateful and for the first time since we started organizing here at UCSB to create this formerly incarcerated student program we feel safe and welcomed on this campus. We fully support all the demands made by El Congreso for a full list of these demands please follow this link.

https://elcongresodeucsb.weebly.com/

Home - El Congreso de UCSB The official website for El Congreso de UCSB, including information on our annual Latine College Day (formerly named Raza College Day).

Please share this and donate to this cause.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/deported-homies?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1

Deported Homies, organized by Eric Pereira To create a re-entry home that can uplift the community of deported formerly incarcerated homies in Mexi… Eric Pereira needs your support for Deported Homies

The Gaucho Underground Scholars members out at Santa Barbara City College promoting the program and sharing poetry.

University of California Riverside Underground Scholars would like to invite you all to their 3rd annual Forgotten Population event this Thursday, April 28th from 2-3:30pm. This is our first in-person event since 2020 and our planning committee has done an excellent job planning for it. We have partnered with other orgs on campus to do our best to educate our campus community and the Inland Empire of the work USI does. This event will indeed be open to the public, provided they register in advance.

Our theme this year is "Womxen Scholars Affected by the Carceral System." Our facilitator, presenters, and panelists all identify as womxn and we expect this event to be a transformative experience for all in attendance.

One of our panelists is a Riverside City College (RCC) student who is active with Transitioning Minds. Another RCC student is a Berkeley USI Ambassador and has been in community with our planning committee for weeks as USI has worked to provide him with organizational leadership skills that he will benefit from long after he transfers.

This is a catered event and food and agua frescas will be provided from a local Mexican spot popular among students. Stabucks coffee will also be provided. All at no cost to attendees.

We hope that you all can make it if you can.

Congratulations on your acceptance into the University of California we are excited to welcome all our formerly incarcerated colleagues. Please join us for this virtual event. Click the link below to sign up.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkklgnd-pqJ2FnJh8Qbr7qUV_we47EbOkyceCLKRFuspLJ-Q/viewform

Our Co-founder Ryan Flaco Rising always speaking and uplifting our community.

https://youtu.be/lVx1Tl-mFaw

Ryan "Flaco" Rising shares his insights into serving our youth Flaco sits down with Victor and talks about some of his experiences in the school setting when growing up and how being labeled certain terms impacted how he...

UCSB Open house our Iniatives Chair Gilbert Murillo and our Recruitment Coordinator Juan Bran-Gudiel out representing the Gaucho Underground Scholars sharing our program and our vision with incoming students.

The work that's getting done to uplift formerly incarcerated deportees in Mexico is vital. The United States incarcerated all these people and just dumps them off in countries they have never grew up in. It is wrong we need to create re-entry services in these countries to help these formerly incarcerated deportees reintegrate back into these Communities successfully.

https://www.youtube.com/user/Rick68976/featured

Migrants in Mexico - YouTube This page was created to bring light to the lives and struggle of migrants in Mexico.

The Gaucho Underground Scholars family cooking classes with A to Z Cooking School was such a blast. This month we made Chicken Fajitas with homemade Gaucamole and coleslaw.

Our Co-founder Ryan Flaco Rising is working with a team on developing the first Credible Messengers Program in the state of California. Yesterday founders of Credible Messengers Programs in other states flew in to present the movement stay tuned for amazing work that is evolving.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/31/new-center-promotes-access-good-jobs-after-prison

New center promotes access to good jobs after prison Formerly incarcerated students with college degrees struggle to find jobs because of their criminal records. A new center wants to change that.

Attention local community college students! 📢 Join Berkeley Underground Scholars on Saturday Apr 23, 2022 to learn about services, resources and support for formerly incarcerated and system impacted students at UC Berkeley. During Transfer Empowerment Day, you will hear directly from students who have successfully transferred from community college, their experiences on campus, the support and resources they’ve received and more about BUS opportunities you can take advantage of as a current community college student!📚

Lunch will be provided.🥪🥗**SPACE IS LIMITED!!** Link in bio to register.
GO BEARS! 🐻

"The Underground Scholars program has let me take back my own narrative. It’s allowed me to do more than just feel bad about my past. It’s helped me take a step back and shift some burden of responsibility to the systems that got us here. We are plenty more than a collection of redemption stories.

I look at our program as a means of creating our own agency. It’s a means for advocating for ourselves, a seat at the proverbial table. After all, the most knowledgeable people in the movement against mass incarceration are formerly incarcerated students."

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2022-03-23/underground-scholars-ucsd-formerly-incarcerated

Opinion: Post-incarceration, the Underground Scholars program helped me reclaim my own narrative It’s allowed me to do more than just feel bad about my past. We are plenty more than a collection of redemption stories.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2022-03-23/opinion-underground-scholars-initiative-demonstrates-the-power-to-change

Opinion: Underground Scholars Initiative demonstrates the power to change Restorative justice at UC San Diego

Our Underground Scholars Transnational Committee has been working to help develop reentry services for formerly incarcerated deportees in Mexico. http://guanatosgdlsur.org

guanatosgdlsur.org

Rising and two other members of Gaucho Underground were denied entry into UC Santa Barbara’s graduate program in sociology, a move they feel was retaliatory.

“They denied us [admission], and we truly believe the reason is because we stood up for our program—we stood up for our community in our space here, we refused to meet with the police and get rubber-stamped by the police on this campus, in order for our program to be solidified,” Rising said.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/10/challenges-persist-formerly-incarcerated-students

Challenges persist for formerly incarcerated students The stigma of incarceration often complicates admissions, membership in academic organizations and professional licensure, restricting individuals for years after their release from prison.

Gaucho Underground Scholars out with their families at the last home basketball game of the year. Gauchos beat Hawaii it was a great game.

Gaucho Underground Scholars cooking classes with Apples to Zucchinis cooking school was so much fun this is a great way to reunify with the family and our kids. Our kids really loved this hands on learning and the reward was so yummy we all are together and got to talk about what we learned.

Please sign this petition and share with your networks. https://forms.gle/6mEg2Y6hAWnhPZZU7

UCSB Boycott Call We the founders of Underground Scholars Initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara, do hereby call for a boycott of UC Santa Barbara and the UCSB Department of Sociology specifically, effective immediately. We make this boycott call in response to the unwarranted disqualification of t...