Robert Beckles
Robert Beckles is a community health worker and peer advocate from St. Louis, MO. His work is about achieving health equity for LGBTQ+ Black and Brown people in St. Louis, especially around mental and sexual health outcomes. He believes that all people desire and deserve lives of good health and connection, but that histories of systemic and interpersonal harm will continue unless we co-create equitable and sustainable systems for healing. Robert has been involved in social justice work for most of his life, but his involvement hit home during the uprising in his hometown of Ferguson, MO in 2014
Presentations from Facing Race 2022
Creative Reaction Lab presents: Redesigners For Justice
Creative Reaction Lab was founded in support of the Uprising in Ferguson. Today, Creative Reaction Lab is building a youth-led, community-centered movement of a new type of Civic Leader: Redesigners for Justice. We plan to use the allotted time to engage participants in activities developed to dissect the components of the Equity-Centered Community Design (inviting diverse co-creators, building humility and equity, defining and assessing topic and community needs, ideating approaches, rapid prototyping, and testing and learning), which we currently use to redesign our local community. Our goal is for participants to view the youth of color within their community as co-designers and through our technique discover new ways to shift power and integrate them into the redesigning of our country's oppressive systems.
Speakers: Robert Beckles, Stephen Rayfield, Cat Smith