Show your mom some love, and support CCWP! Make a $25 donation to support CCWP's work, and we’ll send a Mother’s Day card to your mother—or to another special person in your life who you’d like to honor. NOTE: The deadline for on-time delivery has passed. However, you can still order a card to be delivered after Mother's Day (May 11). Click here to make a $25 Mother's Day donation and have a card sent to someone you love!      CCWP on Hard Knock Radio! On the last Friday of every month at 4pm, the Without Walls radio show airs on KPFA during the Hard Knock Radio hour. Without Walls is a collaboration between Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, Free Battered Women, All of Us or None, and California Coalition for Women Prisoners. This month was CCWP's turn to host the show, with a focus on mental health issues in California women's prisons. You can listen to the show by clicking here .      Maafa Awareness Month Events Organized by CCWP Advisory Board Member Wanda Sabir October is Maafa Awareness Month. Maafa is a Kiswahili term for disaster, calamity or terrible occurrence. This term has been used to describe the European Slave trade or the Black Holocaust. For the past 12 years, this month is a time for the San Francisco Bay Area community to reflect on the legacy of slavery, its economic, political and social impact on the region and nation, and the residual psychological effects on descendants: perpetrators, victims, and beneficiaries. Maafa Awareness Month is a time to look at how Africans or Black people, in particular, can heal from the trauma.      Save the Date!      Mother Infant Facility Under Investigation The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) Family Foundation Program in San Diego, which allows women prisoners to be incarcerated with their children, is under investigation for severe child neglect and abuse by the San Diego Police Department. The investigation began in January when incarcerated mothers and their family members contacted Legal Services for Prisoners with Children to report the severe lack of medical care for their children. Child Protective Services is also investigating Family Foundations for its treatment of the children living there.      Family Visiting Day 2007 CCWP held its third annual Family Visiting Day event this past February, providing transportation from both Oakland and Los Angeles to Central California Women’s Facility and Valley State Prison for Women, both in Chowchilla, to the loved ones of prisoners in each institution. The response this year was bigger than any previous year showing the enormous desire of women, transgender and gender variant prisoners and family members and loved ones of these prisoners to visit one another. This huge response also illustrates the absolute need many have for assistance in getting to the prisons, as the cost and distance of the trip is often prohibitive, especially considering the disproportionate number of people from poor communities and communities of color being locked up. The fact that we received information for over 800 visitors while we had the resources and capacity for only 170 shows how much this opportunity means to people in California women’s prisons and their loved ones on the outside.      Fire Inside Tenth Anniversary Event This year marked the tenth anniversary of the CCWP newsletter The Fire Inside. A celebration of this occasion was held on November 7, 2006 at the African American Art and Culture Complex in San Francisco. This amazing event featured author Alice Walker as our guest of honor who read from her recently released book We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For and shared her thoughts on the prison industrial complex, the oppression of political prisoners in the United States, and the current state of our world.      2006 Family Visiting Day CCWP started Family Visiting Day in 2005 when we realized how many women were not getting regular visits from their families because of the difficulties involved with transportation to the prisons. In 2005, we brought families from the Bay Area but this year we expanded the event to include a bus from Los Angeles. We spent several months raising money, getting donations of food, collecting names and information from families who were interested in participating, researching chartered bus companies and working on dozens of other details to make it all possible. Some families were picked up by volunteers and some got to the meeting places on their own. There were packets of information which included descriptions of CCWP’s programs for each family, as well as healthy snacks, and crayons, paper and flash cards for the kids to pass the time on the long bus ride there. Although everyone was sleepy because of the early hour, you could feel the excitement running up and down the aisles!      Martha Fernández (en Español) Martha Fernández, quien estuvo prisionera en el VSPW, murió el Lunes 12 de Diciembre del 2005, después de haber sido atendida en la sala de emergencies del hospital de la comunidad en la ciudad de Madero. Su cuerpo fue trasportado y entregado a su familia en la ciudad de Watsonville; y ellos procedieron con los arreglos para su funeral el día Viernes 16 de Diciembre del 2005. Inmediatamente después del funeral, la funeraria le informó a la familia que no pudrían enterraria por no haber recibido el certificado de defunción propiamente firmado. La familia, naturalmente, se indignó. La familia, quienes inmigraron de Mexico y tienen conocimiento limitado en el idioma ingles, no solamente sufrieron la inesperada muerte de su hija, pero tampoco la pudieron enterrar en el tiempo y manera esperada.      Martha Fernandez Martha Fernandez, who was a prisoner at VSPW, died on Monday, December 12, 2005 after having been treated in the emergency room of Madera Community Hospital. Her body was transported to her family in Watsonville and they proceeded to schedule a funeral for Friday December 16th. Immediately after the funeral, the mortuary informed the family that they could not bury Ms. Fernandez because they had not received a signed death certificate. The family was, of course, extremely upset. The family, which is of immigrant background with limited English knowledge, not only suffered the unexpected death of their daughter but were also unable to bury their loved one in a timely, compassionate manner.      CCWP's 10th Anniversary Celebration CCWP celebrated our 10th year anniversary on June 9, 2005. The event, held at the African American Art and Culture Complex in San Francisco, opened with a dedication to women inside.      Charisse Shumate: Fighting For Our Lives This 37-minute video was created in collaboration with the Freedom Archives and focuses on the life of Charisse Shumate and women in California State prisons. It includes amazing prison interviews as well as materials from State Senate hearings on conditions for women in the California State Prison System and historical video footage of Charisse and her family.      Compañeras Compañeras es un proyecto que nace de la necesidad de levantar nuestras voces por justicia, dignidad y por la defensa de nuestros derechos humanos como mujeres inmigrantes, latinas y chicanas, dentro de un sistema que pretende subordinar y quebrar nuestras fortalezas como comunidad, cultura y raza.      Compañeras project Compañeras is a project born from the necessity of raising our voices for justice, dignity and the defense of our human rights as immigrant Latina and Chicana women within a system that seeks to subordinate and brake our strengths as a community, culture and race. The focus of this project is on our compañeras inside prison. Freedom is denied to them because of the injustices of a system that blames them for surviving the difficulties that are put in their way as Latina and immigrant women.      Locked up - Locked down: A mother’s love for her child An article by an incarcerated mother about not giving up hope for her child.      Loving in the War Years: Black women loving women in the War on Drugs An article by CCWP's own Christina Wilson, which was published in Arise Magazine.      Open letter to women of color from women prisoners Beverly Henry's open letter to women of color on the outside.      Ellen Richardson's statement for May 8, 2003 rally for Education Not Incarceration On May 8th, 2003, teachers, students, parents and concerned community members from across California rallied at the state capitol to advocate for education funding over prison spending. This statement from Ellen Richardson, a prisoner incarcerated at VSPW, was included in various activities at the rally.      CCWP Volunteer Night Come help us support women prisoners in California by fighting against inhumane prison conditions, and our unjust criminal justice system at CCWP’s Volunteer Night.      Interested in being a penpal for an incarcerated woman? Information about the Action Committee for Women in Prison Pen Pal Project.      How to become a penpal for an incarcerated woman Some practical information and general prison rules.      No Pride in Davis' Prison State On October 7, queers and their allies demonstrated against Governor Gray Davis' prison policies during a fundraiser at the San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center.      Attack on Prisoner Rights Advocates The California Department of Corrections is attempting to pass a set of regulations which would severely limit prisoners' access to legal services and advocacy.      Wanted - Justice in the Desert The Struggle Continues for Humane Treatment inside the Skilled Nursing Facility at Chowchilla      Giving Birth to Justice in the Desert A report from a CCWP-sponsored demonstration in Chowchilla protesting the health care crisis and deaths of women prisoners in the SNF.      Protesters rally against no-parole policy A report of a statewide protest demanding that Governor Davis release battered women prisoners and end his illegal no-parole policy.      Legislative Hearings: Speaking Truth to Power Courageous women testify on medical and sexual abuse before legislative committee.      Legislative Hearings: Battered Women Speak      Legislative Hearings: Women Prisoners Tell It Like It Is      Amnesty International Report For the first time, Amnesty International has launched a year-long campaign that focuses on Human Rights Abuses in the United States.      PARC News Prison Activist Resource Center maintains a news page for women prisoners.