Healing Program

After years of providing financial assistance to free individuals from immigration prisons, reuniting families, and facilitating legal representation, OCJF became increasingly aware of the mental and emotional harm that immigration enforcement policies have on the individuals and families we serve.  In 2022, with support from Women’s Catalytic Fund OCJF responded by launching Cafecito Contigo, a healing program that centers on system impacted women and femme-identifying persons.  The emotional and mental effects immigration policies have on individuals and families are often unseen. By providing a space where formerly impacted individuals can come together, acknowledge the harms and injustices they have experienced, and learn from each other and the program facilitators, have proven to be a greatly impactful service OCJF can offer to the individuals and families we serve

 Healing Justice is a framework used in movements to holistically respond and intervene in generational trauma and state violence by utilizing and implementing healing modalities indigenous to our communities. Healing Justice aims to respond, interrupt, and end state sanctioned violence that impacts our communities including but not limited to prison industrial complexes, medical industrial complex, militarized policing, institutional racism, and more. Healing Justice invites us to dream of a world and create alternatives that are accessible, safe, and not dependent on the state.

OCJF acknowledges that immigrants and refugees face challenges when seeking any health care, but we realize mental health is often the most stigmatized and expensive. Cafecito Contigo is a step towards an Orange County that honors immigrants and refugees with dignity, justice, and equitable treatment to empower their freedom, safety, and well-being as members of our community.