SOIL was founded in 2020 to build the conditions for transformative justice to grow and thrive. 

We do this through political education, skills building, formation development and strategic partnerships. 

We envision a world where everyone is able to effectively respond to, transform and prevent harm. 

Our north star is to break and end generational cycles of harm and violence. 

Transformative justice is a generative methodology for addressing harm and violence in ways that support survivors’ healing, harmers’ accountability, and community health and well-being, without relying on existing punishment systems. It seeks to address incidences of harm and violence in ways that meet immediate needs, while transforming the conditions which allow for harm and violence to occur. 

SOIL was founded and is currently led by Mia Mingus. She has been involved in transformative justice work for 2 decades and has supported numerous people, groups, families and communities in addressing harm, violence and abuse using transformative justice. She is an abolitionist and a survivor who believes that we must move beyond punishment, revenge and criminalization if we are ever to effectively break generational cycles of violence and create the world our hearts long for. She is passionate about building the skills, relationships and structures that can transform violence, harm and abuse within our communities and that do not rely on or replicate the punitive system we currently live in. 

Mia Mingus is a writer, educator and trainer for transformative justice and disability justice. She is a queer disabled korean transracial and transnational adoptee raised in the Caribbean. She works for community, interdependence and home for all of us, not just some of us, and longs for a world where disabled children can live free of violence, with dignity and love. As her work for liberation evolves and deepens, her roots remain firmly planted in ending sexual violence.