Sexual Assault Awareness Month 2024
Healing Harm Through Community
When it comes to sexual and gender-based violence, we can all be a part of collective healing and change.
Sexual and gender-based violence are not individual issues or “private” harms: they are pressing social issues that impact each of us. As the beliefs and structures upholding these forms of violence are deeply embedded in many of our social and cultural norms, histories, and policies, they require our collective efforts to dismantle.
To make change that is truly transformative, we must address the systems which engender this violence at their core instead of focusing only on the individuals who act within them. Likewise, we must resist seeing healing from these harms as an exclusively individual task – one where people who experience violence are pressured into prescribed, often inaccessible routes for healing like therapy or reporting and blamed if these aren’t helpful to them. Instead, we must work together to understand the systemic nature of harm and reimagine healing collectively.
Everyone who experiences harm deserves to choose what healing and justice look like to them. While we must center the needs of the person who experienced the harm directly, all those who have been impacted deserve healing as well, including those who know and care about people who have caused, witnessed, or experienced harm. This requires us to work collectively to ensure that existing routes to healing are made accessible, while spaces for communal care and new visions of healing and justice are equally cultivated.
Though experiencing or being impacted by violence can feel profoundly isolating, we are not alone. As communities and individuals, we can be healed in the acts of both building and accessing communal networks of support, acting in solidarity to challenge the cultural myths and structures that uphold violence, and fostering an ethic of accountability in our relationships, communities, and institutions.
Join the AMS SASC and UBC SVPRO for Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM) as we dedicate this year to healing harm through community.
Welcome to the events list for SAAM 2024 available to UBC Vancouver! Click on the links below to learn more!
SASC presents: Women Talking, A Film Screening
Wednesday January 17, 4:30-7:00pm
Register for location
SASC presents: Public "Sexualized Violence 101" Workshop
Wednesday January 24, 5:00-6:30pm
Register for location
SVPRO & FNHL present: Healing Harm Through Community with Guest Speaker, Madeleine McCallum
Thursday January 25, 4:00-6:00pm
Location: Sty-Wet-Tan, First Nations House of Learning
Refreshments provided
SVPRO Okanagan presents: Trans Allyship Workshop
Monday January 29, 12:00-1:30pm
Register for Zoom link
SVPRO presents: Play & Healing Group Launch + A research presentation on healing in community and queerness
Wednesday February 7, 2:00-4:00pm
Location: Orchard Commons Room 4061
This event (and the group) is drop-in, registration is not required but encouraged
If you have any questions or would like to connect, please feel welcome to reach out to us at svpro.vancouver@ubc.ca or sasc@ams.ubc.ca!