Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region | DonationMatch


About the Nonprofit

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Our Mission
We support survivors of sexual violence.

We listen, facilitate healing, and celebrate resiliency. Using an anti-racist, intersectional feminist approach, we work to transform systems which promote gender-based violence.


Our Vision
A world free from gender-based violence and oppression.


Our Values
We believe in wrapping survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in community care. We seek to provide a safe place. We walk beside survivors. We listen. We bear witness. We offer practical support. We recognize the complex systems impacting survivors’ lives; we help navigate. We celebrate the resiliency of the survivors that use our services. We facilitate healing. We offer hope.

We believe each survivor has the right to control their own body, healing journey, and path to justice. We seek to be survivor-centred, trauma-informed, and racially and culturally responsive. We believe in reproductive justice. We recognize that the justice and medical systems are often sexist and racist; we advocate for survivors and work toward systemic change.

We use an intersectional approach. We respect how survivors’ unique social locations impact their experiences, how people respond to them, and what resources they have access to. Sexism, a root cause of sexual violence, is but one of the oppressions used to violate and control. Other forms of oppression include but are not limited to racism, colonialism, classism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination based on cultural, ethnic or religious background.

We particularly recognize the impact of racism and colonialism on Black, Indigenous, and racialized women, girls, gender-diverse, and two-spirit survivors. We seek to identify and remove barriers that exist for the communities we serve in accessing our Centre. We are committed to making our services accessible to all survivors and centring the experiences of survivors facing oppression.

We balance our direct support for survivors and their families with long-term solutions to gender-based violence. Systemic advocacy, collaboration, and education aimed to address the root causes of gendered violence and oppression to make our collective future brighter.

Finally, Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence; it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Building on this principle as foundational, we promote the self-care and wellness of those working at our Centre; this is a political tool that sustains us in our work


Events

Celestial Nights on November 4, 2023