Sexual Assault Awareness Month
January is Sexual Assault Awareness Month at UBCO. The Sexual Violence Prevention & Response Office (SVPRO) and various partners will be hosting a series of events and programs to raise awareness of sexual and gender-based violence in our community. Our 2021 theme is: End Racism x End Sexualized Violence. This theme recognizes the ongoing work of anti-racist activists and movements like Black Lives Matter, Me Too, and Idle No More who have called attention to ongoing and historical racism. It is also a part of the University’s efforts to address systemic racism on campus.
Conversations about sexualized violence must also need to reflect on the relationship to historical and ongoing colonialism, slavery, racism, homophobia, transphobia and ableism. Connections between identity-based oppression and violence are inextricably linked. We will not end any oppression until we end all oppression.
Events
Book Club: Calling My Spirit Back
Elaine Alec
Elaine Alec
Join us in reading Elaine Alec’s book, “Calling My Spirit Back”. You can email svpro.okanagan@ubc.ca to pick up a book. Elaine Alec will be joining us for two events in January to share more about her book. It is about intergenerational trauma caused by colonialism and the hard work that goes into healing and breaking cycles, and how the teachings of a nation can be channeled to heal and strengthen communities.
Student Leadership x Culture Change
Student leaders who have done courageous, creative and necessary work around consent culture and anti-racism over the last year will share about their emerging and ongoing culture change initiatives and what’s possible for other student groups.
It’s in our Hands
Health and Wellness x SVPRO
Join Sophie from Health Wellness to trace our hands. We will be using colors, lines, symbols and words to express what we have experienced and witnessed and also ways we can prevent harms and work towards restorative justice and healing or what we each feel is needed. No art experience required. We recommended bringing a few art materials: pencil/pen, paper, markers and/or your favorite medium to color with.
Discussion: Calling My Spirit Back
Elaine Alec
Elaine Alec
Join us for a reading and discussion with Elaine Alec from her recent book, titled “Calling My Spirit Back” It is about intergenerational trauma caused by colonialism and the hard work that goes into healing and breaking cycles, and how the teachings of a nation can be channeled to heal and strengthen communities.
Let’s Get Sexucated!
Generocksity x SVPRO
Join us for a fun night of education and prevention through virtual trivia. Teams will compete for awesome prizes on topics such as sexuality, sexual health, consent culture and anti-racism. Featuring award-winning sex and emotional literacy educator Karen B.K. Chan as a co-host!
HOPE Outreach: Supporting Women in our Community
Join UBCO’s Quantitative Science Course Union (QSCU) in welcoming Angie Lohr, the Executive Director of HOPE Outreach
Angie will speak to how HOPE Outreach implements trauma- and violence-informed outreach to women and girls in the Okanagan affected by poverty, substance use, homelessness and/or violence and supports them to live safely and achieve their aspirations. The event will conclude with an opportunity to ask our speaker your questions.
Discussion: Calling My Spirit Back
Elaine Alec
Elaine Alec
Join us for a reading and discussion with Elaine Alec from her recent book, titled “Calling My Spirit Back” It is about intergenerational trauma caused by colonialism and the hard work that goes into healing and breaking cycles, and how the teachings of a nation can be channeled to heal and strengthen communities.
What Does it Mean to be a Student (Woman) of Colour on a Canadian University Campus Today?
Eternity Martis
Eternity Martis
In this talk, Eternity will share her own journey as a university student and woman of colour on a predominantly white campus-which she details at length in her memoir, “They Said This Would Be Fun: Race, Campus Life and Growing Up”.
Debunking the myth of Canada’s racial tolerance and the idea that student life is “breezy”, she leads us through her own experience as a Black young woman on campus and ties it to the devastating history of racism and sexism at Canadian Universities, the re-emergence of blackface parties, and the rise of the alt-right, white supremacy, rape culture and hate crimes at schools, both from far-right groups and students.
The talk will end with possibilities for how we an all better support students and women of colour from parents, friends, professors and allies, to what administrators and decision-makers can start doing now to make campuses more welcoming for students of colour.
Tea Talk with Tashia and Taylor
UBCSUO Presents
Pick up a package of tea and other goodies from the SUO to join your student representatives, Taylor and Tashia, who share and discuss issues around sex, consent and relationships.
Creative Healing: Ritual and Arts Based Support for BIPOC Survivors
Facilitated by Sandra Suasnabar Alberco
This group will be facilitated from an Indigenous healing and wellness approach to Expressive Arts therapy. We will invite and welcome our personal and collective resiliency to guide us every step of the way, this workshop will be our opportunity to honour our healing journeys in a virtual community. The arts-based processes will be facilitated in a way that the engagement in the arts becomes an opportunity to step into a resource and ritual oriented process. You do not need to have an artistic background to participate.
Joking about the hard stuff through stand up comedy
SVPRO x Cathartic Laughs
Come to this workshop if you are interested in looking at your hard stuff (which doesn’t have to be sexual assault) with an eye for humour. This workshop will not heal your trauma but will be place to share stories and think of ways that we can joke about hard experiences.
Sexualized Violence, Transformative Justice and the Shift Away from Criminalization
SFU Public Interest Research Group
In this workshop, participants will learn about the basics of transformative justice as a model for ending and responding to sexualized violence, intimate partner violence, and other harms in society and understand why many activist believe it is an essential shift from the current approach of criminalization, police and prisons.
