The Toronto Rape Crisis Centre / Multicultural Women Against Rape is pleased to announce the 2019 Take Back The Night!

This year we turn our attention to the amazing work activists are doing to end sexual and gender-based violence. As we continue mobilizing we shine a light on the resiliency tools that people need to take care of themselves and each other in community.

Please join us this year at Scadding Court Community Centre on Friday, September 27, 2019

Our accessibility team is looking for volunteers!

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Accessibility at TBTN means putting survivors living with Disabilities at the centre of the organizing. It means centralizing their voices, among many others who are the most likely to experience violence; it means creating pathways where survivors are able to contribute to the event in ways that positively shape it for other survivors. Accessibility is not an afterthought. We create a systemic structure within the event that sees issues and methods of accessibility as integral to the event from the beginning. Accessibility ways during TBTN organizing and the event have historically included:
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The Accessibility Team – Support Volunteer Role at Take Back
1) Meet and greet people
2) Give people with disabilities an overview of the event activities and locations
3) Offer your support
4) Always take the lead from the individual
5) Support with distributing and/or support food serving
6) Offer support to individuals when transitioning from various activities
7) Support people using mobility devices in the march if requested or directing folks where pathways are accessible to join the March

We train volunteers every year!
Training dates for this year Accessibility Team:
Tuesday, Aug 28: 6pm-8pm
Tuesday, Sept 4: 6pm-8pm
Wednesday, Sept 5: 6pm-8pm, A-Team @ Take Back The Night Meeting
Tuesday, Sept 11: 6pm-8pm, Debrief and check in about overall training and folks’ readiness
Wednesday, Sept 12: Meeting at Parkdale Legal Clinic
Take Back Night Site for Event location and Route walk finalized roles on site and schedule for Friday, Sept 14 Take Back The Night Event

Please contact grissel@trccmwar.ca to confirm training attendance or for more information
416-597-1171 ext.228 Monday-Thursday 10:30am-6pm

We at the Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape would like to make a statement in regards to our position around violence against Indigenous communities, Indigenous women and 2 spirit people and the Indigenous Resistance Movement. We would like to make this statement from our position as a majority settler organization.

As members of the TRCC/MWAR, we speak from our position as (mostly) settlers on Turtle Island. As settlers we express our solidarity with the Idle No More Movement, Indigenous women, 2 sprit people and the struggles for sovereignty and land rights. We believe that the movement for the self-determination of Indigenous peoples is not a new one.

As a majority settler organization, we believe that colonization and sexual violence go hand in hand. We know that rape and sexual violence has been used against Indigenous women and communities for hundreds of years and it is a tool of colonization and war against Indigenous women’s bodies and land itself.

The TRCC/MWAR has a goal of bringing our membership more in line with the connection between decolonization and ending sexual violence. We also have a goal of working more closely in solidarity with Indigenous women’s work to end violence in their communities.

We recognize that the history and current reality of Canada is one of colonization and genocide of Indigenous peoples. This has resulted in the dispossession of land and rights, the extraction and misuse of resources and forced suppression and assimilation of all the various cultures, languages and customs of Indigenous peoples. Another clear result of the ongoing state violence against Indigenous peoples is the 3000 and more missing and murdered Indigenous women across Turtle Island.

Further, we recognize the history of nonprofit organizations have often been to be arms of the state. It is our goal to work toward decolonization of the TRCC/MWAR. This can happen in making ourselves aware of the struggles for sovereignty, treaties and land rights, taking the direction and leadership from Indigenous peoples and their resistance, attending events led by Indigenous people, continuing to learn about the historical struggles of Indigenous peoples and so much more. We are committed to decolonizing our minds, our work and the relationships we have with Indigenous peoples. Through working with Indigenous community-based organizations and community members, we attempt to work in a good way.

This year we will be co-hosting Take Back the Night with Parkdale Legal Clinic. The theme this year is “Housing Justice for ALL”. When selecting the theme, we thought about centring the understanding that safer housing options result in safer communities. Naomi Coordinating TBTN and collective membership supporting roles for the event.

This Take Back the Night, we centre the voices of survivors who have no fixed-address 

We celebrate the strength of those who fight for housing that is their RIGHT 

We feast with survivors who are hungry for the end of gender-based violence 

We march with neighbourhoods who say NO to gentrification

We Take Back the Night and we do it without fear

It is with our most authentic selves that we try to plan this event in a good way and to work in solidarity with existing struggles and movements with Indigenous people and to also bring this issue to light for other settler community members.

References:

South Asians in Solidarity with Idle No More

Immigrants in Support of Idle No More

http://www.oyetimes.com/whats-on/42915-immigrants-in-support-of-idle-no-more

Poster Description:

Dark blue starry background. The street is lined with apartments on both sides. The street is filled with people marching. There is a banner in the crowd that reads “Housing Justice for All”. Behind the people an orange fist rises out of the background.

Text reads Toronto Rape Crisis Centre/Multicultural Women Against Rape 38^th Annual Take Back the Night

September 14, 2018

Parkdale Community Legal Services, 1266 Queen St W

4:00pm Community Fair // 5:00pm Community Dinner // 6:00pm Rally // 8:00 March

Wheelchair Accessible

ASL and Deaf Interpretation

Childcare Provided

All Welcome

Trans inclusion Symbol and Pride symbol

— Art by Amber Williams-King —

There are TWO (2) opportunities to get involved with Take Back the Night 2018: Housing Justice for ALL!

Perform in our Rally!

Have you felt silenced before when talking about violence? Do you have things to say about healing, resistance, and building a future with less violence? If so, we want to hear you speak at our rally for Take Back the Night on September 14th!

The TRCC/MWAR works in solidarity with the Parkdale Community as we host this year’s Take Back the Night with Parkdale Community Legal Services at 1266 Queen St. W. We recognize and honour the work the Parkdale Community has done and continues to do regarding housing justice.

This year’s agenda includes:

Housing Justice Community Fair from 4pm-5pm

Community Dinner from 5pm-6pm

Rally from 6pm-8pm

March from 8pm-9:45pm

The Community Fair Tables are TO BE ANNOUNCED.

The Rally Schedule is TO BE ANNOUNCED.

Take Back the Night Toronto 2018: Housing Justice for All!

Please Join us on September 14^th as we take back the night to demand safe, accessible, and dignified housing for ourselves, our loved ones, and for YOU! As survivors, we see the connection between safe homes, safe communities, and ongoing violence.

This year’s theme centres the voices of survivors who have no fixed addresses; who do not live in what we consider ‘traditional housing’; who have no fixed income; who do not have access to ACCESSIBLE housing; who experience homelessness; who have their choice to safe and affordable housing denied.

We recognize that housing is a RIGHT and not a privilege. We recognize that it is an act of violence and oppression to not be adequately housed and we celebrate the strength of those fighting for housing.

We feast with survivors who are hungry for the end of gender-based violence; who recognize the connection between violence and lack of safe housing.

We Take Back the Night and we do it without fear!

Take Back the Night Access Information:
This event is wheelchair accessible.
This event provides ASL interpretation.
This event provides deaf interpretation.
This event provides attendant care.
This event provides childcare.
This event is welcome to all genders and is trans inclusive.

ACCESS INFORMATION

This years theme is “Take Back the Night: Breaking down Silences from Generation to Generation” To us this means resisting violence through holding conversations with our elders, our youth, and ourselves.

This event is wheelchair accessible.
This event provides ASL interpretation.
This event provides attendant care.
This event provides childcare.
This event is welcome to all genders and is trans inclusive 

To make this more clear for the broader community, we know that accessibility is not only ASL interpretation, accessible doors and washrooms but in addition, we need to have a more cohesive and precise knowledge of what access means in a whole political and social context. For us at TRCC/MWAR and for the last 15 years we have and continue working side by side with The Anne Johnston Health Station (AJHS) a not-for-profit community health centre providing a wide range of programs and services that promote the health and well-being of youth, seniors and people with physical disabilities.

For Take Back the Night we ask community to take a moment to read this piece; to reflect and come with your heart and openness to support and be an “ally” to others.

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Take Back the Night, TRCCMWAR and the Anne Johnston Health Station work from the Independent Living Philosophy. This means people with disabilities have the right to:

• Live with dignity in their chosen community;
• Participate in all aspects of their life; and
• Control and make decisions about their own lives.

While the aim of Independent Living is not to make a person “normal” in a physical or mental sense, the movement emphasizes the value of people with disabilities to have ordinary life experiences by providing community-based, consumer-controlled services, supports, resources and skills training to enable people with disabilities to live within an independent living practices in community.

The Accessible team is here to support the event this way:

We have around 15 centre members that are part of the Access Team. How can you recognize them?

[figure wearing a black shirt that on the front says #weBelieveSurvivors in light pink. Second figure wearing a black shirt with A TEAM on the back. The “A” is in white and the “TEAM” is in pink]

AGENDA FOR 37^TH TAKE BACK THE NIGHT

3:45 pm Meet and Greet at the front and back of the Regent Park Community Centre entrances at 402 Shuter Street.

4:00pm Community Dinner at the Banquet Hall follows signs or ask a A.T. person to go with you.

5:00pm Talking Circles, after the community dinner the Banquet Hall will host two of the Talking Circles

Radical ideas of equity: Experiencing trauma in different bodies with Lucy & Grissel and Maria Montejo

A Decolonized World – Intentional Engagement towards a decolonized world with Zainab Amadahy

NOTE: (This Talking Circle will be outside on the back of the Regent Park entrance) Storytelling & Digital Media – Breaking down survivor silences through intergenerational mediums with Tamar & Diedre

IMPORTANT TO KNOW EVERY TALKING CIRCLE WILL BE CLOSE 10 MINUTES AFTER THEY START. PLEASE SELECT IN ADVANCE WHICH ONE DO YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE IN.

6:30pm Rally space to be announced on site tomorrow.

Bring warm clothes and comfy shoes

The Accessibility Team will have two short spots of three minutes during the Rally to inform the entire community of our role at the event and also remember that at Take Back the Night March, the Access Team will set up the flow of the march, that means we will go on the front

8:00pm MARCH , YEAH WE GO AND TAKE THE STREETS AND RECLAIM THEM, GET YOUR CHANTS AND NOSIE MAKERS READY.

THANKS AGAIN AND SEE YOU TOMORROW!

This year we have replaced our community fair with “talking circles”. In these circles we hope to facilitate and foster conversations that help us connect with ourselves and one another.

Talking Circle Themes:

• Radical ideas of equity: Experiencing trauma in different bodies with Lucy & Grissel
• A Decolonized World – Intentional Engagement towards a decolonized world with Zainab Amadahy
• Storytelling & Digital Media – Breaking down survivor silences through intergenerational mediums with Tamar & Diedre

TRCC/MWAR Collective