In this workshop, participants will learn about the basics of transformative justice as a model for ending and responding to sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and other harms in society, and understand why many activists believe it is an essential shift from the current approach of criminalization, police and prisons.

This event is presented by the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG) and the SFU Sexual Violence Support & Prevention Office (SVSPO) as part of SFU’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month. See the full calendar of events here.

SFU and UBC students, faculty, and staff are invited to this event.

ASL interpretation is offered for this event. You will be asked to indicate if you require this service when you order your free ticket. If no requests for ASL interpretation are received by 12pm January 21, this service will be cancelled.

Registrants will be emailed the Zoom link 24 hours before the start of the event. 

Facilitator Bios:

Amber Goulet (she/her/hers) is a queer Cree woman from Amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta) in Treaty 6 territory and currently a fourth year UBC undergraduate completing her Bachelor of Arts, double majoring in First Nations & Indigenous Studies and Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. As part of the First Nations & Indigenous Studies program in 2019/2020, Amber partnered with WAVAW to engage and design a community research project, examining the strengths and weaknesses of moving beyond state approaches to sexualized violence within Indigenous communities. Her interests include conversations about decolonizing feminism, gender, sexuality, violence, and curating alternative ways of unpacking intergenerational trauma. After Amber completes her degree at UBC, she hopes to move onto a master’s degree program with a focus in art and community engagement.

Meenakshi Mannoe, PIVOT Legal, Criminalization and Policing Campaigner, Prison Justice Day Organizer: Meenakshi works alongside her interdisciplinary colleagues to envision intersectional approaches to policing and criminalization. Meenakshi is the child of first-generation immigrants from India and Suriname, born on Anishinaabe & Haudenosaunee territory, and today lives on unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. She values Pivot’s uncompromising commitment to the expertise and vision of people with lived and living experience. Her work emphasizes the impact of policing on all aspects of Pivot’s work, with particular attention to public legal education materials, policy analysis and community engagement..

Kalamity Hildebrandt, SFPIRG Director of Research and Education

Kalamity has been working in the community on a range of social justice issues, including anti-violence organizing, since the early 90’s. They (Kalamity’s pronouns are they/them/their) have long been convinced that the colonial state and its police and prison systems, cannot, and were never intended to, prevent violence – quite the opposite in fact – and that it is vital that we find ways to respond to harm in our communities that do not themselves cause further harm. Kalamity is socially and politically located somewhere in all of this: fat-queer-whitesettlerwithcitizenship-femme-genderqueer-disabled-hearing-psychiatrized-anti-carceral-abusesurvivor-poverty/workingclass-early50’s(!)-intersectional-anti-colonial-anti-capitalist-pro-healing/transformative-justice-anarchist.