BraveSpaces program supports survivors of gender-based violence through education

The Embrave Agency is launching an education program to reduce systemic and gender-based violence and support survivors in Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon.

The Embrave Agency to End Violence is an organization providing shelter, counselling and support for women, Two-Spirit, genderqueer, trans and non-binary people experiencing any form of violence.

Through it’s BraveSpaces Public Education Program, Embrave is engaging with survivors and organizations with town halls, surveys, and focus groups to address violence rooted in the criminal justice and police system, the psychiatry and mental health system, or relating to sex work and sex worker’s rights.

Rebecca Rogers, director of Advocacy Communication & Programs with Embrave, said survivors have identified these as the “greatest areas of concern” when it came to systemic violence.

Embrave says the goal of the program is to reduce the experience of systemic violence among survivors through the creation of a “shared knowledgebase” about systemic and gender-based violence.

The agency is looking for input from survivors and support organizations in southern Ontario through online surveys, and Embrave says survivors will be compensated for their time.

Survivors can access a survey here, while organizations are inveted to fill out a survery at this link.

“We welcome participation from survivors of the criminal justice and police system, psychiatry and mental health system, or sex workers with experiences of systemic violence in either system” BraveSpaces Project Coordinator Luxana Ramesh said in a statement.

Information gathered from the lived experiences of survivors and their supporting organizations will help shape the content and structure of the training program.

Embrave saw a spike in requests for assistance from survivors throughout the COVID-19 pandemic with more than 750 calls to its crisis line in 2021.

People suffering from intimate partner violence and gender-based violence can contact the Embrave 24-hour crisis line by calling (905)-403-0864.

For more information on the supports available to the victims and survivors of violence, visit Embrave.ca.