Justice is often a word more synonymous with punishment and revenge than the care and wellbeing of survivors. Preventing violence, rather than settling for a shift of the characters in the same weary drama, will require us to build cultures that will act as the foundation for shifts in our interpersonal, communal, and systemic relationships.
During this year’s annual meeting, we invited our membership to reshape our collective notions of justice or survivors. We came with the intention to expand our ideas and practices of transformative justice as it relates to gender based violence. We asked: how does your role support conditions in which GBV is less possible interpersonally, communally, and systemically?
Breakout sessions in topic areas of leadership, behavioral health, prevention, family law, housing/homelessness, fundraising, operations, and policy advocacy, were facilitated by Coalition staff and attendees self selected the sessions most relevant to them. The conversations were robust, and as expected, we came away with more questions than answers! Throughout 2023, we’ll be exploring the themes that came out from these sessions, and build out more space to continue conversations around the intersections of gender based violence and transformative justice.