By: Noeka Nimmervoll, Staff Writer
Content warning: conversations about sexualized violence and sexual assault.
On January 28, SFU students and community members gathered in the SFPIRG Lounge for “the fire that heals us,” a zine-making workshop. The SFU Sexual Violence Support & Prevention Office (SVSPO), the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group (SFPIRG), and the Simon Fraser Student Society Women’s Centre hosted the collaborative event at the Surrey and Burnaby campuses. Open to all, this event aimed to provide a space to reflect on how personal healing can happen within a communal environment.
Participants received magazines, markers, and decor to create pages based on prompts about “ancestral, land-based, [and] community-based healing.” The resulting pages will be compiled into a collaborative zine. A zine is an informal, independently published work that often incorporates collages and writing with roots in political activism and punk rock. The Peak attended the event and spoke to SVSPO educator Paola Quirós-Cruz, SFPIRG director of research and education Hannah Ghaderi, and Women’s Centre coordinator Simmi Dhaliwal to learn more.
Throughout January, the SVSPO held a series of sexual assault awareness events to increase awareness and knowledge around the topic. One point the SVSPO highlighted at their zine-making event was that trauma is connected to the historic, cultural, and societal context in which harm occurs. “Even though it happens to an individual, it happens within a system, so it is [a collective] responsibility to find ways that people live in dignity, feel safe, and believe,” said Quirós-Cruz.
The biggest motivation for this event was to create a healing environment through an accessible craft that had many options for self-expression. “It was a really low-pressure, flexible, creative space to also strengthen the autonomy and agency of people to create what they want,” shared Quirós-Cruz. As well, “the Women’s Centre has its own zine-making culture,” said Dhaliwal.
Ghaderi from SFPIRG shared that healing looks like many things, but “one of the ways to do that is to just have fun.” She said, “Sexual Assault Awareness Month can sometimes feel heavy because it’s really focused on statistics and prevention, which is completely important, and that work matters for sure. But at the same time, survivors really need spaces to be able to centre care and creativity and repair.”
“Survivors don’t just exist in the aftermath of violence. We exist as creative, meaning-making people that deserve softness, deserve agency, deserve community.”
— Hannah Ghaderi, SFPIRG director of research and education
Supporting victims of all manners of sexualized violence starts with believing them, shared Ghaderi. She emphasized that supporting them includes “educating yourself without asking the survivor to teach you,” through the many resources openly available online or in person. Quirós-Cruz shared that the SVSPO holds a workshop on disclosure for those who are interested in learning more about supporting survivors.
For more information and resources, visit the SVSPO at sfu.ca/sexual-violence. For in-depth conversations around Sexual Assault Awareness Month, listen to “Healing Together,” a podcast in collaboration between the SVSPO and CJSF 90.1FM.
