Crickett Says Goodbye for a While

Dear Hamil­ton,

I am mov­ing to Daw­son City, Yukon for a year to work at the Daw­son Women’s Shel­ter. I will miss you so much.

I will be one of two full time work­ers at the four-bed shel­ter. My job as Pro­gram Coor­di­na­tor will be very sim­i­lar to my work at SACHA: work­shops, train­ings, front­line sup­port, events, media, com­mu­ni­ty col­lab­o­ra­tion – y’know, the usu­al work of end­ing colo­nial­ist het­eropa­tri­archy and replac­ing it with a cul­ture based on con­sent, equi­ty, and empa­thy. I look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in nation and the close-knit com­mu­ni­ty in Daw­son City.

I have been work­ing as SACHA’s Pub­lic Edu­ca­tor since Decem­ber 2009 and before that, I worked at a women’s shel­ter, coor­di­nat­ing a bystander inter­ven­tion cam­paign, as a tall ship sailor and envi­ron­men­tal edu­ca­tor, a migrant labour advo­cate, and at an exper­i­men­tal jazz festival.

I love work­ing at a thriv­ing inter­sec­tion­al fem­i­nist col­lec­tive. SACHA is fam­i­ly. It is sad­ly too hard to find a work­place in cap­i­tal­ism where my queer­ness, dis­abil­i­ties, and sur­vivor­ship are con­sid­ered a strength rather than a weak­ness. I feel like my skills and gifts are seen here every­day. SACHA gives me the chance to take risks like putting on music shows and start­ing Hamil­ton Fem­i­nist Zine Fair with Amy Egerdeen. As a com­mu­ni­ty, we have made art togeth­er, cre­at­ed zines, and had count­less con­ver­sa­tions about end­ing sex­u­al violence.

SACHA vol­un­teers and staff have taught me so much about how activism can being joy­ful and vul­ner­a­ble and about work­ing from a place of abun­dance when it can be so easy to fall into a deep sad well of scarcity.

Thank you to the Hamil­ton com­mu­ni­ty who have invit­ed me to your spaces to have tough con­ver­sa­tions. I tru­ly appre­ci­ate your trust.

I will miss my SACHA fam­i­ly so much while I am 6000 kilo­me­tres away.

My year leave will start on Octo­ber 4^th.

Keep your eye on SACHA’s social media – blog, Face­book, Twit­ter, and Insta­gram – for info about what’s going on with SACHA’s Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram while I’m away.

With lots of love and sol­i­dar­i­ty,
Crick­ett