An Open Letter to Survivors of Sexual Violence and Community Members who attend Take Back the Night

This year, Take Back the Night, has become a con­ver­sa­tion about polic­ing in Hamil­ton. For this, we deeply apol­o­gize. Months of inten­tion­al plan­ning, com­mu­ni­ty build­ing and cre­ativ­i­ty has gone into mak­ing this evening one of Joy­ful Rev­o­lu­tion. With integri­ty and a deter­mi­na­tion to find jus­tice amongst the cement ter­rain, we set for­ward to pro­vide an evening in which we could gath­er, ral­ly and march to assert our­selves as the pow­er­ful peo­ple that we are.

TBTN To Include Celebration, Joyful Resistance, and No March

This year, the Take Back the Night Com­mit­tee has decid­ed not to march. This deci­sion was dif­fi­cult and it was one that cat­a­pult­ed con­ver­sa­tions amongst our­selves. Since our first meet­ings, safe­ty has been a promi­nent top­ic at our table. Care­ful­ly, we have con­sid­ered the impli­ca­tions of host­ing a march and have writ­ten this to explain our deci­sion mak­ing process. 

Go Rogue! Workshop Series

The new Ontario gov­ern­ment has decid­ed that our province’s young peo­ple don’t need to learn essen­tial infor­ma­tion on safer sex, con­sent, gen­der iden­ti­ty, res­i­den­tial schools and truth and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, and more.

We dis­agree.