Taking Back The Night On Stolen Land

We are so excit­ed to announce our Take Back the Night theme this year: Tak­ing Back The Night On Stolen Land. 

TBTN is a com­mu­ni­ty event to bring aware­ness to issues of sex­u­al vio­lence, gen­der-based vio­lence, and street harass­ment. Our annu­al event allows us to gath­er col­lec­tive­ly as women, Two-Spir­it, and gen­der-diverse peo­ple in sol­i­dar­i­ty and empow­er­ment, and to fight for changes in our com­mu­ni­ty that cen­ter sur­vivors expe­ri­ences and voic­es. We will be vir­tu­al this year but still want to cel­e­brate com­mu­ni­ty com­ing togeth­er in the safest ways we can.

For this year’s event we want to cen­ter Indige­nous women, Two-Spir­it, and gen­der diverse peo­ple. It is imper­a­tive that we work to bring aware­ness to how ongo­ing col­o­niza­tion leads to the high rates of sex­u­al vio­lence, gen­der-based vio­lence and street harass­ment against Indige­nous peo­ples but also to be a cel­e­bra­tion of resis­tance, art, knowl­edge, and com­mu­ni­ty. The theme we hope will be a reminder to peo­ple that all jus­tice work must be root­ed in decol­o­niza­tion and Indige­nous sov­er­eign­ty. Take Back the Night has always been about tak­ing up and reclaim­ing space but when we take to the streets and take up space we have to remem­ber we are tak­ing up space on stolen Indige­nous land that has been the land of the Hau­denosaunee and Anishi­naabek peo­ples for long before col­o­niza­tion. And we have to do more than acknowl­edge col­o­niza­tion but active­ly work to join in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Indige­nous peo­ple. We have seen the immense amount of retrauma­ti­za­tion occur­ring for Indige­nous peo­ples this year, and the inter­gen­er­a­tional effects of trau­ma per­sist­ing and we want to show our love, sup­port, and sol­i­dar­i­ty to those effect­ed and surviving. 

SACHA, and the TBTN Com­mit­tee includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from amaz­ing com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions (Hamil­ton & Dis­trict Labour Coun­cil, Native Wom­en’s Cen­tre, Inter­val House, and Sis­ters in Spir­it) have been work­ing hard to cre­ate for the com­mu­ni­ty a mem­o­rable, mean­ing­ful, and excit­ing Take Back the Night. Join us online on YouTube this Sep­tem­ber 16^th for our main event, but there is also more! Take Back the Night will not be con­tained to only one night this year, in the days lead­ing up to the event we will also be host­ing work­shops, com­mu­ni­ty dis­cus­sions, and sur­vivors sup­port spaces so there are many ways you can be involved this year! 

And there are ways you can be involved in the Sep­tem­ber 16^th video as well! We are seek­ing per­form­ers, artists, musi­cians, poets, singers, and oth­er arts-based demon­stra­tors who are also Indige­nous women, Two-Spir­it, or gen­der-diverse peo­ple to be show­cased in our event (for more infor­ma­tion: https://forms.gle/qLco3xQrE1vttqMK8). We are also call­ing on all com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to sub­mit mes­sages of sup­port, encour­age­ment, sol­i­dar­i­ty, strength, love, and resilience to Indige­nous youth to be shared in the video (for more infor­ma­tion: https://forms.gle/z6RHL9THKtiR1GQx7)

We are so excit­ed to share in the joys of Take Back the Night with you again this year! Our hash­tag for this year’s event is #TBT­NOn­Stolen­Land and we can’t wait to hear from you!