The image below is of something I wrote in my notebook a few weeks ago, prior to Survivor Alliance's World Congress: "SA defines the movement." Before I dive deeper into this, it's important to also define what a movement is broadly speaking.
"A movement is a set of people with a shared experience of injustice who organize to build their collective power and leadership" - Srilatha Batliwala, All About Movements [https://lnkd.in/ePibAC97]
We hear about the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., workers' rights movement locally and globally, women's movement locally and globally, and so many more. These movements are comprised of the people who experience the same, or very similar, injustice. They are led by the affected, the victimized, the marginalized, and in recent vocabulary - the impacted communities.
Survivor Alliance is defining the movement of survivors of human trafficking and slavery. The Oxford Dictionary defines the word "define", as "state or describe exactly the nature, scope, or meaning of". We are describing the nature of what we want our collective power and leadership to look like. We are describing the scope of what we stand for, and we are stating the meaning of our movement. Our movement is greater than the professional sector, albeit professionals are a key component of our sector. But we are about relationships, dignity, joy, healing, collective care and collective liberation. And let me be clear - we are not defining it for ourselves as an organisation, but co-producing what what movement means and looks like.
This is what the World Congress sparked in a new way. There was only so much we could do online. Our in person gathering channeled our energies toward our shared purpose and toward a vision of what can be. If you'd like to join us in our work, please donate, learn, share, support your local Survivor Alliance members, and take action without being asked or told or seen or celebrated. https://lnkd.in/eVtfRFmT
Convenor, Democracy First; Director, Civil Society Australia.
1wA Merry Christmas and Happy New Year on the public teat. The Grattan Institute was set up with $15m of taxpayers money from federal Labor, and $15m of taxpayers money from Vic Labor. It has zero accountability to taxpayers for use of the money. In the full spirt of Christmas, it refuses to return the handouts to taxpayers and will keep the money.