On Monday, March 21, 2016 the Newo Yotina Friendship Centre and the Regina Immigrant Women’s Centre hosted a Community Town Hall event for IRIS’s Working Together initiative to hear Indigenous and refugee women, the Trans communities and women with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities talk about their experiences of intimate partner abuse, sexual violence, street violence and violence committed by many service providers including healthcare, Corrections and Children’s Aid.

While stories were incredibly difficult, there were no victims at this gathering. There were strong, resilient women who are joining this initiative together in order to fight back in solidarity. Susana Deranger, a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, and one of the lead organizers of the event left us – settlers and Indigenous people alike – with a powerful statement:

“If you say as a settler, ‘I will unite with my sisters’ and we stand together because we can do something about this! We are even stronger if all of us stand together in solidarity for missing and murdered women. If all of us stand together in solidarity against all the violence that we experience… we would be stronger. With understanding, when we sit down… it all comes together and we realize we are truly sisters.”

Media coverage from the Regina Community Town Hall

Global Regina Noon News (begins at 2:50 mins):
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CBC News: Saskatchewan Late Night News (begins at 5:17 mins):
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