Survivor Alliance Commitment
to Anti-Racism
UPDATED: 15 April 2021
In support of #StopAsianHate and in solidarity with our Asian community, our Board of Directors recently released a letter to express our views about the murder of Asian people in Atlanta, Georgia.
In support of Black Lives Matter and worldwide protests against disproportionate violence against black people, Survivor Alliance’s Executive Director published a letter on 5 June 2020 outlining some immediate actions our organisation would take. These actions are listed below and will be updated with our progress and additional actions.
We will update our Membership Manifesto - We need to make our anti-oppression lens more clear to others. We will continue to welcome members of any background and walk of life.
This has now been updated on the membership page.
We will review our Ground Rules for events - We typically make it clear in writing or verbally that we have no tolerance for racism or discrimination of any kind. We will review all Ground Rules published for all our programs and events and ensure that we can say with confidence that this does happen every time.
Our standard ground rules document is updated, and all program ground rules are also updated.
We will upload these ground rules to the General Survivor Engagement Resources page of our website by 15th July.
This has now been completed and is updated on the Survivor Engagement Resources page.
We will continually train and educate our staff and members. - Every month, our staff reflects on Survivor Alliance Values. We will add an additional topic for reflection that focuses on some area of oppression that needs to be explored and will discuss how these issues intersect. Proactive anti-racism work will be a key part of this reflection. For our members, we will enhance our training curriculum on intersectional anti-oppression work.
We have implemented a monthly, 1-hour Reading & Reflection time for all staff, full or part time, to focus on anti-oppression education. In June, we did some level setting by reading definitions and terms important for anti-racism work.
We are reviewing our leadership training curriculum to ensure that our anti-oppression lens is evident and that we educate members on the link between racism and anti-slavery work.
Our Board Member provided a workshop in January 2021 about African American survivor leaders coming to the UK in the 19th Century to help end legal slavery in the USA.
Staff and key allies participated in a 3-day Transformational Relationships Training with LJIST in November 2020, which discusses adultism as the root of other oppressions, and learning the skill of constructive listening to use for ending racism.
We are learning about and discussing issues related to language oppression. Please join us and watch these two videos:
WE will practice with our members, staff, and allies the skills of having uncomfortable conversations with ourselves and each other. It is clear that our society needs people who can face discomfort within themselves and recognise their own biases. This is a difficult skill but must be nurtured. We also must become more skilled at listening and speaking about racism. This means being aware of your own privilege, knowing when to leave space for others, speaking authentically, and not centering yourself if you are not a part of the harmed group.
Our Executive Director is participating in and speaking at an online workshop concerning ‘Equality and Diversity in the Anti-trafficking sector', hosted by the Human Trafficking Foundation and the BME Anti-Slavery network.
We have introduced the Ally Continuum in our Allies training and will challenge people to understand that allyship requires action.
Our Allies Training also highlights the need for individuals to engage in personal development. This includes understanding intent and impact, building emotional intelligence, learning the concept of emotional labour, and cultivating empathy.
This is, and must be, in continual and on-going progress for our organisation.
We will support systems, groups, and people that are working to dismantle white supremacy. We will shine a light on these organisations and recommend resources for anti-racist education.
We have collected a list of resources and will be sharing them through our Allies newsletter. We will also find a place for these on our website.
We will share about these organizations through social media and find ways to collaborate with them.
We have ensured that all of our staff are able to keep their jobs during COVID19 and to work around child care needs. We discuss as a team, how and when we want to return to in-person meetings.
We provide access to monthly. clinical supervision for our staff, even though we do not providing professional clinical work. We believe that any work in the anti-slavery movement, especially survivor leadershp work, can bring a heavy burden and require emotional labour that may seem invisible.
Staff who work more than 20 hours/week are given 1 day of paid self-care time.
Again, this is in on-going progress for our organisation.
We will respectfully challenge our allies and members when racism shows up in anti-slavery and anti-trafficking work. We do this in an effort to protect our members, staff, and allies against racism outside the organisation and to relieve black people from the burden of educating people about racism.
We will provide training for our staff to identify and safely interrupt racism when it occurs in our presence.
If we are the facilitators, we will find ways to intervene that enable learning, healing, and accountability instead of fostering a culture of shame and defensiveness.
We will listen to any concerns about racism within Survivor Alliance and take them seriously. We do not profess to be free of racism. We will be mindful that “making it” as an organization can pressure us to take on practices that are valued by dominant society, but that contain racist elements or roots.
We will look for an organisational anti-racism assessment and ask our Board to help conduct this. Here is a list of assessments: https://www.njjn.org/our-work/training-and-resources
We will find accountability buddies for our anti-racist efforts. - We have begun to do this with one of our partners.
We will post our grievance policy for members in an easily accessible place on our website. This is now linked at the bottom of our Survivors page.
We will hold space for our black members, staff, and allies. We will not define what this space should look like and will respond as best as we can to your needs. When racism comes up in an event, we will challenge it, check-in with you, and do what is in our power to address it.
We we will apologise when we cause harm.
We made sure that one of our staff who is Black, was not the person responding to our members who wanted to leave our group because they did not support our BLM statement.