Vision: Powering a Culture of Consent
Mission: Creating a World Free of Sexual Violence through Conscience and Action
Organizational Values:
INTERSECTIONALITY
We value Intersectionality– Intersectionality reminds us that human beings are complex – that we live multiple and layered identities. Intersectionality helps us understand and assess the impact of how converging identities help or impede our ability to access basic human rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . Intersectionality helps us to see how policies, programs, services and laws that impact one aspect of a life are inextricably linked to others. Intersectionality allows us to understand oppression, privilege and human rights.
Intersectionality reminds us to uplift all voices– to privilege all narratives, so that no experience or issue is obscured or rendered invisible. Intersectionality in our work requires that we think differently about identity.
Call To Action: Intersectionality obliges us to build the capacity of the Washington, DC community to respond to survivors of sexual assault with compassion, respect and dignity, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, ability, age or religious affiliation.
CRITICAL INQUIRY
We value Critical Inquiry—Critical Inquiry is a tool for investigation. Critical Inquiry is a tool for gathering and deconstructing information. Critical Inquiry pushes to ask questions, to solicit multiple voices and perspectives. Critical inquiry means asking complicated questions and examining the implications of our actions and inactions. Critical inquiry leads us to cultivate shared curiosities and to explore the spaces we occupy. Critical Inquiry in our work means paying attention to how we use and respond to power.
Call To Action: Critical Inquiry enables us to probe our response systems and examine the complex needs of survivors in Washington DC. Critical Inquiry obliges us to build the capacity of the Washington, DC community to respond to survivors of sexual assault with compassion, respect and dignity, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, ability, age or religious
EQUITY
We value Equity as a symbol of justice. Equity considers what each person needs. Equity coaxes our power structures to reflect the ideals of fairness and equality. Equity encourages shared power. Equity cultivates stakeholders. Equity asks that we create shared opportunities and access to power. Building up equity in our work leads us to examine history, ideology, policy, culture and relationships to reveal root causes of sexual violence.
Call To Action: Equity urges us to account for the differing and layered needs of each survivor, and to diversity our models of care in Washington, DC. We must interrogate our gaps in understanding and divest in the forces that maintain systems of oppression that inhibit healing and wholeness.
CONSENT
We value Consent as an emblem for freedom. We relate to consent-the ability to decide freely- as a human right. We uplift consent as the highest expression of agency and safety. Consent informs how we practice self care and community care.
Consent is always visible and intentional; integrated into all forms of decision making and relationship. In our work, consent is a rejection to using force to get one’s way. We promote consent as a new way of defining healthy relationship. We privilege relational power, mutuality, and human integrity.
Call to Action: Consent urges us to preserve the universal right to bodily autonomy and freedom from violence in the Washington, DC community while increasing our collective ability to resist and respond to abuses of power.
Disruptive Chaos – CREATIVITY
We value Creativity as a reminder of what is possible. It is the imperative for positive change in a chaotic world. Consent infuses new and surprising ideas into a process of making and building. Creativity looks beyond current expertise to consider connections. Creativity follows curiosity and allows for experimentation and discovery. Sometimes curiosity leads to unlearning and relearning. Creativity opens us to inventing new answers and new ways of doing things. Creativity frees us from wedding ourselves to only one way of being or one set of skills. In our work, creativity leads us to become courageous and imaginative in how we confront rape culture and power a consent culture.
Call to Action: Creativity is a renewed commitment to looking in unlikely places and forming unlikely alliances in pursuit of eradicating rape culture. We endeavor to accompany the Washington, DC community in shifting and expanding our understanding of sexual violence and trauma.
ACCESSIBILITY
We value accessibility as an expression of hospitality. Accessibility invites everyone to the decision making tables. To access is to be within reach, to eliminate blockades and facilitate inclusion. Accessibility is a commitment to honoring the multiplicity of identities and abilities. Accessibility accounts for communication needs that are specific to individuals and communities, and invites collective wisdom and participation. In our work we build capacity and increase accessibility by informing, equipping and engaging a cultural shift in how we understand rape culture.
Call to Action: In a spirit of accessibility, we partner with survivors, individuals, organizations and communities to facilitate increased access to compassionate care, informed education, resources and policy change within Washington, DC.