Launch Event: Addressing Gender-Based Violence Resource

Tuesday 4th June 7pm-8:30pm [online] UTC/GMT

Join us at our public launch of a new abolitionist resource on gender-based violence.

This resource, titled ‘Addressing Gender-Based Violence: Carceral Reforms vs Abolitionist Strategies’ has been developed by Abolitionist Futures in collaboration with frontline support workers, community organisers, and researchers.

The resource aims to help communities respond to gender-based violence with abolitionist strategies at a structural level. The resource consists of a chart, which summarises different strategies, and a booklet, which provides more detail on each strategy.

The resource is intended to be used as a discussion tool. We hope it will generate conversation, support strategising, and prompt action to address gender-based violence.

We will be starting this discussion at our launch event and invite you to join!

Speakers include:

• Leah Cowan
  Leah is a writer and editor. Her second book, Why Would Feminists Trust the Police? will be published in June 2024. Leah also works at Project 17, an advice centre for migrant families who have No Recourse to Public Funds and are facing homelessness and destitution.

• Lola Olufemi
  Lola is a black feminist writer and Stuart Hall foundation researcher from London based in the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media at the University of Westminster. Her work focuses on the uses of the political imagination and its relationship to cultural production, political demands and futurity. She is author of Feminism Interrupted: Disrupting Power (Pluto Press, 2020), Experiments in Imagining Otherwise (Hajar Press, 2021) and a member of 'bare minimum', an interdisciplinary anti-work arts collective

• Billy
  Billy is a therapist, facilitator and trauma support worker based in Scotland. They work with LGBTQ+ people and survivors of sexual violence. Over the last few years, their focus has been creating spaces and resources that enable both survivors and support workers to re-define justice as something we can access for and by ourselves. They work independently, with gender based violence organisations, and with grassroots community groups.

Event format: We will provide a brief introduction to the resource. Our speakers will then share their thoughts on the resource in a round-table discussion format. This will be followed by a Q&A discussion.

You are encouraged to check out the resource in advance of the launch event, but feel free to join either way. You can download the resource (chart and booklet) here.

Space is limited, so please register for the launch event below.

Join our post-launch discussion groups

We want this resource to be actively used, discussed, and engaged with. To support this, we will running discussion groups (both online or in-person) to talk through the resource.  This will offer an opportunity to discuss and debate different strategies and think about how the resource may be useful in your own community, workplace, school or organising group.

Upcoming discussion group dates:

• Abolitionist Futures: Tuesday 25 June 7:30 - 9:00pm [online] - Register here

• Newcastle: Wednesday June 26th 12-2pm [in-person] Register here

• Level Up hosted group: 22 July [online): evening - details TBC

• Reclaim The Agenda: Belfast [in-person] - date to be confirmed

• Further details, including registration information to be posted shortly

If you’d like to host your own discussion group, let us know.  We have a facilitation guide to help with this, which will be available shortly.