Human trafficking is a crime that sits at the intersections of multiple forms of violence – labor exploitation, sexual violence, child abuse, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and more. Often, though, anti-trafficking activities happen in a silo, isolated from full engagement with the histories, knowledge, and leadership of these related movements. When cross-movement activities are undertaken, they are often roundtables or cross-movement dialogues rather than deep and ongoing co-organizing led by leaders from impacted communities. Conversations about care for survivor leaders often centers fragility, and care conversations at the organizational level often emphasize self-care rather than collective care. Burnout is seen as inevitable rather than preventable. Collective Threads Initiative (CTI) believes it doesn’t have to be this way, and they have transformed their critiques into practice and their vision into supportive programming. In this presentation, the presenters will share CTI’s unique cross-movement approach through outlining the principles and values underpinning this approach, They will then highlight two implementation examples: the Care Fellowship and the Meaningful Engagement Organizational Coach Training. Both of these offerings included participants with lived experience of the issues they are working on, including human trafficking, gender-based violence, conflict-related violence, LGBTQ rights, and more, focused on lived experience expertise broadly rather than in any one silo. By connecting activists with lived experience across movements, they are weaving stronger resistance to oppression, less reliant on rigid categories of survivor and ally, and with care and wellbeing always at the forefront. Join this session to learn concrete strategies for fostering strong, equitable partnerships across movements.
Chris Ash is an organizer with thirty years of experience and the co-founder of Collective Threads Initiative. They have spent recent years researching survivors’ experiences of “survivor leadership” in anti-trafficking spaces, and you can see more of their work at https://christianash.com/portfolio/.
Sophie Otiende is a feminist, teacher, and founder of Collective Threads and Azadi Community. Her work has focused on developing systems for grassroots organizations. She firmly believes in a future where empathy, harmony, and trust can be seamlessly articulated in processes and systems in institutions.