The Need Is Growing Faster Than We Are
SAFE is growing.
More survivors are becoming trained peer supporters.
More community organizations are asking us to work alongside them.
More women are reaching out from across Canada.
But the need is growing even faster.
And we need your help to meet it.
For Survivors. By Survivors.
Sometimes the person who can reach you is the person who understands.
SAFE is a survivor-led organization supporting people affected by gender-based violence through peer support, advocacy, education and lived experience.
Our peer supporters don't decide what a survivor should do.
We listen. We believe. We walk beside them.
And we meet them where they are.
Something Important Is Happening
What began in Halton is reaching further.
SAFE is building a growing team of survivors who are turning their lived experience into meaningful peer support.
We provide training so they can support others safely, compassionately and effectively.
And community organizations are increasingly inviting SAFE into the places where that support is needed.
The opportunity to help is growing quickly.
So is our responsibility to be ready.
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Among Women: Women in Canada are more likely than men to experience intimate partner violence.
- Women and Gender Equality Canada
SAFE Is Already Showing Up
Alongside Residents at Halton Women's Place
SAFE brings survivor-led peer support directly to women who can benefit from the understanding that comes from lived experience.
Not replacing professional services.
Adding something different: a survivor beside another survivor.
Through Achēv's Stronger Together
SAFE peer supporters are working alongside the Stronger Together program, including supporting young women from Shifra Homes.
The feedback has reinforced something we have believed from the beginning:
Lived experience matters.
TESTIMONIAL
Helping Future Doctors Recognize Abuse
Through the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) medical program, SAFE brings survivor experience into the education of medical students.
We help future healthcare professionals better understand how signs of abuse may present in a patient — and how their response can matter.
Survivor voices aren't only helping survivors. They're helping change how others respond to them.
And Now, It's Reaching Beyond Ontario
SAFE recently trained a team of peer supporters in New Brunswick.
It's an early step toward something much bigger:
a network of survivor-led support that can reach communities across Canada.
At the same time, we regularly hear from women across the country who want to volunteer with SAFE.
Many are survivors themselves.
They want to take what they have lived through and use it to help someone else.
We want to give them that opportunity.
But Growth Takes More Than Good Intentions
Every new peer supporter needs to be recruited, supported and trained.
Every new partnership takes coordination.
Every new community requires infrastructure.
Every person representing SAFE needs the knowledge and support to do this work responsibly.
And behind every conversation with a survivor is an organization that needs to remain strong enough to keep showing up.
Your donation can help SAFE invest in:
Peer-supporter training.
Preparing more survivors to support others.
Ongoing education.
Helping our team continue developing the skills needed for this work.
Community partnerships.
Bringing survivor-led peer support into more settings where survivors already are.
Expansion.
Building the foundation for SAFE teams in communities beyond Halton.
Operations.
Creating the systems, coordination and organizational capacity needed to grow responsibly and sustainably.
We Expect Charitable Status Soon
But survivors need support now.
SAFE expects to receive charitable status in the coming months.
We are incredibly hopeful about what that will make possible.
But we don't want to spend the next few months waiting to grow while the need continues to grow around us.
That's why we're asking for your help today.
You Can Help Put Another Survivor Beside Someone Who Needs Her
Your donation helps us build the people, training and infrastructure behind survivor-led peer support.
It helps SAFE say yes when another organization asks us to be there.
It helps us prepare another survivor who wants to support others.
It helps us reach another community.
And ultimately, it helps ensure that when someone experiencing gender-based violence reaches out—
someone is there to believe them.
Help SAFE Grow as Fast as the Need
You don't have to experience gender-based violence to stand beside someone who has.
You can help survivors support survivors.
Give today. Help us train. Help us grow. Help us be there.
For Survivors. By Survivors.
SAFE — Survivor Advocates for Empowerment
survivor-advocates.org
SAFE is a non-profit organization. SAFE's application for charitable status is currently pending. [Wording regarding tax receipts.]
