About the Philly Survivor Support Collective:
- Our collective supports survivors of sexual assault in directing their own healing.
- We offer alternatives to the legal system for survivors seeking justice and safety.
- We also work to transform our communities to end sexual violence.
Points of Unity
We believe:
Survivors are the authority on their own experience in the face of a society that tries to discredit and interrogate them.
Sexual assault harms entire communities and it is everyone’s responsibility to take sexual assault seriously and work to change the conditions that allow it to happen.
Sexual assault reinforces and is an expression of other sources of violence in our communities.
The criminal legal system is violent and harmful, including to survivors.
Our collective:
Supports anyone who identifies as a survivor of sexual assault, is supporting someone else who is a survivor of sexual assault, or is unsure whether or not they have been sexually assaulted.
Supports survivor’s self-determination in their own healing process.
Does not act to strengthen or aid the legal system.
Supports the healing process by asking survivors what they need to feel safe and advocating for those needs. We support survivors in healing, seeking accountability, and working to transform their communities.
Is committed to ongoing education and action that challenge systems of power and
oppression.
Is informed by prison abolition, harm reduction, and transformative justice.
We are working toward a world:
Without sexual assault.
Where communities can heal from and prevent sexual assault.
Where community responses to sexual assault don’t create more violence.