As we head into September, the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre shares some words from our Executive Director, Katie Bortolin:
As the new(ish) ED at the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre, I am often asked about what we do. I tell people that we help women with whatever they are facing. Sometimes women come in with a tangle of issues and concerns and we do our best to pull at threads to create safety, empowerment, and connection. We refuse to stand by and be silent when injustice occurs in our community. We are committed to believing and supporting survivors to make the most informed choices for themselves. As I reflect on it, our work encompasses so much: we hold space, we host programs, we attend court, we make art, we celebrate the wins, and we smash the patriarchy.
Going forward, we will continue advocate and amplify voices when systems choose to not recognize the urgency of our safety concerns while reinforcing the impunity of perpetrators of violence. We will continue to demand accountability from institutions entrusted with public safety. We resist the systems, traditions, and expectations that tell us who we are supposed to be, what spaces we can occupy, what streets we can walk down. We advocate for a world where we have the freedom to decide for ourselves.
We continue to call for sustaining funding to support women and families that come through our doors. We are committed to local prevention work, including education and raising awareness around gender-based violence and laws put in place that are not being enforced; laws such as the Red Flag Law, an emergency prohibition order, is wildly under-utilized in Ontario. If we have laws and protections in place, without any implementation, women are still not being protected.
We cannot talk about feminism in Thunder Bay without intersectionality and the ongoing impacts of colonialism, racism, poverty, housing, income insecurity and systemic discrimination. At the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre, we continue to listen and amplify the voices of Indigenous and racialized women, girls, 2SLGBTQIA+, and boys in our community who are facing devasting realities of harm with little to no safety measures in place.
We deserve more than to be remembered when tragedy occurs. We deserve to be heard, protected, respected, believed, and supported. That is part of what feminism means to us. It is part of our commitment to reconciliation and to our community. We will continue to celebrate women who speak, lead, create, challenge, build, nurture, resist, and reimagine what is possible. Because equality is not a favour to be granted. It is a right to be lived.
With great respect and love,
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