Consent Week

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Human Rights & Equity Services (HRES) is hosting Consent Week from September 18-23, 2023. 

Students, faculty and staff are invited to participate in events and workshops taking place throughout the week (see schedule below). 

Consent Week is part of a national dialogue and events led by Possibility Seeds’ Courage to Act project and High School Too, who have worked with stakeholders across the country to establish a national Consent Awareness Week during the third week of September. This date was chosen because the first six weeks of school are designated the Red Zone, when there is an especially significant increase in sexual violence at schools. Canada would be the first country in the world to recognize and adopt this week to ensure that everyone feels respected and safe wherever they live, work and play.

Consent Week invites the Dalhousie community to have thoughtful, affirming, intersectional and age-appropriate conversations about consent. Responding to rejection, articulating boundaries, respecting bodily autonomy and active listening are valuable life skills. This week is a significant opportunity to reflect, champion, and celebrate consent as a cornerstone of all relationships, not just intimate ones.

Dalhousie Events

Monday, September 18 - Consent Awareness Booth

Time: 4:30-6:00pm
Location:
Howe Hall (outside the Dining Hall)

Stop by the Consent Awareness Booth to test your consent trivia knowledge, spin the prize wheel, and learn about resources on and off campus.

Monday, September 18 - Trauma-Informed Yoga

Time: 6:30-7:45pm
Location:
CHEB, oorm C170
Facilitators:
Kathy Bourgeois, RSW, RYT & Dawn Collins, RYT

Gentle and restorative all ability yoga offering with Dawn Collins and Kathy Bourgeois. Beginners, all, welcome. Please feel welcome to wear clothing you are comfortable to move in, and to bring a mat if you have one. We will have some mats and things available, but we want to make sure there is enough for everyone who would like to participate. Thank you!

What does yoga have to do with trauma?
Trauma recovery depends on learning to allow the release of undischarged emotion, while leaning into and responding to the present in healthy ways. Yoga can be an excellent resource to support this work. Trauma-informed yoga is an approach to yoga practice that emphasizes awareness of your present state and offers opportunities for students to choose what brings them balance. Yoga can have both stimulating and soothing effects our mind, body, heart, and spirit. Yoga teachers can encourage nervous system balance and create space for students to grow comfort and safety in their whole beings. Over time, students can cultivate a friendlier relationship with their experience of being human; learning mastery and self-regulation skills that can help to complement and support trauma healing. Trauma informed yoga teachers are trained to soften the potentially stimulating effects of yoga practice by offering tools to people that may need more support. The effectiveness of yoga as a healing resource is absolutely dependent on how safe the person feels when practicing.

Registration Link: https://forms.office.com/r/QP7GuGZn9D

Kathy Bourgeois, MSW, RYT: Kathy has had a personal yoga and meditation practice for more than twenty years. Kathy’s interest in becoming a yoga teacher was as a complement to her social work practice. Kathy completed her Trauma Informed (60 hour) and Trauma Sensitive Yin Yoga (130 hour) Teacher Trainings from Soul Work Academy in 2021, and her 200-hour Hatha Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) in 2017 from the Lakshmi Rising Yoga School in Costa Rica. Kathy is a registered Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance (teacher ID #214637). Email: kathybourgeoismsw@gmail.com

Dawn Collins, RYT: Dawn completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training with Atlantic Yoga Teacher Training in affiliation with Kripalu School of Yoga in 2010. In the years following, Dawn continued to research and study closely yoga’s application as an intervention for cultivating safety and healing trauma. Dawn has offered weekly yoga classes at the Garron Centre, IWK treating children with acute mental health needs as well as at Northwood Manor supporting clients with varying physical abilities and mental health needs. In 2017, Dawn completed a 30- hour Trauma Informed Yoga training for facilitators. She began offering this to the wider community via private class offerings in Halifax, as well as the North End Public Library drop-in classes a few years later. More recently, Dawn has completed an additional facilitator training (2019) in using sound yoga techniques for healing and expansion work.

Tuesday, September 19 - Consent & Craft Social Drop-In

Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Location:
LeMarchant Place (LMP) Atrium
Hosted in partnership with Student Affairs

This crafting and relaxing space is open to all and an unstructured time to chill-out, colour in consent colour books, write a message to survivors, and connect with your creative self.  The event will also feature an art project from Action Now Atlantic that poses the question “What do you wish your institution told you?” and participants can fill in their answer to contribute to this community art piece. 

Tuesday, September 19 - Consent Awareness Booth

Time: 4:30-6:00pm
Location:
Shirreff Hall lobby

Stop by the Consent Awareness Booth to test your consent trivia knowledge, spin the prize wheel, and learn about resources on and off campus.


Wednesday, September 20 - Consent Awareness Booth

Time: 4:30-6:00pm
Location:
Risley Hall lobby

Stop by the Consent Awareness Booth to test your consent trivia knowledge, spin the prize wheel, and learn about resources on and off campus.

Wednesday, September 20 - Consent and Queer History Trivia

Time: 5:30-6:30pm
Location: McCain Art & Social Science, Room 2016
Facilitators: Hosted by DalOUT

DalOUT is Dalhousie's LGBTQIA2S+ society, providing workshops, events, resources, literature, and a safe space for queer students on campus.

DalOUT will be hosting a trivia night in honour of consent week. Themes will include health and wellness, sex education, and queer history. The trivia session will be hosted using Kahoot for participants to read and respond to questions on their phones. Questions will also be presented on a large screen using a projector and read aloud by a host. Available prizes will include gift certificates to local queer-owned businesses.

Wednesday, September 20 - Confidence, Consent, and Communication: How Sex-Positivity Makes for Hotter Sex Workshop

Time: 7:00-8:00pm
Location:
Rowe Bld, room 1016
Venus Envy Facilitator:
Ry (they/them)

Consider this sex positivity 101! Confidence, Consent and Communication focuses on creating a positive relationship with sex. Learn how to move beyond judgment and stigma to embrace what works for you, and to be more comfortable voicing what doesn’t. We will also discuss how to handle different wants and needs, and how to hear a ‘No’ with compassion. Sex positivity affects our self-image, our ability to communicate and establish boundaries, and gives us permission to approach new experiences with a resounding ‘Yes!’. Open to everyone!

Registration Link: https://forms.office.com/r/FbWg1FS2bY

Facilitator Bio: Ry (they/them) is a sex educator at Venus Envy. They've been doing sexual health and safety education for the past 5 years. Their education work focuses on sexual literacy for queer and trans individuals, sexualized violence prevention and response, consent culture, and harm-reduction practices. 

Thursday, September 21 - Consent Awareness Booth

Time: 12:00-2:00pm
Location:
Sexton Campus – Alumni Lounge

Stop by the Consent Awareness Booth to test your consent trivia knowledge, spin the prize wheel, and learn about resources on and off campus.

Thursday, September 21 - Consent Awareness Booth with Dal Women in Sport Society

Time: 4:30-7:30pm
Location:
Varsity Soccer Game, Wickwire Field

Dalhousie Women in Sport provides a safe space and supportive community for female identifying and non-binary students with a shared passion for sport.

Stop by the Consent Awareness Booth at the Varsity Soccer games to test your consent trivia knowledge, spin the prize wheel, and learn about resources on and off campus.

Friday, September 22 - Responding to Disclosures Workshop for Staff & Faculty

Time: 10:00-11:00am
Location:
Rowe room 1007

This workshop will outline Dalhousie’s resources and responses to sexualized violence on campus including an overview of the Purple Folder – a guide to responding to disclosures of sexualized violence.  Participants will understand how to respond to a disclosure from a trauma-informed and survivor-centred perspective, ensuring survivor safety and choice is maintained.  The Dalhousie Sexualized Violence Policy will be outlined in addition to other reporting options for survivors.

Registration Link: https://forms.office.com/r/agntA9KMLC

Facilitator: Lyndsay Anderson (she/her), Sexualized Violence Advisor in Human Rights & Equity Services.

 

Friday, September 22 - Consent Awareness Booth

Time: 12:00-2:00pm
Location:
Killam Library entrance

Stop by the Consent Awareness Booth to test your consent trivia knowledge, spin the prize wheel, and learn about resources on and off campus.

Friday, September 22 - Film screening: The Feminist on Cellblock Y.

Time: 2:30-4:00pm
Location:
Weldon Law, room 104

The documentary Feminist on Cellblock Y examines how harmful patriarchy is to us all, why we must let go of our limited understanding of crime, the geography of prisons, and meaningful and revolutionary organizing in prisons.

Registration Link: https://forms.office.com/r/Kp1PJgC9Tf

Saturday, September 23 - Personal Safety and Defence Course

Time(s): 10:00am - 12:00pm *WOMEN ONLY* 30 spaces available
             12:30 - 2:30pm All Genders *30 spaces available
Location:
SUB (room tba)
Hosted by the Dalhousie Student Union and Tough Monkey (www.toughmonkey.ca)

This introductory course is for any DAL student interested in learning about personal safety and defence. You will learn simple strategies to help prepare for and avoid an encounter and personal safety and defence concepts such as:

  • survival stress,
  • situational awareness,
  • planning and prevention strategies,
  • rapid hazard assessment,
  • other special considerations, including how to use everyday items to aid in escape.

Also, learn physical skills that are easy to perform and remember related to de-escalation, positioning, defensive counter and evasion options and tactics.

Upon completion will receive a guide for planning and preparedness, as well as a digital course certificate.

Registration Link: https://www.toughmonkey.ca/apply-dal  

Discount Code for Students to save $15 at checkout: 2023DALDSU