Yaletown fashion boutique-slash-social enterprise gets a facelift
By Alex Samur

http://www.granvilleonline.ca/gr/fashion/citizen-style/my-sister%E2%80%99s-closet-relaunches-yaletown-boutique

Community, sustainable and socially progressive aren’t buzzwords typically associated with uber-yuppified, fashion-conscious Yaletown. But a newly rebranded thrift boutique and social enterprise—My Sister’s Closet—is set to change that.

Last week, a party was held in celebration of the Yaletown store’s relaunch. Formerly operating under the name MSC 1092 (the 2001 Space Odyssey-esque abbreviation derived from its 1092 Seymour St. location), My Sister’s Closet now sells men and women’s wear under its original name, a moniker shared by its long-beloved sister store on Commercial Drive. And at the Yaletown location, its new, er, old name, isn’t the only thing to get a facelift.

My Sister’s Closet Yaletown same, same but new

Thanks to a grant from BCIT’s Students for Free Enterprise, the entire My Sister’s Closet Yaletown shopping experience has been made over. With new silvery signage designed by Erin Lee, the Helmcken and Seymour storefront is perfectly situated for curious window-shoppers. And regular patrons will happily discover the store sells the same, high-quality goods in a brighter, more modern shop that has been reimagined by architect Indiana Martelli.

My Sister’s Closet

1092 Seymour St, Vancouver

1029 Commercial Dr, Vancouver

What hasn’t changed is the clothing: the new My Sister’s Closet remains a great bet for chic, local and affordable clothing in Yaletown. Specializing in low-cost new and second-hand clothing for both men and women, the store also sells bags, shoes and lingerie—all HST-free. 

Amongst the clothing racks, discerning shoppers will also notice handmade jewellery and accessories from local Vancouver designers—many of whom are Downtown Eastside residents. The items are sold on consignment and selected by store manager Mariana Garcia, who has long worked with low-income artisans.

Beautiful designs by Setareh Bateni, Vivian Bomberry and Laura Harrison are just a few of the many local artists with work for sale.

More than retail therapy

But there’s more to this story than simple retail therapy. The two humble storefronts belie an active network of more than 40 volunteers helping to keep My Sister’s Closet open seven days a week, running programs for low-income women, including distributing free clothing and leading skills-based training workshops, like crafting and sewing.

A project of Vancouver’s Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS), My Sister’s Closet was first opened on Commercial Drive in the 1990s as a means to connect with community—providing free clothing and household goods to women and families escaping domestic violence, unable to return home and needing to start anew—and helping to support the organization’s counselling and advocacy activities.

“We wanted to be in business so we could be resilient to the whims of government as well as to be able to have a place where the community could interface with the issues of violence against women,” says BWSS executive director Angela Marie MacDougall.

Violence against women even in Yaletown

Locating the shop’s second location in Yaletown in 2004 reflects this focus. According to MacDougall, the corner at Helmcken and Seymour was once a popular stroll for sex workers. And right across the street from the shop, two Vancouver women, Kathleen Wattley and Elaine Allenbach, went missing. Allenbach is currently the longest missing woman on record in Vancouver, her whereabouts unknown since 1986.

Expanding to Yaletown meant connecting with a community where violence against women may not be immediately apparent.

“We think this community is a good one to put the issue right there… we’ve had lots of customers come in and tell us their stories about witnessing their mothers’ abuse or their own experiences of abuse because we know violence against women is endemic—it is everywhere,” says MacDougall.

With 10,000 reported incidents of violence against women last year alone, BC carries the dubious dishonour of having the second highest rate of reported violence in Canada. Such a dismal statistic speaks to the urgent need for organizations like the BWSS and projects like My Sister’s Closet, both in Vancouver and throughout the province.

Shopping to support people and planet

While the BWSS fights violence against women in a variety of ways, the stores offer an easy way to contribute to the cause.

"Buying goods from My Sister’s Closet is one way people can help—while also doing their part for a greener planet," adds Garcia.

With an attractive new store and brand to boot, My Sister’s Closet makes clear that you can be both socially conscious and fabulously fashionable at the same time.

By Alex Samur

Alex Samur is a Vancouver-based writer, managing editor of rabble.ca and Commercial Drive nomad who appreciates the fine arts of lace knitting, small-space gardening and a well-made espresso.

amulet for survivors

by Cynthia Dewi Oka

when time is army marshalled

against you starved and alone

i write in celebration your survival

each molecule of courage you collect

sunrise and sundown.

when you cannot move with the music

laughter blade in your belly

i write in celebration your strength

mourning self and body

no longer answering you.

when nobody holds you through

a thousand sleepless nights

i write to share my parts with you

take what you need to continue

let me kiss you where it hurts.

when you hate yourself for being

made of things softer than concrete

i write to witness your rain

washing blood seeping stubborn

outside the neat confines of skin.

when you are asked to relive your war

so the privileged can get a concept

i write to be silent with you

reordering rooms in your heart

leaving the key in a moth’s nest.

when others brush your bones

feathers of good intentions

i write to build a wall with you

scratch poems in the dark

without ever seeing your hand.

when you are labelled self-destructive

instructed to get your shit together

i write to breathe chaos with body

you hurl hurricane speed at anything

solid, sharp and terrible.

when you encounter new intimacies

cannot trust your own judgment of safety

i write to push and run and hide

with you in the anonymity of libraries

the smell of a child’s hair.

when memory burns a hole in your head

road to retribution is unfinished

i write to paint with you banners

in our blood, match the beat

of your footsteps in march.

when language closes herself

to eloquence of your grief

i write to author with you 

hammer for severing her

bondage to cruel pleasantries.

when the thought of being touched

gently  makes you weep

i write to learn with you

how to accept love on your own

terms and in your own time.

when your body conceals herself

beneath rotting leaves and gasoline

i write in stillness watching

with you migration of birds

across uninterrupted ocean.

there are no promises

after rape  we choose

the distance and measure

of our lives

so i write to find

with you in the aching vastness

between our bones

holy things.

My Sister’s Closet – Social Enterprise of Battered Women’s Support Services

Fuse your social activism with fashion by volunteering with the My Sister’s Closet Thrift Boutique

Two locations

1029 Commercial Drive -  The Drive  604-254-7471
1092 Seymour Street -  Yaletown  604-687-0770

This opportunity will find you working in our retail space providing conscientious customer services, sorting fashion in our warehouse to stock both our locations, merchandising and display, donor relations and exceptional team work round out this experience.

Connect with amazing people from all walks of life while working with some of the best Eco-Fashion in Vancouver.  Some of the skills that volunteers gain from working with the retail program are gaining retail experience, building communication skills, and strengthening self confidence.  Volunteering with the BWSS retail program is a great way to support the movement to end violence against women. 

Volunteer opportunities available seven days a week from 10 to 5 pm.   
Volunteer commitment  one – four hour shift per week and to commit to volunteering for three months. 

Upon successful orientation completion volunteer will be eligible for the Volunteer Incentive Program that includes discounts on clothing.

My Sister’s Closet are mission-driven social enterprises owned and operated by Battered Women’s Support Services.  We provide quality and affordable fashion for women, men, and children. 

My Sister’s Closet ~ We’re in business to end violence against women

Having previous retail experience, and/or cash experience is useful though not mandatory.  We provide training and orientation to all volunteers. 

(Under Skills required Section)
Volunteers should
1.    Want to work in a retail environment
2.    Love working with a team in a fast-paced environment
3.    Want to work with a variety of people from all backgrounds
4.    Willingness to learn about and to work from a feminist perspective of Violence Against Women in intimate relationships

To apply email Mariana at mariana@bwss.org

Stop by today at either location, visit us on Facebook My Sister’s Closet Social Enterprise of Battered Women’s Support Services and our website www.bwss.org

Social Media for Social Change!!

Battered Women’s Support Services is looking for Online Community and Social Media Volunteers

Our ideal candidates are self-proclaimed social networking “Experts in Training” who actively use Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and other Web 2.0 platforms. We are looking for women and men who know what is hot now and are willing to explore what is next. You should have a passion for exploring cutting edge social networking platforms!

In these exciting newly created roles, you will work with our Communications Team to expand the online social media presence for:

1.    Battered Women’s Support Services,
2.    The Violence Stops Here – Men Stopping Violence’
3.    My Sister’s Closet – a social enterprise of Battered Women’s Support Services’
4.    Ending Violence Blog and
5.    Youth Engagement in Violence Prevention

You will embrace the brand online, help design and then carry the message crafted by the Communication Team. In this important role, you will be responsible for professionally representing our commitment to using social media for social change!!

Responsibilities:

• In collaboration with and with direction from the Communications Team launch, manage and expand social media and online presence.
• Work to ensure proper messaging is being executed online and is relevant to organizational goal social change goals.
• Support and protect a provincial, nationally and expanding globally recognized brand by ensuring positive messaging is maintained in community.
• Establish consistency of message across multiple networks while tailoring messaging for our constituents.
• Manage online discussions by listening to constituents, reading between the lines, and responding in a timely manner to constituents needs and requests.
• Monitor and track discussion topics for Communications Team.
• You will be able to commitment to volunteering four to eight hours a week for three to six months, flexible hours and be quickly accessible by phone and email.

Skills:

• An interest and demonstrated commitment to ending violence against women
• Willingness to learn and adopt an anti-oppression feminist analysis of violence against women
• Must have active accounts across key social media sites including, but not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• Must have exceptional traditional writing and grammatical skills and a flair for using "social networking speak" and online jargon.
• Excellent verbal communication skills with ability to present ideas and information clearly.
• Extreme attention to detail.
• Collaborative team player able to integrate with a diverse team full of opinions and ideas.
• Online search expert able to track and monitor postings relevant to the brand.
• Demonstrated skills preferred in anti-violence work, journalism or new media.
• Diligent work ethic and insatiable desire to expand skills and be the best.

For more information or to apply:
Email strategicinterventions@bwss.org

Sexual Assault in the Context of Domestic/Dating Violence

by Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs

Helping the Hidden Survivors

We pass these people on the streets of our communities:  the young mother who is afraid to refuse sex because her partner is so intimidating when he drinks, the woman who has been taught that marital sex is obligatory, the college student whose dating partner takes nude pictures without consent and threatens to post them online after an argument, and the older woman who has endured a lifetime of sexual aggression from her physically abusive husband.

Sixty-eight percent of women who are being physically abused also report sexual violence in their relationship with the abusive partner.  Yet Intimate Partner Sexual Violence (IPSV) is still something of a hidden issue.  Why is it so important to identify this issue?  First, so we can begin to address and prevent this highly damaging and traumatic form of sexual violence.  Second, so that survivors can feel understood and receive appropriate services, whether they approach a sexual assault program or a domestic violence program. Third, because the presence of sexual violence in an abusive relationship heightens the risk of murder by the abusive partner.  There are many other reasons to pay attention to IPSV, including the possibility of reproductive health consequences and the impact on children.

What can we do about this form of sexual violence?

• Educate ourselves.  We need to become informed and aware of this issue.
• Build partnerships to raise awareness and coordinate services.  Other victim service providers, schools, parents, community members, law enforcement, health care providers, and other systems partners need to know about IPSV. 
• Learn how to ask appropriate questions and train others to do so.  A recent

study showed that having healthcare providers simply ask about reproductive coercion reduced the likelihood of reoccurrence by 70%.

Battered Women Support Services

Response to:
White Paper on Family Relations Act:
Reform Proposals for a new Family Law Act

Introduction
Battered Women Support Services (BWSS) recognizes the value and importance of the family law modernization initiative the provincial government has committed to undertaking and appreciates the opportunity to provide a response to its proposals.  Together with other interveners, we support the White Paper’s overall position that, “it is important that court and non-court processes are effective and responsive to families’ needs.” We appreciate the White Paper’s citation that, “One of the strongest indicators of mounting social problems appears to be the failure to successfully and permanently resolve legal issues. Escalation in these [family law] cases invariably impacts children, and often other extended family members.”
From our perspective, access to justice and effective legal representation on issues related to family law and particularly with regard to violence against women in relationships, is fundamentally intertwined with access to family law legal aid and a stable community service sector that has the needed capacity to strongly support women dealing with violence, relationship and family break down. Equally important, is the requirement to support a comprehensive training regime for family justice professionals, judges, crown attorneys and law enforcement officers. (Read More)

Battered Women’s Support Services White Paper Family Relations Act Reform

Supporting Women’s Alternatives Network (SWAN Vancouver Society) is pleased to be inviting you to our:

Open House and the launch of the Preventing Violence by Protecting Rights (PVPR) Project.

Guest speaker: Jenny Kwan, MLA Vancouver │ Mt Pleasant

When: Saturday, October 30th, 2010 from 12 noon to 4 pm

Where: Suite 309—877 E. Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6A 3Y1

What:  Join us for a light lunch, an insightful talk on the rights of sex workers, learn about SWAN’s outreach work with indoors sex workers in Greater Vancouver, networking.

Meet members of SWAN Feminist Collective, our outreach volunteers and friends from organizations united in preventing violence against women.

Program:
12 noon to 4 pm: networking, light lunch
1 pm: Welcoming from SWAN Collective
1:15 pm: Talk from guest speaker — Jenny Kwan, MLA, on violence against sex workers
2 pm:  About the Preventing Violence by Protecting Rights Project
3  pm:  SWAN approach to outreach

PVPR Project objectives:
Increase the health, safety and economic security of immigrant and migrant women engaged in indoor sex work in the Lower Mainland in BC by increasing their access to social services;
Ensure that the rights of women in sex work are respected in their interactions with law enforcement officials and health and social service providers
PVPR is a project funded by Status of Women Canada.

To view your invitation (in PDF format) to the Open House and the launch of the Preventing Violence by Protecting Rights (PVPR) project, click here or copy this link and past it to your web browser.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B4H_ZYtDzv2UY2NiOGI5MmEtYWI1Yy00Yzc4LWJmNjItOTlhY2ExZDBhMzNi&hl=en&pli=1

Another website for viewing the invitation online:
http://www.charityvillage.com/cvnet/viewlisting.aspx?id=221346&eng=True&fs=True&fa=False

No reservation is required but space is limited. For more information please call SWAN Coordinator.
Tel: 604.719.6343
Email: info@swanvancouver.ca
www.swanvancouver.ca

You Can Help Keep the Circle Strong

Violence and abuse is endemic and follows girls and women through infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and as elders.  Sex selection, infanticide, child prostitution, sexual abuse, date violence and rape, forced marriage, violence and abuse by male partner or husband as an adult or elder.

At Battered Women’s Support Services we exist to end this violence and to provide safe options for women survivors.

We provide real options for women facing theses challenges

We’re on the front line providing crisis support and counselling for women, support groups, providing skill-based training to professionals, delivering violence prevention and awareness workshops to girls and boys, youth, community, and men, while seeking law reform and systemic change.

Over the years thousands of women, children and men have been positively impacted by Battered Women’s Support Services intervention and prevention activities…ending the violence and abuse in their lives.

Every day women who are living in a war zone – their home- are looking for a way to end the abuse and violence.  Every day women are reaching out to us to seek safety.  Every day women call our crisis lines and access our support groups seeking an answer to the end of the violence in their lives.  Every year over 15,000 children witnessing their mothers’ abuse are positively affected by our work with their Mothers.  We are supporting the succession of thousands of children to live in domestic peace

It is our work to make public that which happens in private.  Our work is to end violence.

Right now! There is a woman who is deciding if she deserves to be safe.
Right now! There is a young woman who is experiencing date rape
Right now! There is a boy who is witnessing his father beat his mother
Right now! There is a man who is remaining silent knowing his friends are using violence against women

Over the next year Battered Women’s Support Services will:

1.    Hold over 400 support group sessions
2.    Answer 10,800 crisis calls
3.    Deliver over 200 training sessions
4.    Engage over 1,000 men and boys
5.    seek law reform and systemic change
6.    change the world

Right now we need you.

You can ensure our phone lines and our doors stay open.
You can ensure we have ready and trained volunteers
You can ensure we have high school prevention materials and youth educators ready
You to ensure that every woman who is considering safety receives safe options

You are part of our circle.  You help us keep the circle strong

Make your donation today

Join our circle of strength monthly giving program.

Simply click on the following button to be taken to an official donation page that is Internet-secure and easy to use.

What Survivors of violence are saying about Battered Women’s Support Services:

"Your crisis line saved my life." — KT, July 2010

"I am healing, I feel  empowered, I am changing my life." — KH, June 2010

"Recently, I spoke to your new campaign "The Violence Stops Here". I truly believe that men need to step up and advocate, and I am so pleased that the Battered Women’s Support Services is taking this issue into the 21st Century and recognizing that this issue is something that Women and Men need to work together to fix. That it is a men’s issue, and we are allies in this…Thank you." — SK April 2010

Battered Women’s Support Services respects the privacy of all donors by safeguarding personal information and ensuring that donor privacy is protected. Donor information is maintained in a secured database and only authorized personnel have access to this information for our organization’s purposes. BWSS does not rent, sell, give away or trade its donor lists or any information contained on these lists. Donor information is used by BWSS for charitable purposes and will not be used by any entity outside of the organization. Donors can choose to opt-out of receiving future information or services by contacting BWSS by email or phone.

An easy, pre-authorized credit card or bank account deduction

• Flexibility — you can increase, decrease, pause or stop your donation at any time
• A convenient tax receipt reflecting the total of all your donations each year
• Absolute confidentiality — BWSS will not trade, rent or in any way make your name available to other organizations
• Access to our newsletter Women Making Waves that documents the results of your donation

Looking to donate product to our Retail Program?

Read about what we Can and Can not accept!

Navigating Systems for Women’s Advocacy

Battered Women’s Support Services will participate at BC Society of Transition Houses Annual Conference October 21st 1 pm in Richmond, BC

As a movement designed to end violence against women while providing women and their children a safe, supportive place to go until that goal was realized, transition houses have a rich advocacy history.  As we continue to advocate for an end to violence against women at its social, political and economic roots, we also continue to provide direct advocacy along side of the individual women we work with. In the current political context, however, the field for systemic advocacy is shrinking.  Increasing need for services with fewer staff and resources to provide them, and fear of funding cuts, have made advocating for individual women more difficult. On top of this, advocacy approaches for and with individual women can come into conflict with approaches to advocacy for systemic change, leaving workers feeling isolated, frustrated and confused about how best to "navigate".

How do we build and maintain strong relationships at the community levels that continue to benefit the women we work with while still pushing forward the agenda of social and systemic change? What collective resources do we share that can strengthen our efforts on all levels?

Together, we will grapple with these and other questions by sharing our stories, concerns, ideas, resources and tools.

For more information contact:

Laurie Parsons

Director of Women’s Services

BC Society of Transition Houses

Suite 325, 119 W. Pender St. Vancouver BC V6B 1S5

T: 604.669.6943 ext: 224 | F: 604.682.6962 | TF: 1.800.661.1040