Our Commitment to Inclusion

At We Worthy Women, we recognize that trust between mainstream and equity-deserving communities has been broken historically, and we commit to building relationships and trust over time. Guided by the heart-wrenching lessons of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit People (MMIWG2S), we commit to honouring their stories through action, fostering a future where all individuals, especially those most vulnerable, are seen, heard, and protected. We are actively learning about Canada’s true history, and trying to understand how colonialism, racism, capitalism, heterosexism, ableism, ageism, misogyny, white supremacy, and our own biases impact communities across Nova Scotia. 

We ask communities what is important and what works best, and we listen with humility to their wisdom. We meet people where they are and we don’t discriminate, make judgements or assumptions. We look at our work through an equity lens and we are trying to learn how we can connect with people who are the most excluded. And, we center community stories and experiences when we are thinking about building genuinely loving and respectful ways of working together to lift individuals and communities through our work.

We Worthy Women is building a diverse team with many lived experiences which helps us understand good ways of working with different communities, and we hope makes people feel safe and understood. We have a role in creating safe spaces where people feel accepted and respected, and we are continually learning how to do that well. We are learning how to work in ways that support and respect cultural practices and traditions. We strive to work together to make a positive difference in the world.  

We recognize that our community partners are critical to our work. We draw on the trust and relationships they have with the people they support and we benefit from their wisdom. We trust them and don’t ask for ‘proof’ of what they tell us. We dedicate time to learning about our partners and the communities they support. We customize our programming to suit communities. We ask for feedback and suggestions about how we can work better, and we take their input seriously and adapt our practices and processes when that is needed.

We are building a learning culture within We Worthy Women. We dedicate time to reflection, both internally and with our partners. When things go well we celebrate, and when we make mistakes we acknowledge them and ask how we can do better going forward. We share what we are learning about equality and gender-based violence; we talk about how it impacts people, and how we can work together to address it and build a society that is safe, equitable and inclusive for all.