Youth Programs
At VSAC, our youth programs bring together youth and adults to build awareness,dialogue, and education around preventing and addressing teen dating violence and gender-based violence. We encourage critical thinking about root causes such as gender expectations and stereotypes, systems of power, and the ongoing colonization of the lands and systems we live in.
Our work centers the lived and living experiences of youth and is designed for youth, educators, and service providers. Grounded in anti-oppressive, anti-racist, and decolonial frameworks, our programs aim to support youth from equity-deserving groups.
Black & Indigenous Empowerment (B.I.E)
The Black & Indigenous Empowerment (B.I.E) group builds on the foundations laid by Project Respect and the Black Youth Empowerment (B.Y.E) initiative. B.Y.E was a youth-led program that centred Black voices in the prevention of teen dating violence through culturally relevant workshops, advocacy, and research. Youth involved in B.Y.E. led conversations on race and bystander intervention, and worked alongside educators to shift school culture through anti-racist practices and creating safer school environments where Black youth can thrive.
B.I.E carries this work forward by creating space for Black and Indigenous youth to connect, lead, and support one another. Grounded in community, culture, and care, B.I.E fosters opportunities for youth to grow as leaders, challenge systemic violence, and reimagine school spaces through their lived experiences and collective wisdom. Through this work, the group aims to support meaningful conversations around safety, accountability, consent, and belonging in ways that reflect Black and Indigenous perspectives.
B.I.E holds space for youth to build community, share knowledge, and lead initiatives focused on preventing dating violence and addressing systemic harms such as racism, colonialism, and oppression. Youth will co-develop and deliver culturally grounded workshops, adapt existing resources, and create new tools that reflect their realities and visions for safety.
As part of this work, B.I.E also engages their peers, teachers, and school staff in conversations about how to respond to and prevent harm using consent-based, trauma-informed, and culturally respectful approaches. By centering youth voices and leadership, the program supports schools and communities to become safer, more inclusive spaces.
B.I.E. creates spaces for equity- deserving youth to step into leadership, facilitation, and advocacy roles around issues that directly impact their lives.
We’re developing and delivering two culturally relevant workshops for high schools:-
for educators and school staff
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for Black, Indigenous, and Youth of Colour (BIPOC youth).
These workshops:
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Focus on preventing relationship and dating violence
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Address systemic issues such as racism, oppression, and non-consensual practices
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Adapt existing curricula to create new materials that reflect the lived experiences of equity- deserving youth.
Our goal is to advance dating violence prevention while equipping educators and students with practical tools to foster safe, inclusive schools.
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Youth Leadership: B.I.E supports Black and Indigenous youth to take up leadership roles in their communities and schools.
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Skill Building: Youth gain tools to recognize, navigate, and prevent harm while fostering healthy relationships.
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Education & Advocacy: The group works with school communities to build understanding around consent, accountability, and equity.
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Reflection & Growth: Ongoing evaluation and youth-led research help guide and strengthen the work.
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Who We Are
B.I.E is coordinated by Anoushka Thakkar (Prevention Program Coordinator), Annaléa Sordi (Research Manager), and Katie Webb (Prevention Director), in collaboration with the Indigenous Response Network at VSAC, our consultants from various local organisations, and a circle of 12 Black and Indigenous youth.
Anoushka (she/her) is from Bombay, India, where she was born and raised before moving to the unceded territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples in 2023. With a background in mental health, she now works at the intersection of health communication and community-building, with a particular focus on QTBIPOC spaces. Over the past five years, Anoushka has contributed to research, education, and service delivery across the healthcare and mental health sectors.
Annaléa (she/her) brings over a decade of experience in youth participatory action research, program evaluation, and trauma-informed work. Her focus has been on creating spaces for youth with lived experience of mental health challenges and disabilities to lead community-based change through storytelling, data, and advocacy.
This work is made possible with support from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
For more information about us and our projects, please email Anoushka at anoushkat@vsac.ca
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Past Projects
Victoria Sexual Assault Centre hosted the Black Youth Empowerment (BYE) youth group from 2021-2024 through funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada. As a final project BYE focused on creating a training manual that is available to community and schools who are interested in adopting the program.
Project Respect, a division of the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre’s Prevention Program, and the Girls and Femmes with Afro-textured Hair (Victoria, BC), began a collaboration in September 2020. The goal was to introduce Black Youth in high school, in Victoria, to program content from Project Respect. The Black Youth Empowerment (BYE) group consisted of six high school students who in winter 2020 began reviewing program content on bystander intervention from the Project Respect program. The focus of the group is to ensure that the information about bystander intervention is culturally relevant. The primary question they are answering is, “How does the content resonate with the group’s Black identities and experiences?”
Between 2021-2024, BYE developed a bystander intervention workshop made by Black youth for Black youth, as well as a Safer Braver Spaces workshop for adults who work with youth. From the various topics, BYE selected Bystander Intervention as a presentation topic. Conversations include the definitions of a bystander and intervention, the types of bystanders and the various interventions. A recurring question for us is, “Thinking about our embodied selves and the idea of intersectionality, what factors might influence how people respond to us when we intervene in a situation, instead of being a bystander?” The flip side to that question is, “What issues might influence people’s reaction towards us when we are the victim of a situation?”
Project Respect brings together youth and adults to create awareness and dialogue about sexualized violence by encouraging critical thinking about root causes such as gender expectations and stereotypes, systems of power, and the ongoing colonization of the lands and systems we live in.
The purpose of the youth council was to empower youth by supporting their personal and collective visions for a future without sexualized violence. Some potential projects included: developing a new logo for Project Respect, developing social media content to share about consent and resources, creating merchandise for the council, and planning the Youth Social Action Camp.
For years, Project Respect had hosted an overnight conference camp for young people. They invited youth from all identities, backgrounds, and experiences to explore how and why sexualized violence happens, and identify social justice issues that are relevant to them. They are supported in creating youth-led and centered social action projects to address the issues relevant to their experiences. A key theme at camp was exploring youth participatory action research, and creating research methods that center youth’s experiences and perspectives in creating and measuring social change. Youth explore these topics through theatre, art, media, and group discussions, nature walks, campfire circles, canoeing, games, and other activities.
Project Respect created opportunities for youth to share their experiences, perspectives, and creativity through writing and spoken word. Youth contributed original pieces exploring themes such as identity, relationships, respect, sexuality, and experiences of violence. These youth voices helped create space for reflection, dialogue, and greater understanding of the issues affecting young people.
Top Left was a project about engaging those who identify as young men and boys (with the support and partnership of all genders of youth) in discussing, addressing, and taking action on issues related to gender-based violence. This project took place in four communities across Turtle Island (aka: Canada), including the Coast and Straits Salish Territories (Victoria). There were three main pieces of this project: A youth-driven event that was organized and delivered by young people in Victoria, the national Unite and Ignite Conference in March 2014, where some youth from Victoria involved in Top Left went to Ottawa to meet with Top Left youth from across the country, and local Community Action Projects throughout 2014 led by the Top Left team.
Rhizome youth and Project Respect adult staff worked together to create a series of participatory workshops that youth-adult teams facilitated with youth at Bayside Middle School and Pacific Secondary School. The workshops addressed topics like gender-based violence, body image, consent & relationships, creating social change and much much more!
Hollaback! Victoria, BC was an online space for people to share their stories of street harassment and join the movement to end street harassment backed by a network of activists around the world. We worked together to better understand street harassment, to ignite public conversations, and to develop innovative strategies to ensure equal access to public spaces.
The Rhizome Youth Social Action Team participated in 3 days of discussions, theatre, art and more from August 6-8th in 2013 and August 7th-11th in 2012 . These free camps were offered to youth 12-21 of any gender. They explored topics such as homophobia, racism, colonialism, and sexualized violence. Youth to took control of their learning environment and were creative with how they wanted to engage the community on these issues. Youth learned to use different forms of multi-media such as film, dance, skill screening, and spoken word poetry to create social action that addresses sexualized violence in the community.
In February 2012, we engaged members of the community in writing subversive love letters that explore how love is linked to social justice and anti-violence. We wanted to show that Valentines day doesn’t have to just be a day for consumerist card buying and self hate on the part of those who are single. So we set up set up stations at coffee shops and on UVic campus early in February and asked people to write alternative love letters, and they did, over 200 letters were created. Two thousand copies of these letters were made and hidden by all over the city right before February 14th for people to find and enjoy. You can see the letters on the project blog. This project was covered by the Times Colonist and Monday Magazine.
Over the 2011-2012 school year, we created a short film, called The Imperfection Project, exploring the silencing of young women’s experiences of sexuality and violence. Youth had fun story boarding, filming, acting and directing this film with the support of local non-profit media organization MediaNet and local filmmaker Kirk Schwartz. Overall, more than 25 young people from diverse contexts were involved in creating the vision for and producing this film. To complete the film, a smaller team of youth came together to write a powerful collective spoken word piece, excerpts from which form the soundtrack of the film. In June 2012, we launched the film, as well as a showcase of all of the youth participant’s social actions at Solstice Café. At the launch, the youth team and Project Respect facilitators also presented their collective spoken word piece, answered questions from the audience, and facilitated a World Café to engage the community in discussions about gender-based violence prevention.
Project Respect partnered with the Inter-cultural Association of Greater Victoria, antidote: Multiracial and Indigenous Girls’ and Women’s Network, and Heart and Hands Health Collective to do a youth-led, community-based anti-violence mural project. Over four amazing months, this diverse team of youth explored how interlocking forms of violence are happening in our communities, looked at the root causes of this violence, and took action using street art as a way to resist violence and create inclusive space in downtown Victoria. Graffiti artists Remia Wong (Project Respect youth leader) and Cameron Kidd (community art facilitator) supported this youth team to create a bright, colourful, and inspiring mural on the side of Heart and Hands Health Collective on Cormorant Street as well as the wall of the adjacent building.
Project Reclaim (2018-2019) was a youth-driven, land-based project that engaged youth from the Tsartlip Nation to lead their community in healing from, resisting, and preventing violence through two key, interconnected program components: 1) youth-led land restoration to create greener, healthier community spaces, and 2) the youth-led development and delivery of culturally relevant violence prevention curricula in middle and high schools. Together, these program components worked to foster safer communities free from violence. Project Reclaim used a mentorship model, through which Tsartlip youth were supported by and learn from elders and community mentors. This intergenerational project was implemented by the hands of all willing community members of WSANEC nation (Tsartlip, Tseycum, Tsawout and Pauquachin). Through Project Reclaim, we worked to make public spaces in the Tsartlip community safer, healthier, and more accessible for all community members.
