Exchanging Words is a new project (in a partnership between Warriors Against Violence Society, Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast, and WePress) that aims to provide writing and storytelling workshops to the community at a number of events online. The aim of the workshops is to encourage participants to write and tell stories about experiences with violence (which can include residential school, the 60s scoop, murdered and missing family members, family violence, and intimate partner violence). The goal is to use the sessions as a way for people to express themselves in ways that they might not have had access to in the past or perhaps never even thought about.

The workshops will be led by professional Indigenous writers in our communities who are part of the Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast (AWCWC). There will be a variety of approaches in writing such as: poetry, song writing, and theatre. The participants will have access to counsellors during this process to ensure that people feel safe to share. The participants will be encouraged to publish their work online through the AWCWC’s new website in a collection at the end of the process.

This project is a way of giving voice to people that may have not had the opportunity to do so and at the same time raising awareness of the many forms of violence that happens in our communities.

The first event will be a reading available through Zoom and WePress on December 30th at 7PM. This is a free event.

Readers: Chris Bose, Norine Braun, Jonina Kirton, and others

Host: Russell Wallace

Click here to register and receive the Zoom link.

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Online workshops will take place from January through to March 2021. Full schedule will be available soon.

Funding for this project comes from Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation and the Minister͛s Advisory Council on Indigenous Women through the Giving Voice Initiative.

For more information please contact Russell Wallace at russell_wallace@hotmail.com