What Guides Us
Our Accountability
Atira believes governance and accountability are about more than being cautious with fiscal resources. Atira sees our advocacy role as fundamental to achieving our mission and vision. We see our integrity and authenticity rooted in inclusive feminism, anti-oppressive practice, and the women and children we are committed to serve. If the focus of our governance and accountability is predominantly defined by financial considerations, we will compromise our accountability to the women and children we serve.
Our Mission
Atira Women’s Resource Society is dedicated to supporting women and children affected by violence by offering safe and supportive housing and by delivering education and advocacy aimed at ending all forms of gendered violence.
Our Vision
A world free of inequalities, where everyone’s human rights are respected and where women and girls have the right to participate fully and effectively in all of the decisions that affect their lives.
Our Values
Inclusive Feminism
Our work is informed by our understanding that women’s experience of oppressive institutions (sexism, racism, colonialism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, transphobia, xenophobia and other identity markers) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another.
Women-Centred
Our work is informed by our understanding that in addition to providing safety and respect, all of our programs must invite and encourage women’s collaboration and that women must have the opportunity to be active participants in all of our services.
Harm Reduction
Our work is informed by our understanding that women’s experiences of gender-based violence is central to their use of substances and that understanding the intersections between women’s experience of violence, poverty, racism, gendered patterns of drug use/harms, and lack of support for mothering, are critical to developing programs that are seamless and which increase opportunities for women to keep themselves and their children safe.
Our Philosophy
- Violence and abuse are not acceptable forms of behaviour.
- Women and children must have the right to live free of violence and abuse, and the threat of violence.
- Women must have the right to protect themselves and their children from violence and abuse.
Women must have the right to self-determination. This includes the right to make choices about their bodies and choices about bearing children. - Women must have the right to define what “family” is for them.
- Violence/abuse against women can only be analyzed on a political and social level in which women experience a specific oppression related to social, political and economic factors.
- The issue of violence against women is not an isolated phenomenon, it is a social phenomenon where men are encouraged to take a dominant role, which can lead to abusive and violent behaviour.
- Violence is a learned behaviour supported by social structures. Violent/abusive men must be held responsible for their violent/abusive acts.
- Women who experience violence do so not as a result of their own pathology, but rather as the result of the internalization of the values of a hierarchical, oppressive society, which has historically assigned women a subordinate position.
- Some women, in addition to gender, face additional barriers to full equality as a result of multiple oppressions related to class, racialization, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, disability, because they’re indigenous women or because of other status.
- Violence in lesbian relationships is part of the continuum of violence against women. Like everyone else, lesbians have grown up in a society that condones violence and that views violence and coercion as effective ways of gaining power and control over others. Just as fear and hatred of women (misogyny) is at the root of violence in heterosexual relationships, internalized sexism, institutionalized and internalized homophobia and heterosexism are central to abuse in lesbian relationships.
- All forms of oppression are interconnected.
- Racism and other forms of oppression are learned, and unlearning oppressions is a life-long struggle. As feminists committed to the elimination of violence against women, we must also be committed to the elimination of all forms of oppression.
- We are all capable of committing acts of violence and abuse and violence and abuse must always be considered in the context of power and control. Women who are experiencing the impact of violence committed against them must not be seen as abusers if their acts of violence are committed in an effort to protect themselves or their children, or in a struggle to regain control over their lives.
- Women who commit violent or abusive acts in an effort to exercise power and control over others must be held accountable for their behaviour.
- The strength of our analysis comes from our diversity and emphasizes recognizing and confronting violence, racism and all forms of oppression at the personal, communal and institutional levels. We must bring this analysis to all aspects of our interaction with the women who seek our services, each other, the community, and ourselves.