LIFTING UP NOVA SCOTIA’S MOST LEFT BEHIND

Empowering Women and Gender-Diverse People through Personal Development

When people hear "Nova Scotia", many people likely think of our many beautiful shorelines, historical lighthouses, the mesmerizing Atlantic Ocean, delicious seafood, and a friendly population. However, as with all of Canada’s provinces and territories, many people in Nova Scotia experience inequality, inequity, injustice, oppression, and marginalization. Using an intersectional lens, which involves understanding that each individual’s unique characteristics, circumstances, and histories intertwine to create different experiences, it becomes easier to comprehend who our province’s most vulnerable populations are. Women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals in Nova Scotia who have experienced, most often simultaneously, poverty, abuse, poor health, and criminalization, are some of the most marginalized and vulnerable people in our province. Our primary clientele encompasses these people and we strive to improve their lives through programming, services, housing, and advocacy.

Background

We comprehend criminalization of women and gender-diverse people as a form of gender-based violence and approach these experiences through an intersectional lens. This entails understanding that injustices and inequities associated with criminalization, and other forms of violence and oppression, can be attributed to individuals’ unique, intertwining identities and situations, such as those related to race, colonial history, socio-economic status, sexuality, and gender identity. Viewing inequity, injustice, and violence through an intersectional lens is valuable, as it allows us to comprehend how experiences of oppression and discrimination go beyond gender (Canadian Women’s Foundation, 2022). Therefore, certain populations in Canada are at a higher risk of experiencing all forms of injustice and violence, including criminalization, than others. For example, only six per cent of the Nova Scotian population is Indigenous, but Indigenous women make up 15 per cent of Nova Scotia’s total female federal inmates (CBC, 2021; Saltwire, 2021). Further, many criminalized women and gender-diverse people come from backgrounds of poverty, abuse, difficult family dynamics, and poor employment and education access. Due to their backgrounds, many of our clients face major barriers to achieving overall wellness, self-sufficiency, and empowerment, which are all essential to smooth community reintegration, and subsequently reducing future crime, after criminalization and incarceration.

The good deed

The goal of this GOOD DEED is to empower our clients, criminalized women, girls, and gender-diverse individuals, through systems of compassion, accountability, and healing. Through this journey, our clients become equipped to overcome barriers to community reintegration, such as social isolation; abuse; substance abuse; poor employment access; and unhealthy relationships. We mitigate these barriers by offering: Beyond Trauma, a guide through the process of trauma and steps to recovery; Relapse Prevention, workshops focused on managing substance use; Healthy Relationships/Women for Change, a five-week program addressing barriers to healthy relationships; STOP Lifting, a program with the goal of exploring shoplifting-associated behaviours; and Abundance, which provides participants with employment skills and enhances holistic wellbeing. Through their participation, our clients will be able to overcome community reintegration barriers, preventing relapse into criminal activity.