November 29th, 2023

EAPO Annual Virtual Conference Series, 2023

Inclusive Voices, Collective Power

Session:

Rooting Resilience: Fostering the Advocacy and Leadership of GBV Survivors through Peer Support

In this interactive presentation, DAWN Canada presents the specific dynamics of GBV in the lives of girls and women with disabilities across the life course. We then provide an overview of our initiative Rooting Resilience, which is a partnership with organizations addressing GBV across the disability, Indigenous, and women’s sector.

This project explores how peer support on the continuum can promote the advocacy and leadership of women and girls with disabilities in addressing GBV at the municipal, provincial, and territorial levels.

Speaker:

Valérie Grand’Maison (elle/she/her)

Manager and Senior Research Associate, DisAbled Women’s Network of Canada

Valérie is a researcher, activist and mother. She is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Guelph, Ontario. Her research takes an intersectional feminist approach and focuses on gender-based violence, activism and notions of justice for diverse women with disabilities in Canada and internationally. She has also taught undergraduate courses on disability and gender-based violence. She has published scholarly articles and chapters on the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with disabilities, femicide of women and girls with disabilities and the housing situation of people with disabilities.

She lives with a visual impairment, a genetic disease that her daughter may live with. That’s why she is committed, in her personal and professional life, to cultivating an inclusive community where diverse women can support each other and reach their full potential.