Structure is what makes lived experience matter. The language of lived and cultural experience is everywhere in our sector. The infrastructure to support it ethically, effectively, and sustainably is often not.

Survivors and cultural experts are invited onto stages and never told what happened to what they shared. Organisations state they are centring lived and cultural experience, while the people whose expertise they are drawing on have no defined role, no compensation framework, and no way to know whether anything they contributed actually was utilised or made a difference.

This seminar is for leaders and practitioners ready to change that. 

Hosted by the Safe & Together Institute – whose own practices form part of the working model – it will give you the frameworks, tools, and language to move your organisation from good intention to genuine structural accountability. You will leave with a clear picture of where you actually stand, and one concrete commitment forward.

Ruth Reymundo Mandel

Chief Business Development Officer & Co-Owner, The Safe & Together Institute

Ruth Reymundo Mandel has been in training and implementation since 1995. She is dedicated to issues surrounding social justice and violence. Drawing on her childhood experiences growing up in an abusive, religious cult and as a survivor, she is a fierce advocate for those who have experienced abuse. She is dedicated to helping survivors and allies understand behavioural coping mechanisms arising out of trauma and mitigating societal and personal judgments surrounding common human responses to violence and harm.

This transformative approach helps those who have experienced violence and their allies better understand how to support, nurture and nourish survivors in a common sense manner and without blame.