We do more than survive

WE CREATE TO THRIVE

Mission Statement 

Survivor Theatre Project's mission is to empower survivors with the tools to heal from sexual violence through artistic expression, social justice activism, community, & empowerment. We offer arts-based workshops, healing resources, and artistic mentorship to Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), queer & trans-folk, women, non-binary, and disabled survivors who seek healing, support & affirmation. We are guided by a healing justice framework.

We define sexual violence to include child sexual abuse, incest, ritual abuse, sex trafficking, rape, intimate partner violence, college campus sexual assault, sexual violence in institutions (such as in prisons and the military), on the border, and as a tactic of war.

What We Do

Survivor Theatre Project began in 2008 as a theatre organization founded by Melissa Redwin, fiscally sponsored and in partnership with Cambridge Women’s Center. Our programs have been generously supported by state and local funding organizations and by committed donors. We originally offered theatre workshops and performances to bring the issues of sexual violence into public discourse. Now we have expanded to current programming that includes:

RISE inC. (Restoring Individual Self-Expression in Community) An education, creativity, and wellness program for youth.   

HTCA (Healing Through Creative Arts) This program offers monthly arts workshops for survivors to cultivate and share their expressive healing experiences.

Our programming is open and free to the public. We welcome all Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), queer & trans-folk, women, non-binary, neurodivergent, and disabled survivors of sexual violence. For male and male-identified survivors please see visit our resources page.

“scream / so that one day / a hundred years from now / another sister will not have to / dry her tears wondering / where in history / she lost her voice.”

— jasmin kaur

Our Guiding Principles

  1. We create safer, empowering, trauma-informed, artistic spaces for survivors of sexual violence.

  2. We resist all forms of violence: sexual, physical, mental, emotional, verbal, ritual violence & abuse.

  3. Queer and Trans, Disabled, Black, Indigenous, and of Color survivors lead our organization and our liberation movement.

  4. We are a collective of multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-caste, intergenerational survivors that practice shared, horizontal leadership.

  5. We believe creativity is a powerful and dynamic tool of resistance and resilience that has the capacity to bring an end to sexual violence.

  6. We know that white supremacy, cis-hetero-patriarchy, colonialism, imperialism and dehumanization of all kinds is the root cause of sexual violence.

  7. We demand economic justice and claim abundance for survivors and artists.

  8. We recognize that survivors can have a history of surviving violence, and still experience structural privileges.

  9. We believe that when we break the silence on sexual violence and all of its insidious forms, we are more able to dream up a safer and freer world for ourselves and future generations.

  10. We build solidarity with other survivor-led organizations and liberation struggles to oppose all forms of violence & oppression. We utilize creative models of community organizing and action.

  11. We practice community-based, participatory models to collectively define solutions to eradicate sexual violence at its root.

  12. We practice an embodied sense of consent in all aspects of what we do, how we show up, and what we create.

  13. We believe our bodies carry knowledge that guides us to freedom.