Day 4 settled in with that strange mix of ending and beginning at the same time. The room felt like a place where everyone was slowly putting down what they had been taught to carry, making space to learn again with intention. Unlearning isn’t dramatic; it is usually clumsy, sometimes uncomfortable, and very often the only way anything new can breathe. Dignity, choice, consent and pace sound lovely when spoken out loud, but the weight of them is only understood when a body actually feels them. PCVC showed that so clearly through "Nool", the thrift store where every survivor walks in with points and decides what to pick. Clothes, jewellery, utensils, shoes, toys. Things that are donated, yes, but never handed down as charity. A person chooses, touches, considers, rejects, and decides. It is not a “take what you get” moment. It is a small but powerful experience of agency, gently reminding that dignity grows in places where choice is not taken away. Inside the workshop, we tried to create glimpses of the same. Activities that looked simple at first but revealed how easily even well-meaning words can land as unsafe. The familiar habit of jumping in to correct someone’s thinking ,or telling a woman not to feel sad, angry or afraid because we want to reassure, all of that came up. It is unsettling to recognise that these responses often silence more than they soothe. If someone hears “don’t think like that” or “don’t feel like that,” the message becomes “your inner world is wrong,” even when the intention is care. That pattern is so normalised that most didn’t notice it until the exercises held up a mirror. By the end, the reflections were full of these tiny yet huge shifts — the sort that signal real unlearning. That felt like the actual win of the day. And being invited by every district for more sessions added a different kind of warmth, the kind that comes when people say, “come back, we want to continue this.” Four days. 14 districts. Met over 50 women front line workers from the department of police, social justice, law and more doing enormous work with very little rest. It is hard not to fall completely in admiration with them, their steadiness, their humour, their honesty, and the way they show up for strangers as if it is the most natural thing in the world. I wish they too didn't have to carry so much ! CCRRA and the team held all the moving parts, PCVC anchored the purpose, and the hope is simple: that no woman gets left behind, not in language, not in response, not in care, not in access. This is just the end of a workshop. But it is also the beginning of the conversations that actually matter.
