If you or someone you know experiences sexual assault, what will you do?

What resources are available to you? Who do you talk to about it? How do you continue living a “normal” life?

Survivor Alliance is here to help you with all of those questions and more.

About Us

Hello, we’re Drusilla Cowan and Asehli Howe, creators of Survivor Alliance. We’re two young women, with weirdly similar lives (and looks), who recently bonded over our distaste for rape culture and our *sometimes awkward* attempts at lightening up conversations around it.

After our own assaults, and years spent healing, we realized that the journey to recovery is a life-long rollercoaster. Even though crazy rides are most fun with friends, we didn’t know who to turn to or how to bring it up - it’s not really good party talk..or dinner talk..or bedroom talk...

Through breaking the silence and sharing our stories, we found a supportive community that led us to a wider range of resources and self-care methods, making healing easier. But it took us years, and the privilege of living in the Bay Area, to get here.

We believe all survivors should be able to easily access these tools and communities, regardless of location or accessibility. This is why we’ve teamed up to create Survivor Alliance.

The Problem

Sexual assault is a silent global epidemic with many consequences for those who experience it, and for society as well.

The silencing of survivors prevents many from accessing the support they need, and it keeps others from sharing their stories as well, perpetuating the cycle of sexual violence.

Our Solution

We’re changing the way survivors find and access what they need. For us, it’s not about creating new resources or products; it’s about bringing together all that already exists but might be hard to find.  Here’s how:

1. Support System

Being survivor-centered means that we empower survivors to identify their needs and present them with options that they feel comfortable with. Rather than telling them what they should do, we encourage survivors to choose their own healing path. Within our Support System is a wide array of partners that survivors can choose to work with.

With the help of this campaign, the Support System will be freely available for survivors and allies by the end of 2017. We already have some informational resources on our site and 10 partners on board, but we hope to grow this list to include a wider range of resources before releasing to the public. With time, our goal is to make this the go-to resource for all a survivor might need.

Think you might be interested in becoming a Support System partner?  Read more about it here. Then read through to the "How you can support" section below.

2. The Alliance

The Alliance is a new way for survivors to support one another. Survivors can connect online via forums or direct messages. They can ask questions to the community, or form small groups that meet locally for dinner, craft nights, or sunny days in the park. It's about more than dealing with sexual assault. The Alliance is about celebrating love, loss, and life in a safe community that gets it. The survivor community is coming in early 2018, with the hopes of creating an Alliance for allies down the line as well.

3. Self Care Kit

Healing from sexual assault is a lifelong process, and not all of us can afford or access professional support the entire time. We all heal and feel better when we’re taking care of ourselves. But between feelings of guilt and shame, or lack of time and energy, making time for self-care can be stressful. It doesn’t have to be.

Our Survivor Self-Care Kit delivers essentials to your door, so you don’t have to worry about life getting in the way of taking care of yourself. Each month you’ll receive multiple self-care items (such as journals, candles, mugs, body products, etc.), a diy project,  a zine, a monthly meditation/affirmation card, and access to our online community (once it goes live in 2018)!

To top it all off, the kit’s packaging is a self-care item as well! All of this will be inside an incredibly designed box by coloring page artists that we want you to fill  in (think Lisa Frank minus the fuzzy parts).

We not only want you to feel the love from receiving these goodies, we want to share it with the community. That’s why, all the items inside and the design on the outside will be sourced from small businesses run by fellow survivors or other persons from marginally oppressed groups.

We want all Survivors, regardless of socioeconomic status, to be able to receive these self-care goodies. That’s why, each month we are donating at least 10% of boxes delivered to survivors in need who apply for our low-income waiver (more details coming soon!). Help us to make self-care accessible for everyone by purchasing  a self-care kit at the regular price for yourself or to donate to a Survivor in need.This enables us to subsidize costs for those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford one.

Between these partnerships, the online community, and the self-care kit (whose contents are largely sourced from the artists & makers in the Support System), we hope survivors can work through the trauma and immerse themselves in activities that bring them joy.

How You Can Support Our Campaign

With all that said, we can’t do this on our own. We need to raise awareness and funds, as the costs to create the subscription box and to get the platform scalable are high. Your donations help us make it happen.

There are a bunch of Survivor Alliance goodies you can get with a donation. From the subscription box to a trip for two to the Bay Area, we have a ton of options to check out. Those who want to pre-order a 6 or 12 month bundle for 2018 (and receive a discount!), there's a reward option to donate for that. If you’re not ready for that kind of commitment, we’ve also got a limited edition holiday box with 2x the goodies. Other donations can you get a t-shirt, pin, or sticker, which we hope will be used to continue raising awareness about sexual assault and its consequences. With all these rewards, you can choose to keep them for yourself or to donate to a survivor you know (or maybe one you don’t). Once the campaign closes, we'll send an email to confirm where we're sending the box, so you can gift it or keep it for yourself. Each item purchased spreads the love to you, survivors, and the community. 

If none of the goodies appeal to you, but you still want to donate, you can do that too! It’s the first donation option.

If you think your work or art is a good fit for our Support System, join us through this campaign. Donate through the “Partner with us!” reward option to have your products or services included in our directory. To thank you for getting onboard early, the $20/month fee will be waived through 2018 for those who contribute only $50 now. Once we’ve finished revamping our onboarding process (using the funds from this campaign), you’ll receive a link to complete your partnership profile, which will allow you to list products, services, events, or blogs of your own in the Support System network. More info about partnership can be found here. 

Whether you donate or not, we hope you’ll spread the word to everyone you know. Start talking about sexual assault and how it has impacted your life and community. Direct others to this campaign. We’ve even made it easy. Check out this Google doc for blurbs that you can cut and paste.

To stay informed with about what we’re up to and receive our weekly newsletter on healing, allyship, and self-care, sign up for our email list. Find ways to get involved, share your wisdom, or win free stuff by signing up at the bottom of this page.

Wowow, thank you so much for supporting survivors,

Dru and Asehli