Coming into Allyship as a Lifelong Accountability and Relational Process

In this session, participants will be prompted to intentionally reflect on their own lived experiences as they consider how to shape their allyship practice. Facilitators will explore what it means to effectively practice allyship and introduce critical concepts of accompliceship. This includes the need to unpack the allyship industrial complex and share their own personal practices across the Canadian and global landscape. They will share their experiences in regards to showing up in solidarity for people and communities that they aspire to be allies for, including the times they have failed and how they moved through the experience with their own accountability practice.

Facilitators:

Christine Hsu (they/them)

Christine is a first generation immigrant settler invested in dismantling white supremacy culture and committed to facilitating relational healing work across communities with the goal for tenderness and exploration of what it looks/sounds/feels like to thrive. They are also a genderfluid queer woman of colour, living with invisible disability, which heavily informs their intersectional and trauma-informed approach to the work they do.

They are an experienced coach, facilitator/trainer, and advocate for social change through social justice liberation work across all contexts and levels, from grassroots community spaces to working in EDI spaces in the non-profit sector, healthcare, education (including higher education), and corporate sectors. Their work in higher education range from facilitating student academic, student life and residence programming to working to support student's and staff's well being on campus, including human rights and sexual violence prevention and support education. The student programming includes programming for 2SLGBTQIA+ students across intersections of identities, and empowering student leaders and student staff to engage in equity-centred initiatives and EDI education.

Christine's subject matter expertise range from EDI & human rights to adult learning and organizational development, and specifically anti-racism and trans and nonbinary inclusion in sports. They are an Ontario certified educator and conflict mediator with a Bachelor of Physical & Health Education from University of Toronto, a Bachelor of Education from Ontario Institute of Studies In Education, and an Adult Education Certificate from St. Francis Xavier University.

Christine is a managing partner and principal consultant of an Equity, Diversity & Inclusion consulting firm called Challenge Accepted. They work as a facilitator, coach, trainer, and consultant for many organizations, including Canadian Women & Sport, Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and Sheena's Place (specifically facilitating the exercise support group, BIPOC, and trans, nonbinary & questioning support groups).

Jessie Florio (she/her + they/them pronouns)

Jessie has over twenty years experience working in the field of health equity and community-rooted health promotion, both across Turtle Island and Canada , and globally. As a Registered Nurse with expanded practice designations in Community and Public Health, Jessie has worked in leadership roles across many sectors of healthcare, including urban and rural health centres, with local and international NGOs and humanitarian organizations, and with all levels of government. Jessie’s work is grounded in the relational frameworks of intersectionality and access, rooted in trauma-informed care, community agency, and focused on tackling the walls of whiteness that gatekeep healthcare. Jessie works in vaccine-equity and harm-reduction outreach with systemically vulerabilized communities, in partnership with those experiencing houselessness, queer/trans youth, sex workers, folks using drugs, refugees and newcomers, and those with disabilities. She has worked in health promotion partnership with Indigenous communities in Tkaronto, the Canadian Arctic, southern Africa, and South East Asia, and in healthcare mentorship with women in rural Afghanistan.

As a queer gender fluid, multi-ethnic individual with chronic illness, Jessie’s personal identities shape the way they see and experience community, social, and healthcare supports. They have a deep appreciation for the impact that the social determinants of health and the ongoing legacy of colonization and white supremacy have on shaping our understanding of wellness, and how this can impact our perception of and engagement with community care. Jessie advocates for the open acknowledgement that healthcare systems are founded on white supremacy, which purposefully and actively uphold colonial structures and concepts of health and wellness. Jessie uses her own experience of white privilege to engage other white and white presenting folks on the topic of allyship; she uses herself as an example of leaning into the discomfort of making mistakes, owning up to white exceptionalism, taking action-based accountability, and understanding the difference between allyship and accompliceship.