Priorities & Projects

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Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project

This project was completed on March 31, 2024. The resources developed during the project remains available on this page. To learn more about the results of the AOP Capacity Building Project, please read our final report here: SRDC Project Evaluation Report.

For a graphic summary of the project and its results please see our Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project info sheet.

About the Project

The Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project is a research initiative that investigates the improvement of the services offered to immigrants and newcomers in the settlement sector when services are offered through an anti-oppressive lens. It aims to assess the existing level of understanding of oppression in the settlement sector and build capacity by offering training and coaching on anti-oppressive practice to see how it affects the quality of the services offered.

Developing an anti-oppressive lens in our practices is becoming more of a necessity every day. More and more people are on a quest to raise their awareness and understanding of how privilege and power manifest in society. While the concept of anti-oppression is prevalent in social education, research, policy, and frontline practice, it is relatively new in the settlement sector (DeCoito & Williams, 2000).

The Training

On this project, the Tri-Cities Local Immigration Partnership is offering the Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Training to strengthen service providers’ awareness, knowledge, and skills to apply anti-oppressive approaches to service delivery in the settlement sector. Sessions are open to service providers across all organizational levels in Metro Vancouver and BC.

Participants will commit to attending three workshops and two group coaching sessions and have the opportunity to participate in individual coaching sessions with the Centre for Anti-Oppressive Communication. The commitment within the cohort will be for approximately three months. Participants will receive a certificate of attendance upon attending all workshops.

The Research

The Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project also involves a research component that will be carried out by Social Research & Demo Corporation (SRDC). The project aims to assess the achievement of the following:

Settlement Organizations have an increased awareness of oppression manifested in settlement and integration policies and practices.
Settlement Organizations have an increased awareness of oppression manifested in settlement and integration policies and practices. Newcomers’ level of satisfaction and their settlement outcomes are benefited from an anti-oppression approach to service delivery.
Partners deliver responsive and coordinated settlement and community services.

This project is funded by the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), and is a partnership between TCLIP, the Centre for Anti-Oppressive Communication, the Social Research & Demonstration Corporation (SRDC), and the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research (SIETAR).

Tools and Resources

Trauma-Informed Practices In Your Role

Anti-Oppression In Program Design

Approches tenant compte des traumatismes dans votre rôle

Anti-oppression dans la conception du programme

Join the Conversation

About anti-oppression:
Anti-oppression is a lens through which to look at the world. It’s a way to analyze how certain newcomers’ identities are disrespected, discriminated against, marginalized, targeted, and oppressed. There are many identities that people are marginalized along: it could be race, gender, gender identity, class, citizenship status, religion, etc. Anti-oppression looks at how resources get denied to certain communities based on what is considered a dominant or desirable identity.

Anti-oppression also studies how oppression happens to different newcomer communities, and the history of why certain groups have been marginalized, oppressed, and targeted by formal systems and programs. It also tries to understand, through the use of different stories, the ways people have been thinking about those different groups; and why entire communities are denied resources based on their membership in certain identity groups.

About the tool:
This tool was inspired by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. It is an invitation for you to reflect on and to apply actions that can support your anti-oppression journey while bringing others with you to Join the Conversation.

Join the Conversation tool invites people to share what they stand by, get inspired by, and believe in. These amplified voices can be taken to the broader community and can encourage the practice of allyship.

“Allyship is not an identity—it is a lifelong process of building relationships based on trust, consistency, and accountability with marginalized individuals and/or groups of people”. People who show allyship to immigrants and refugees stand by them to help change the systems that discriminate and oppress newcomers.

Who is this tool for:
This tool was originally designed for the settlement sector as part of the Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project. It can be adapted and used to engage teams, leaders, clients, families and others about anti-oppression, in group or one-to-one settings.

How to use it:
Engage the people around you by sharing the prompts on the back of the cards and encouraging them to come up with their own answers to each of the questions.

You can invite the group to discuss answers and share their own perspectives. You are welcome to add questions and prompts that are relevant to the circumstances and professional/lived experiences of the group you are with.

Join the conversation!

Caring Spaces Guide
Foster compassion and understanding when starting a dialogue. This tool provides recommendations on how to create spaces that promote empathy and equity. As an experienced facilitator, Luna Aixin (they/them) shares their experience and knowledge on engaging diverse perspectives and facilitating difficult conversations.

Starting a dialogue, please see the Caring Spaces Guide to support you in fostering compassion and understanding.

Guide for English Language Instructors
This is a workbook for English language teachers on using Anti-oppressive practices, principles, and concepts to enhance learning experiences for students. The five modules featured in this course aim to support teachers to have a robust understanding of how anti-racism oppressive practices elevate the quality of education in inclusive, equitable, and non-oppressive ways.

Interested in applying an Anti-Oppressive Practices (AOP) lens in language teaching? Open or download our Creating Inclusive Spaces guide here.

Resilience Blanket
The Resilience Blanket is a collective story of strength and the power of community. Through the Anti-Oppression Capacity Building Project, service providers learned about the power of strengthening confidence, empathy and community to implement an anti-oppression framework in service delivery. The Resilience Blanket can be used by service providers as a tool to promote dialogue on resilience and empowering newcomers in sharing their stories. The tool uses strengths-based and culturally appropriate approaches to foster intercultural connections. The tool includes stories, artwork and reflection questions that can be used individually and collectively in programs and services.

We encourage you to take the time to explore the stories, artwork and reflections on resilience represented in this interactive blanket.