#SolutionsSummit lifts up Fair Food Program as “promising practice to end sexual violence”!

Posted on by Coalition of Immokalee Workers

This past Tuesday, in an office nestled among the beautiful trees of San Francisco’s Presidio Park, nearly 100 workers, advocates, policymakers, and journalists gathered at the home of Futures without Violence, one of the nation’s leading voices in the movement to end violence against women and children, and a longtime CIW collaborator in the development of the Fair Food Program’s unique training curriculum on sexual harassment and domestic violence.  FWV was hosting its first-ever Solutions Summit, a daylong effort to examine and bolster “the solutions and promising practices that are helping to end sexual violence,” responding to the calls for change that have rung out loud and clear in the age of #MeToo and Time’s Up.

The conversation reverberated far beyond the walls of Futures without Violence.  The #SolutionsSummit trended far and wide across social media, offering a window for millions of observers into the many cutting-edge conversations happening during the summit, starting with the humbling opening remarks of survivor and activist Suzette Wright:

During one of the first workshops of the day, CIW’s Nely Rodriguez, alongside the ever-inspiring janitor worker leaders of SEIU USWW, led an “Action Lab” on survivor- and worker-led models for change, an interactive workshop designed to spur dialogue on how individuals, organizations, and communities can support the efforts of women and men directly affected by sexual violence:

All 100 participants gathered for a midday plenary, facilitated by Reveal’s Bernice Yeung, featuring the powerhouse team of Nely, the Fair Food Standards Council’s own Judge Laura Safer Espinoza, ROC United’s Saru Jayaraman, and chef and restaurant owner Erin Wade.  The plenary panel lifted up the Fair Food Program as a unique blueprint of enforcement-focused, worker-driven change built for low-wage industries:

While at the Summit, CIW and FFSC also had a chance to reunite most of the incredible team who, two years ago, put together U.S. agriculture’s first sexual harassment and domestic violence education curriculum.  We even got a photo (below), with the National Women’s Law Center’s Maya Raghu, FFSC’s Lindsay Adams, FWV’s Debbie Lee, CIW’s Marley Moynahan and Nely Rodriguez, FFSC’s Judge Laura Safer Espinoza and Sunripe Certified Brand’s Angel Garcia:

The Summit closed on a high note, channeling the inspiration of the day into a series of public commitments from the participating organizations, with each presenting its own game plan for combating sexual harassment and violence in the workplace over the next decade:

We want to extend our gratitude to Futures without Violence for organizing a much-needed gathering focused not only on what is broken, but on how we fix it.  And a special thanks goes out to all of our fellow presenters and participants, who bring their own drive and creativity to our common struggle to ensure dignity and justice for women in workplaces across the U.S. and the globe every day.  This week’s event was the beginning what is sure to be a long and fruitful conversation, and we’re honored to be a part of it!