Real Stories
“Te kai a te rangatira, he kōrero. Te tohu o te rangatira, he manaaki. Te mahi a te rangatira, he whakatira i te iwi.”
Manuhuia Bennett
“When a story is told or collected, silence is broken. This is no small thing. At its strongest, the act of naming the violence breaks an essential circuit in the cycle of violence.”
The story teller lives in an apartment building, and hears from neighbours about fights in an apartment where a couple and young child live. The storyteller worries that the woman is isolated and being harmed by her partner, and that the child is witnessing this. They decide to talk with their neighbours about what is happening and what they can do.
A woman talks to a worker at an immigrant rights centre about her employer trying to rape her at a party. She wants to confront him about what he did. They talk and role-play what might happen when she confronts him, how to make it safer for her, and whether she has people who can help. She confronts him at a restaurant, asking staff to keep an eye on them, and with a friend on call to support her.
When a highly respected drumming instructor invited from Korea sexually assaulted a woman at a Korean American cultural centre, the members of the organisation came together to respond. The storyteller was the president of the organisation at the time. She knows they “did the right thing”, but some friendships were lost.
Whenever she got upset or frustrated, the story teller’s partner took her emotions out on her. It was controlling and abusive. After years, she agreed to stop the abuse and take responsibility for managing her feelings in order to save the relationship. But she wouldn’t do the work that would restore trust.
Consider writing your story for yourself, your group or to share. We would love to hear your story if you are able to share it with us.
How does community accountability actually work?
What does it look like?
Your situation is different from every other situation. It can be hard to imagine anything working, or getting people to help, or even believe you. It can help to hear what other people have done.
Each of the stories below are examples of people stopping violence with community help—even when it seemed like there was no-one to help. They are all different. Some come from the person who was being hurt, some from people who helped, and one is from the person who was causing harm. There is audio of several stories, so you can listen to them. All of the stories contributed to this toolkit.
Most of these examples are from the US. We would love to add your story to this list to help people see things we can do to get safer, respond to and end violence.
The Story Telling and Organizing Project and the Living Bridges Project have more stories of people coming together to end violence.