Interconnectedness Initiative year in review, 2025-2026

Thanks to the ongoing support of the Victoria Foundation, Phase IV of VCST’s Interconnectedness Initiative (I.I.) was launched in September 2025 and came to a successful completion in July 2026. For the second year in a row, Álvaro Moreno (Project Manager) and Melinda Quintero (Project Manager) led phases III and IV of the Interconnectedness Initiative. 

During this year, we implemented strategies outlined in VCST’s research from previous phases of the I.I., while expanding VCST’s framework and methodology and role as a sector organizer. Due to this strengthened position in the Vancouver Island non-profit sector, VCST can take a more active role in leading projects co-created with survivors and our community partners. 

This capacity building for VCST is made possible because of the Victoria Foundation’s funding for the I.I. 

Land acknowledgement

The Victoria Coalition for Survivors of Torture (VCST) is a volunteer-run non-profit organization that operates predominantly from the unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking People, today known as the Songhees and  Xʷsépsəm (Esquimalt) First Nations, and the W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations (the W̱SÍ,ḴEM, W̱JOȽEȽP, SȾÁUTW̱, and BOḰEĆEN nations). Our board members contribute to VCST from across the land we now call Canada, including the Leey’qsun First Nation of the Quw’utsun Nation, the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation and the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territories. We come from many cultures and backgrounds, from North and Central America, Europe, Africa, and West Asia. 

As an organization concerned about torture throughout the world, we recognize that torture is deeply connected to the brutality of colonization. Torture is one of many colonial tools used to dispossess the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking Peoples, W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples, and all the Indigenous Peoples of this nation from their lands, languages and cultures, along with the Indian Hospitals, Residential Schools and the Indian Act of 1876. Many newcomer survivors of torture living in our communities also come from countries that have experienced colonization. 

By acknowledging land and territory, we commit to understanding the unmeasurable ways that colonization shows up in our daily lives and in the communities we serve. We honour the Songhees and Xʷsépsəm First Nations, the nations of the W̱SÁNEĆ, and all the nations where we do our work, as these Nations have directly experienced colonization – both past and present – on these lands where we now have the privilege to reside.

Community reach 

Our executive board gained two new members. 

We welcomed Mark Welch, a retired nurse who has worked in the UK, Australia, and Canada, primarily in mental health teaching, research and service development. He has undergraduate degrees in Political Sociology and Nursing, and post-graduate qualifications in nursing. He has worked with the WHO in Copenhagen and directly with refugee populations in Thailand and Palestine. 

The second new board member is Alejandra Lara-Espinosa, who is the Local Immigration Partnership (LIP) Coordinator at Cowichan Intercultural Society and also coordinates the organization’s Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH) program. Through her work with the LIP initiative, Alejandra collaborates with local governments, service providers, and community organizations across the Cowichan Valley to strengthen newcomer integration and community planning.

We also welcomed Daqo Abdulle as our volunteer research coordinator. Daqo’s greatest passion is in communication and capacity-building, particularly through delivering training, leading workshops, and engaging with individuals. She has experience in facilitating a variety of sessions for diverse audiences, finding the work to be both meaningful and impactful. She also has valuable experience in writing and research.

This year, we hosted three online events for our member organizations and community partners. Our events were well-received, with 55 representatives from 25 different community organizations attending.

New contacts for the Interconnectedness Initiative are: Kristopher Yeo of the Saanich Police; Nicole Kief of Prisoners’ Legal Services; Alejandra Resendiz Serrano and Raquel Romero Cruz, Multicultural Support Workers with School District 62; Gagan Leekha, of the UVic Multifaith Centre; Sharmarke Dubow, former Victoria City Council member; Elie Kozma, Person and Family Engagement Consultant with Island Health; Shane Calder, of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition; and Tamara Humphrey, director of the University of Victoria Social Justice Studies program. 

We developed a connection with Renu Bawa of the Victoria Child Abuse Prevention and Counselling Centre, with ideas for future collaborations; Renu also participated in our events throughout the year. 

Our list of contacts increased to 60 people, representing 26 organizations. We maintained our focus among partner organizations in Greater Victoria, but we also welcomed new service providers operating elsewhere on Vancouver Island. Their experience working with survivors of torture and systemic trauma in their communities proved to be a valuable learning opportunity for our partners in Greater Victoria.

We anticipate closer activities with these and other community organizations, to raise awareness about the presence of torture and trauma survivors in our community, and serve as an organizational resource to support them when they come across survivors of torture and their families among their service base. 

Expanding reach

VCST did much work this year in expanding our reach to include more communities of survivors. We did this in several key ways.

• We collaborated with Prisoners’ Legal Services to learn how torture is still in use in Canada’s prisons, thereby expanding our definition of survivor communities to include Canadian-born survivors of torture. Together, we presented at the VAST Symposium (see here) to raise awareness that torture still happens in Canada today and is not only experienced in other countries.
• We continued to emphasize that Indigenous Peoples’ experience of colonization – such as residential schools – is torture, by sharing and explaining our land acknowledgement in our knowledge sharing events.
• We included more content in our workshop “Understanding Torture” about the UN definition of torture and advocating that it needs to be revised to include systemic violence.
• We shifted our language to include “survivors of systemic violence” and “survivors of systemic trauma” when we describe our work in print, online, and in person.  
• We engaged in decolonizing our language by taking feedback about using the word “stakeholder” (see here), publicly sharing our reflections and learning, and leading a new knowledge-sharing workshop (“Decolonizing our Language”) to share this learning with our member organizations.

Deliverables

The following is a summary of the activities completed for each deliverable during this period. 

1: Continuation of the Interconnectedness Initiative to develop a collective strategy to prevent the re-traumatization of survivors that occurs in the community

Goal: To spread awareness of the global and systemic nature of torture and support member organizations which may experience a knowledge and skills gap for working with survivors. 

Country profiles & background reports

• Wrote and published six Country Profiles about the countries of origin of many immigrants and refugees that engage with our member organizations. 
• These profiles provide a brief overview of a country’s demographics, political situation, and contemporary history of conflict and migration, including human rights abuses. The profiles are intended for anyone who works with newcomers to help infer potential cases of torture or exposure to political violence among newcomer clients.
• All profiles were published by April 2026, with progressive updates completed throughout early 2026: India, Iran, Mexico, Syria, Ukraine, and Sudan.
• Profiles were released to partner organizations via ListServe and LinkedIn as they were completed.
• Similarly, we published a short background report about drug trafficking and substance use among refugees. This paper was initially developed in the previous phase of the I.I. in support of a case conference. It was revamped to provide a general overview of issues within drug trafficking and substance use that affect immigrants and refugees. 

Decolonizing our language workshop

• We designed a new workshop called “Decolonizing Our Language”. This presentation was born of conversations with Dr. Nancy Clark, an esteemed University of Victoria healthcare researcher with whom we frequently collaborate. She encouraged us to stop using the word “stakeholder” to describe Interconnectedness Initiative member organizations and in our advocacy work because of its connection to colonization. 
• After publishing a website article on the topic, we developed a workshop to encourage other organizations to remove the term “stakeholder” from their vocabulary.
• In early 2026, we presented this workshop twice to the Greater Victoria Local Immigrant Partnership (GVLIP), reaching over 40 representatives from local government, the private sector, and community organizations. 
• We received direct feedback from an IRCC officer and a UVic professor that they took their learning from our decolonizing language workshop back to their organizations to share. 
• Read more about our workshop here. 

VAST Symposium

• In March 2026, Project Manager Melinda Quintero presented at the Vancouver Association for Survivors for Torture (VAST) Annual Symposium in collaboration with Nicole Kief, executive director of Prisoners’ Legal Services (PLS). 
• This presentation aimed to raise awareness of torture being used in Canada’s prisons. Frequently, discussions about survivors in our communities focus on immigrants and refugees. Nicole and Prisoners’ Legal Services (PLS) work to raise awareness that many people incarcerated in Canada’s prisons are experiencing torture via ongoing use of solitary confinement. As Indigenous People are over-represented in the prison population, this form of torture has a huge impact on Indigenous communities. 
• This presentation emphasized that Canada is not complying with the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT) nor signed the Optional Protocol to the CAT (OPCAT). 
• Our presentation was to approximately 50 attendees (in-person and online), with an active question and answer period. Afterward, one person shared with Melinda her shock at the prison conditions shared by PLS, saying they appeared worse than the conditions she lived in while incarcerated in Iran. 
• Nicole Kief of Prisoners’ Legal Services presenting at VAST Symposium.

 Communications

• We maintained our ListServe, where resources are shared on a monthly basis with project partners and contacts. We currently have 38 people on the ListServe.
• Our mailing list grew to 60 members, compared to 54 reported in June 2025.
• Our social media work is ongoing, with posting to Facebook (which has 250 followers) and LinkedIn, plus posting reports and information about our events to our website. Combined with person-to-person connections, these channels are VCST’s primary way to communicate with our member organizations, promote our events, and disseminate knowledge in our community.

2: Organize regular case conferences with the project member organizations when requested

This will be based on complex and specific cases that member organizations bring to us to centralize the needs of survivors, avoiding duplication of services and pooling our expertise. We projected at least quarterly case conferencing meetings.

Over the course of the year, after consulting with our close members, we pivoted from offering case conferences to offering general knowledge-sharing opportunities instead. 

ICA-DVUPCC Seminar

• In November 2025, we hosted a professional development seminar with the Inter-Cultural Association (ICA) and the Downtown Urgent and Primary Care Centre (DVUPCC). 
• This unprecedented event showcased the work of these two organizations to provide trauma-informed and culturally safe healthcare to newcomers. This seminar demonstrated a successful local model for cross-sector collaboration to improve health outcomes for newcomers. 
• This event came from our own participatory action research, which found that sometimes survivors do not receive the health and mental wellness care they need because of systemic gaps between settlement agencies and healthcare providers. 
• This event is a part of the strategy to promote service accessibility for survivors and their families developed in the Interconnectedness Initiative Research Report (2025) from Phase III: “Develop a Coordinated Referral Process among service agencies to minimize the retraumatization of survivors by reducing the need to repeatedly share their experiences.”
• 20 people from across Vancouver Island’s settlement and service sector agencies attended, facilitating multiple connections between these agencies and Island Health. 
• We published a recap report about the seminar to make the learning more accessible to our community.

A Conversation with Dr. Nancy Clarke and Alejandro Argüelles Bullón

• In February 2026, we hosted an online conversation with Dr. Nancy Clark, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Health, Nursing, University of Victoria, and Alejandro Argüelles Bullón, mental health researcher from Lancaster University (UK). 
• This was an opportunity for Nancy and Alejandro to present their ongoing research about integrated mental healthcare for refugees. Their research applies a realist approach to improving refugees’ access to mental healthcare in Canada by attempting to define and close service gaps. The conversation focused on identifying systemic barriers to access to care for refugees and survivors of torture.
• We welcomed 20 attendees (representing 5 organizations) to this interactive and collaborative conversation. 

VAST Dialogue

• In April 2026, we hosted a dialogue through the Vancouver Association of Survivors of Torture (VAST)’s project “Building Resilience and Understanding Against Hate”. Our session was one of several thoughtful and informal conversations on belonging, racism, and collective action that took place throughout the Lower Mainland with funding from Canadian Heritage. 
• VCST held a 90-minute online dialogue with 15 attendees from the public sector in Victoria and Vancouver Island, with representatives from local police and victim services, local government, a local school district, the settlement sector, counselling, and mental health services. 
• Before the session, we asked participants via email to answer the question “What is the root of hate?” We created and shared a word cloud (seen here) of their responses. 
• During this session, the group discussed the root cause of hate, exploring concepts such as privilege, behaviour as communication, inter-generational trauma, and how cultures can perpetuate hate. Participants also shared ideas on how to promote a greater sense of belonging among newcomer communities, building connections across newcomer cultures and with Indigenous communities. 
• We published an article about the experience and recommendations that emerged on our website.

3: Training to understand the complex barriers faced by Survivors of Torture across their settlement journey

Continue to offer the “Understanding Torture” workshop; conduct further research to understand which agencies are including worker well-being in their organizational models as a matter of course, while developing resources about re-traumatization and burnout for case managers and frontline staff. 

Understanding Torture Workshop

• We continued to update our workshop “Understanding Torture”, developed during the Interconnectedness Initiative Phase III.
• We presented this workshop four times: to the Gender Based Violence Community Dialogue group (10 participants) in November 2025, twice to separate committees of the GVLIP in December 2025 and February 2026 (about 20 participants), and to the SD62 English Language Learners Teachers in January 2026, with 20 attendees.  

Burnout & vicarious trauma research

• In phases II and III of the Interconnectedness Initiative, our partner organizations expressed a need for support with vicarious trauma (VT) and burnout (BO) among their staff. As part of a long-term strategy to address this need, building off a VT and BO seminar we presented in phase III, Álvaro conducted interviews with senior managers from five organizations that provide services to immigrants and refugees on Vancouver Island in March 2026. 
• The objective of these interviews was to understand how immigrant and refugee service providers in our region are addressing VT and BO among their staff and at an organizational level, and to develop a set of findings and recommendations that can help organizations address VT and BO from an organizational development perspective.
• We published a preliminary report about these findings in June. This report will be the foundation of a seminar or workshop in Phase V of the Interconnectedness Initiative.

Royal Roads University Changemaking Workshop

• VCST’s workshop proposal for the Royal Roads University’s inaugural Changemaking Series was accepted. This is a brand new VCST workshop called “The Living Experience of Trauma Survivors in Our Community: Role-Playing Systemic Barriers to Build Coalitions”. This in-person workshop represents a significant move to expand VCST’s capacity to support survivors by raising awareness within a community we have not connected with before. Presenting to the Royal Roads University community and their partners significantly expands our reach. 
• In this workshop, Álvaro and Melinda will lead participants in an experiential role-play to build empathy about the systemic barriers survivors of trauma and torture may experience in accessing community services. This participatory workshop will demonstrate why intersectional, trauma-informed perspectives are essential for building strong, equitable communities. 
• The workshop will showcase VCST’s coalition-building strategies grown in the Interconnectedness Initiative that strengthen cross-sector connections and empower attendees with tools to use within their own organizations and communities.
• The workshop is expected to take place within Phase V of the I.I. 

4: Other ongoing collective activities that increase VCST’s visibility 

• Álvaro has been attending the quarterly meetings of the Canadian Network for Survivors of Torture and Trauma (CNSTT) to share our project activities and promote advocacy and research at the national level.
• Álvaro has also been attending the Greater Victoria Local Immigration Partnership (GVLIP), to maintain networking activities in the health and inclusion committees and the Community Equity Sector Table to promote our project activities and share our project reports.
• Both Álvaro and Melinda have been attending meetings with the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Community Dialogue, a circle of community organizations concerned with supporting survivors of GBV run by the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre (VSAC).
• In May 2026, Álvaro completed a grant participation agreement form to collaborate with Dr. Nancy Clark (of UVic) on a CIHR Catalyst Grant proposal (“AIM – Actioning Integration for Mental Health: Co-Designing an Equitable Model for Refugees using Human Centered Design”) on health outcomes for refugees as “knowledge holders”. 
• In spring 2026, in coordination with author Ezat Mossalanejad, from the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture (CCVT), we began planning for a book launch for Sexual Orientation and Torture: A Global Struggle for Justice.  We are developing a collaborative event with the Camas Info Shop, possibly for the fall or winter of 2026. In anticipation of this, Álvaro and Melinda attended a similar book launch presented by Camas for the book Pizza Before We Die, an eyewitness account of the genocide in Palestine.
• Also in spring 2026, Melinda began preliminary discussions with the filmmakers of Being Michelle, to explore the possibility of hosting a screening for our community partners. This documentary shares the harrowing story of Michelle, a deaf and autistic woman who survived brutal and torturous incarceration in the US. Her story of resilience speaks to the healing power of community, individualized support, and art therapy. We are collaborating with Prisoners’ Legal Services to bring this film to Victoria and Vancouver Island.
• Throughout the year, we progressively updated and reorganized VCST.ca to improve access to our growing collection of reports and resources. Melinda received basic training for website maintenance from our tech partner, Pink Sheep Media; this capacity building allows for faster and more agile website updates to keep connected to our partner organizations.  

Looking to 2026-2027

The Victoria Foundation approved funding for Phase V of the Interconnectedness Initiative. Thanks to this essential funding, we can continue our networking and knowledge-sharing work in support of survivors and their families within our communities. Thank you to the Victoria Foundation for their continued support and trust in our work. 

In Phase V, we anticipate delivering our new RRU coalition-building workshop, participating in the VAST symposium, expanding our country profiles, and developing more case conferencing and knowledge-sharing events. We will also be expanding on organizational development strategies for partner organizations about vicarious trauma and burnout from research conducted in Phase IV. We are excited to branch out to host the book launch and film screening. This phase will solidify our relationships with our partner organizations while also expanding our support to service providers in the greater community.  

Thanks to the strong relationships built by VCST through the Interconnectedness Initiative, VCST is honoured to lead a 3-year grant from Canadian Heritage, in coordination with VICCIR and VAST, to promote circles of dialogue against hate in our community. In partnership with VCST and VICCIR, we have also received a grant from New Horizons for Seniors to document the experiences of older immigrant adults living in Victoria, in overcoming violence and trauma in their lives. Together, these grants will take VCST to the next level of collaborating directly with survivors and their families, in developing their own strategies for community growth and organizational development.

We look forward to continuing with our work in this next phase, thanks to the ongoing funding from the Victoria Foundation.