It feels nearly impossible for workers to carry on business as usual when we are witnessing ongoing atrocities, experiencing grief within our families and communities, and worried about the consequences of speaking up.
As a consultancy rooted in values of equity and justice, Evenings & Weekends Consulting stands firmly in solidarity with Palestinian liberation and echoes calls for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the siege on Gaza, and an end to Canada’s complicity in the occupation.
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We see the need for a balance between the urgency of this crisis and the intentionality of solidarity-building. We have been drawing lessons from the institutionalization of equity in nonprofits without proper resourcing, and the rush towards issuing statements in the wake of the movement for Black lives in 2020 without tangible commitments towards change or action.
We see the movement for a Free Palestine as bound to broader movements for liberation from white supremacy, settler colonialism, and genocide in places such as Sudan, Congo, Haiti, and right here on Turtle Island. We understand this movement as deeply connected to Black feminist movements and anti-colonial struggles that hold a long history in the organizing spaces in which many of us have ties to.
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We also see the critical necessity of combatting how misinformation breeds bigotry—which is deeply impacting people in the nonprofit sector.
In our own backyards, we are horrified by a recent spike in anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic, and antisemitic violence and rhetoric. We are united in challenging all oppression rooted in white supremacy.
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Within the nonprofit sector, organizations have been conditioned to avoid political issues that may seem removed from their day-to-day operations, or that are perceived as too complicated to engage with.
With an end to the advocacy cap—which previously saw nonprofits restricted in their capacity to engage in political dialogue—and a genocide unraveling before our eyes, charities and nonprofits are now empowered to mobilize their communities in their support of human rights.
Evenings & Weekends clients such as Amnesty International, the UN Refugee Agency, and Save the Children have all called for a ceasefire, in alignment with their charitable purposes. Public policy work is a key tool that you can use to achieve your missions.
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For example, organizations can:
Recognize the need for wellness time for workers impacted by the ongoing crisis;
Allow space for political dialogue, education, and action in the workplace;
Protect the safety and job security of workers speaking out about Palestine;
Divest funding from organizations and businesses identified by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement to pressure Israel to comply with international law;
Educate donors and supporters about this issue and its connections to social, climate, disability, racial, economic, housing, sexual, gender, and other forms of justice.
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At Evenings & Weekends, we are:
Making paid personal days available to our staff who require time to process the grief of the present moment and the weight of its history.
Collating and sharing existing resources such as mutual aid, counselling, workshops, and fundraisers among our team members.
Pausing our operations at strategic moments, as we did on Thursday, November 9 as part of the Global Shutdown for Palestine, taking the opportunity to engage in learning and action around this issue.
Introducing three paid “Advancing Equity and Justice” days available to all members of the core team. These days are intended for participation in activities and organizing around advancing equity and justice outside of the work that we do together.
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To join the calls for an immediate ceasefire, we encourage you to sign the petition to the House of Commons in Parliament.