Having access to alternative forms of justice is a fundamental right of survivors and allows for true pathways to ending sexual violence.
Morgan Rumple-Whiting
She/Her/Hers
Morgan serves as the Director of Coordinated Response and Systems Change for the Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking, Inc. Morgan is a proud black, queer woman who takes her intersectional identities along with her experience being a survivor of sexual and interpersonal violence into the work and education she brings to others.
Sara Ogawa Heidbreder (小川 沙羅) MA, LCPC, BC-DMT
She/Her/Hers
Sara is a gender-based violence advocate, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, and dance-movement therapist originally from Japan. She has worked as a counselor and programs supervisor at a Chicago local domestic violence agency and currently is serving as a confidential survivor support advocate at the university setting. She has extensive experience and a special interest in working with the immigrant community. She utilizes a body-based, holistic, and multicultural approach to healing. She invites culture and identities into the healing space as they are often the source of resiliency.
Throughout her journey to becoming an advocate, Sara witnessed and experienced secondary trauma and burnout. She believes that compassionate, radical, and constructive support are essentials for all advocates to continue to serve, as many of them are survivors themselves.
Haleigh Rigger
She/Her/Hers
Haleigh is an advocate for social change in the anti-violence movement, with a particular passion for creating safer communities through connection, mutual aid and collective organizing, and accessibility. Haleigh’s framework for ending violence is anti-oppressive and anti-carceral and she strongly believes that we can end violence by first ending systemic oppression and meeting the needs of our communities. She has held various roles in nonprofits over the last decade focused on mental health and disability justice, housing access, and anti-violence. Haleigh holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Affairs from Indiana University, where she is now pursuing a Master of Social Work with a focus on Community and Organizational Leadership.
Anti-Violence Solidarity Circle
Founder’s Statement
We are frontline anti-violence social workers, advocates, community organizers, educators, changemakers, and survivors committed to ending gender-based violence. Often, we are caught working in a carceral system not created by or for survivors, in direct conflict with those we serve.
This is the reality we face: 1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Every 68 seconds, another American is sexually assaulted. One in five black women are survivors of rape. Almost half of all transgender people have been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. These rates are even higher for trans people of color and those who have done sex work, been homeless, or have (or had) a disability. Out of every 1000 sexual assaults, 975 perpetrators will walk free.
The current system does not prevent or end sexual violence. In fact, we see firsthand how the current system retraumatizes and exploits survivors by gatekeeping justice and healing.
This vicious cycle leaves us, many of us survivors, feeling deflated, burned out, and deeply saddened. It’s clear to those of us enmeshed in this dysfunctional system that to address the roots of violence, we must dismantle systemic oppression and all that gives it strength – racism, capitalism, cis-hetero-patriarchy, and ableism. We set out to co-create systems where survivors actively define what justice looks like for them – where there are alternatives to policing, where our beloved communities work with us to end violence, where our work is sustained, and where we may thrive.
We honor and uplift the wisdom and lived experience of BIPOC and LGBTQIA2S+ communities addressing harm, repairing relationships, and creating space for accountability.
Our Anti-Violence Solidarity Circle Mission:
- To address the challenges of working to end gender-based violence: secondary trauma, burnout, the constant triaging of survivors with little to no pathway for “justice”, and the lack of support within our institutions.
- To support advocates, as we explore alternatives to policing and justice while implementing structural reforms that address survivors’ needs in real-time.
We invite you to be a part of building this community of solidarity as we dismantle our current systems – rooted in white supremacist cis-hetero-patriarchy. We welcome your support in building alternatives created by and for survivors of gender-based violence. As current systems are maintained by our communities’ participation in and dependence on the status quo, it will take all of us to make the radical changes ahead.
Finally, in 1977, anti-rape activists wrote an open letter to the movement. Today, we echo their vision and answer their call to action.
“We are a political group that focuses on the issue of rape and violence against women, and that is working towards the long-range goal of a radical transformation of the very basis of our society. We do not believe that rape can end within the present capitalist, racist, and sexist structure of our society. The fight against rape must be waged simultaneously with the fight against all other forms of oppression.”
In solidarity,
Morgan, Louisville, and Indianapolis
Sara, Chicago
Haleigh, Indianapolis
Akane, Chicago
Take a minute to fill out this AVSC questionnaire and a member of our Solidarity Circle will reach out to connect with you.
Print + Save our AVSC Founders Statement
Print + Save the MAVSC Community Agreements
Internship Opportunities! Contact akane@survivorsknow.org for more information
