Just Launched: Sanctuaries: In Yours, I Found Mine.
We are proud to share the launch of Sanctuaries: In Yours, I Found Mine. Sanctuaries features 20 stories from South Asian survivors and advocates.
In many ways, Sanctuaries has been a dream project. When we first started this work, we centered survivors in our mission through our name, SOAR: Survivors, Organizations, and Allies Rising. Since then, we've been dedicated to uplifting survivor voices—through our initial Survivor Storytelling Program and Woven Voices zine, and our Together We Rise and State of the Field reports. Our past reports illuminated the challenges and needs of South Asian survivors and organizations, but we knew a crucial component was missing: the power of storytelling to bring depth and context beyond the statistics.
Earlier this year, we called on our community to submit stories about gender-based violence, and you answered. Since then, we have hosted a 5-week Storytelling Academy in partnership with re: power, established survivor-centered storytelling principles with Shobana Powell Consulting, spent weeks providing one-on-one editing and coaching our storytellers, and designed the anthology in collaboration with Monica Mohapatra. Now, almost half a year later, we’ve created something truly revolutionary. Sanctuaries is a testament to survivor power, an ode to stories of resistance and healing, and a promise to survivors everywhere that we will create a different world.
Nearly half of the South Asian American diaspora experiences violence, yet this crisis remains shrouded in silence. Sanctuaries aims to break that silence—creating a space for survivor stories to be held with care and inspiring collective healing, solidarity, and action.
Sanctuaries is both an offering and an urgent invitation: to believe and stand with survivors, to cultivate healing, and to join the movement for a future free of violence. In these stories, we invite you to find your own.
Below, you can find more information on getting your own copy of the anthology, sharing the anthology, partnering or sharing your story, and donating to support the future of survivor storytelling.
READ, AMPLIFY, PARTNER
Where can I get my copy of Sanctuaries?
Sanctuaries is available digitally and in print at southasiansoar.org/sanctuaries.
Sanctuaries is available digitally for $25, as a softcover book for $75, and as a hardcover book for $150.
All purchases are tax-deductible donations, and all proceeds go towards supporting survivor storytelling work at SOAR. It remains a priority of ours to honor survivor storytellers’ time, labor, and resources. Your donation enables us to continue to support and compensate storytellers featured in this volume, and hopefully many more to come. It’s important to us that Sanctuaries is accessible to readers from every part of our communities. If cost is a limiting factor, please reach out to us at hello@southasiansoar.org.
How can I amplify Sanctuaries?
Use our Media Toolkit to access graphics, captions, and email templates to spread the word about Sanctuaries with friends, family, colleagues, and more.
How can I get more involved, partner, or share my story?
Are you interested in partnering with us to distribute the anthology, plan an event, create resources, or share your own story? Reply back to this email or fill out the form on our website to let us know what you have in mind, and we’ll be in touch!
SUPPORT SURVIVOR STORYTELLING
Your support helps ensure these stories are heard and that South Asian survivors receive the care they deserve. During the creation of Sanctuaries and beyond, it remains a priority for us to compensate storytellers for their labor, to support the individual and collective storytelling needs of our communities, and to distribute these stories with care and dignity. As one of our Sanctuaries storytellers shares,
“The container that was created and held by SOAR was beyond my expectations. I felt held with deep intentionality and truly cared for throughout the process…Literally every step of the process was designed with so much thoughtfulness and I am so deeply grateful for that. Writing this piece has been part of my healing journey and I am so very grateful to SOAR for the opportunity.”
- Raushan, Sanctuaries Storyteller & Survivor
Sanctuaries features a small portion of the many responses to our call for stories. To continue to support survivor storytellers and publish future volumes, we need your support!