This document is part of our commitment to radical transparency and openness. We’re very proud of the organisation we have built and the community and culture we continue to nurture.

We understand that though many would love to work with us on our mission, our ways of working and structure, may not work for all. This document should help you assess whether we would be a good fit for each other. Please read this and give it some thought before applying to work with us.

Mission

To use the power of technology to help survivors of gender-based violence heal, irrespective of language, geography, or culture, by:

1)  Empowering survivors with the information and understanding they need to thrive. Where there is trauma, there is room for healing – and we believe that every survivor deserves to heal. We want survivors to be informed, empowered, and connected, no matter who they are or where they are from, by providing services and resources to help them directly and by partnering with other organisations who are well-placed to help us do the same. We identify gaps in the vital information and support that exists online and find creative ways to fill it for groups that need it most.

2) Working with survivors to design tools and resources that not only help them, but also systematically challenge patriarchal structures that enable abuse.

We believe that to end gender-based violence, those who have experienced it must be at the forefront of change at a community and global level. That’s why we “design with, not for”.  We are committed to providing our volunteers, most of whom are survivors, with leadership opportunities in all our projects.

3) Advocating for trauma-informed approaches to product design and tech development that prevent harm.

We believe that to create a feminist future, we must radically change how technology and the internet are used, designed, and governed. That’s why we demonstrate how technology can be used to promote healing instead of harm, and we support others in adopting trauma-informed approaches to technology design and development.

How we work

Chayn is committed to leading with care and clarity. We’ve come up with two frameworks, which guide not just what we do, but how we do it. These are the organisation values and our trauma-informed design principles.

Values

Our trauma-informed approach to wellbeing and people management relies on individual and collective commitment to these values, which we incorporate in our work. These values outline how our community must treat each other in order for it to thrive.

We recommend you read these and think deeply whether you will be able to operate by these values, and if you agree with them. If you do not, then Chayn might not be a good place for you to thrive and it may act as a barrier for others to thrive in your presence too.

Examples:

• Many of our volunteers, staff, trustees, contractors and volunteers are survivors.
• We invest time in training each other and providing peer support.
• We practice collective care by hosting sessions on wellbeing 1 to 1 and through group sessions.
• We won’t work with perpetrators of abuse but we acknowledge it’s important work being done by many peers in the sector. | We really value survivor leadership and have always been survivor-led. However, survivors, like any other group of people, are not a monolith. We will not be a good place for all survivors because of the way we run or the projects we do.

Examples:

• All of our work is about gender-based violence, and if working with survivors or content related to it will be triggering, it will not be something we can accommodate. We do have measures in place to reduce re-traumatisation or mitigate when it happens, but the chance of re-traumatisation is impossible to eliminate due to the individual nature of trauma.
• As a small tight-knit team with a mighty mission, all of our work is interconnected and while we can relax timelines and deadlines if an employee or contractor’s health is affected, we need to be able to rely on our colleagues to do their work so it doesn’t create a knock-on effect on others. If you find working with deadlines or working with others stressful, working at Chayn might not be the best move.
• Chayn is survivor-led when it comes to many aspects of our work including content, design, and leaderships but it’s not possible or required to be survivor-led for all aspects of our work (e.g finance, administration). In those instances, these values and our trauma-informed design principles guide us to be survivor-centred. | | Trauma-informed We minimise re-traumatisation in our survivor-facing work and within the team, by following our trauma-informed design principles and through continuous training, team support, and making room for recovery through rest and change.

Examples:

• We will do everything we can to minimise the risk of re-traumatisation or vicarious trauma for Chayn Personnel but there may be times when we cannot find a solution to minimise the effect, existing well being measures are not effective, and alternative work for the person is not available at Chayn. Either Chayn or an individual can immediately terminate an agreement if it is deemed by Chayn or the individual that a working environment conducive to the wellbeing of the individual cannot be provided. | Being trauma-informed at Chayn means understanding the impact of trauma and creating work conditions where we can minimise and mitigate re-traumatisation. It is impossible to create a setting where the possibility of re-traumatisation is completely eliminated when the subject matter we work on is gender-based violence.

We are informed by trauma but we are unable to create a working culture that accounts for everyone’s triggers because what is triggering or stressful for one may not be a problem for another. We strive to make adjustments wherever they are reasonable. We provide support from within the organisation but it is possible that for some people, Chayn won’t be a constructive place to work because of the nature of their trauma and its impact on their mental health. | | Feminist with an intersectional lens We recognise how harm manifests in different and disproportionate ways for people living at the intersection of multiple oppressions.

Examples:

• We’re trans inclusive.
• We care that our work is proactively anti-racist, decolonising and equity-based.
• We analyse intersectionality in our work, campaigns, messages, and images.
• Whenever we speak about gender-based violence, we highlight how race and immigration status impact whether survivors get help or are even believed.
• We're actively creating space for complexity and power sharing. | Survivors can hold values that are not aligned with ours. While our resources are open for them to use for their recovery, we will not work with them if there isn’t that alignment (e.g anti-racism).

We believe anyone can experience gender-based violence including men. While we do not work directly with male survivors, most of our work is open access and can be viewed and probably is already being used by male survivors. Our work is designed around women and non-binary people, our language is gender-neutral.

We don’t judge survivors on what routes to justice make sense to them as what is safe and feels like justice will be different for every survivor, and will be impacted by their identity, life circumstances and the jurisdiction they are in.

We also acknowledge that many survivors will not have access to the internet and won’t be able to get support from Chayn. It is our mission to support everyone who has access to the internet already. We also work with, and support, any campaign to get more of the world connected to the internet. | | Open by default We work collaboratively, have transparent work practices, and produce open-source materials. We are curious and open to learn, and we generously share our learnings, resources and services with the world. Our leadership encourages our peers to open up too.

Examples:

• Our resources are openly licensed
• We share our working practices and reflect in the open
• We learn from others and improve our work on that basis | Chayn is a highly participatory organisation, because we believe that fostering personal connections are fundamental to building stronger cross-border feminist communities and movements. If this style of working is likely to cause you stress, it’s worth considering if we would be the best place for you. Though we are transparent, participatory and collaborate, we do not hold ourselves to consensus-based decision-making. There are more details on this later on. | | Generous We give each other the benefit of the doubt and care for each other’s growth with generosity.

Examples:

• We extend trust and respect to our colleagues.
• We invest in each other’s growth and understanding of issues and life experiences.
• We share each other’s work and help each other problem solve. | This does not mean we don’t hold each other accountable against harm, but that we take the time to understand we’re working in a multi-cultural environment where people’s understanding and experience of an issue might be very different to ours. | | Inclusive We understand, appreciate, and acknowledge ways in which we are similar and different; we encourage working practices that leave no one behind.

Examples:

• We understand asking for a raise can be a very daunting or unfamiliar task in many cultures. In Chayn, line managers bring this up annually with their reportees and work through a case with them.
• In our team, volunteers can get involved in managing and collaborating with staff and vice-versa as the vision is to work together as one team towards the goal of creating safe spaces online for survivors.
• We host cross-cultural learning sessions to explore civic action, literature, and current struggles and wins from different parts of the world. | This may mean sometimes things will be inconvenient for some people to make it more inclusive for others.

Examples:

• Time of meetings to accommodate accessibility or timezone needs may be inconvenient
• Need to attend Sunday sessions to work with our volunteers |

Trauma-Informed Design Principles

Read this white paper we published for a full explanation of the principles.