Our group started in 2021 at the Vancouver Women’s Health Collective (VWHC)
with the Gender-Based Violence & Mapping Project, a community-led project that brought together community members to discuss, understand, and start healing from gender-based (GBV) in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES).
We engaged over 300 community members through interviews, sharing circles, and town halls.
In march 2024, when our funding wasn’t renewed, we decided to exercise our power of self-determination.
Eight women (six peer workers and two project coordinators) assembled and worked tirelessly to continue the community engagement kickstarted by the GBV project.
The Peer to Peer Community Co-op was created in April 2024.
The first workers-led community service co-op in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Since our beginnings in April 2024 we have produced thousands of dollars in paid opportunities for community members.
We provided community capacity building through training, mentorship, and networking events. We accomplished all of this with an initial budget of $10,000 and no formal structure or support from anyone but ourselves and our community partners.