CORAS has an on-going open position for a Board Member! 💗 This is an ongoing call with no application deadline, and while we encourage anyone interested to apply, we'd particularly love to encourage Indigenous and other BIPOC sex workers to apply. Most importantly, as part of our mandate to remain sex-worker-led, board members must be active sex workers. Requirements: - Must be an active sex worker, in keeping with CORAS's mandate as a sex-worker-led organization. - At least two years of experience in a similar role, or experience providing community care in a formal or informal capacity. This can include supporting neighbours, friends, colleagues, or members of your community. - Must be local to Ottawa and able to attend some in-person events/shifts. Preferred Qualifications: - Bilingualism (English and French). - Comfortable with public speaking (we lead quite a few workshops!) - Demonstrated reliability and the ability to work independently. As a peer-led organization, we value mutual trust and individual autonomy, and encourage board members to take initiative while remaining accountable to their commitments. - Comfortable using technology, including Discord, Google Workspace, and Microsoft Office applications. - Previous involvement in sex worker advocacy or community organizing. - Comfortable with children and working with them. Many of our clients have children and for accesibility, we allow children to spend time at our office and in specific children's zones at events. - Comfortable navigating conflict and difficult situations while maintaining appropriate boundaries. We don't expect anyone to have all the answers, but we do need people who can approach challenges thoughtfully and ensure that client safety and well-being remain the priority. We provide training and ongoing support, so please don't be discouraged if you don't meet every preferred qualification! We value lived experience and a willingness to learn just as much as formal credentials. If you have any accessibility needs, please let us know. We're always happy to discuss accommodations and work together to make the position as accessible as possible. The position currently involves approximately 4–6 volunteer hours per month (usually only four), including a two-hour office shift every other week in downtown Ottawa (this is NOT an accesible building, so if you have any accesibility needs regarding stairs, some virtual hours can be discussed in place of being in the office). This does includes street outreach, and occasional meetings. Street outreach is critical to our work. We offer honorariums where possible and are actively pursuing funding to make this a paid position. We also have some wonderful partnerships with local organizations, plenty of opportunities to get involved in community advocacy and volunteer initiatives, and lots of room to help shape the future of CORAS. No formal experience is required! We value lived experience, community involvement, creativity, and a genuine desire to help others far more than institutional credentials. Above all, we'd love someone who cares deeply about sex workers, advocating for their rights, and finding practical ways to support our communities. We need people on board that truly care for those we seek to serve. We're not an especially rigid organization. While we prioritize sex workers and survivors, we do what we can for whoever we can, with the resources available to us, and we'll always value someone making a genuine effort to help. We understand that people make mistakes, that circumstances change, and that everyone deserves room to learn and grow. We believe in second chances and supporting one another through difficult times. Sex worker advocacy is not always easy work. The stigma our communities face can be incredibly hostile, and even spaces that consider themselves progressive are not always welcoming to us. We're looking for someone who understands these challenges and is willing to keep showing up for our communities, even when the work is uncomfortable or our advocacy is met with resistance. We don't expect perfection, but we do value compassion and the willingness to keep trying. Please email your CV or resume to [email protected], along with a short introduction about yourself, your relevant lived or community experience, and why you'd like to join us.

🎄💗 CORAS Christmas Angels is back! (might seem a bit early but we like to plan ahead and are excited!) We'rve opened sign-ups for both individuals and families who could use a little extra support this Christmas, and for those who would like to help make the holidays special for someone else! Our program is deliberately low-barrier, and we especially hope to reach people who are often excluded from traditional social supports. Thank you to everyone helping us bring a little Christmas magic to our community this year! 🎁💕 **One gentle request for anyone signing up to be a Christmas Angel, though: please make sure you're able to follow through on your commitment, or that you're comfortable reaching out if something changes (we would never judge and would only appreciate the heads up)! Last year, we unfortunately had quite a few gifters disappear at the last minute, leaving our volunteers scrambling to personally cover several missing gifts and even a dinner at an already incredibly expensive time of year. We never want anyone to feel guilty for needing to step away, but we do need to be able to plan around it. A quick message makes all the difference and helps us make sure no family is left without something they were counting on.**

We have a landlord crisis. Housing shouldn’t be for profit. Housing insecurity fuels systemic violence. People shouldn’t be allowed to hoard homes they’ll never live in, while others struggle to keep a roof over their heads because of it. The landlord class’s egregious profits come at the expense of people’s ability to say no, retain their autonomy, find shelter or even just leave. Housing is a basic need, and treating it as something to hoard for profit keeps people trapped.

💗 CORAS Membership is Now Open! We're excited to announce that CORAS now offers formal membership opportunities for individuals and organizations! As we prepare to file our incorporation paperwork and hold our first formal Annual General Meeting (AGM) by mid-spring, we're inviting members of our community and allied organizations to become more formally involved in CORAS's future. We offer both voting and non-voting memberships, allowing those with lived experience in the sex industry or human trafficking to participate in our governance, while also welcoming individuals and organizations who share our values and wish to support our work. Membership includes free admission to CORAS-hosted events and programming, opportunities to connect with our growing community, and the chance to become more involved in our advocacy and community initiatives. Organizational memberships include free admission for up to three representatives per event. As a peer-led organization, our board members receive no salaries, and our mandate requires that they remain actively involved in the communities they serve. Unfortunately, this often means that those providing support face many of the same financial barriers as those receiving it, and our board members frequently cover organizational expenses out of pocket. Introducing formal membership is one way we're working toward making our services more sustainable, reducing the financial burden on our leadership, and ensuring we can continue growing without relying so heavily on the personal resources of those doing the work. Whether you're interested in helping shape CORAS's future or simply want to support the work we're doing, we'd love to have you involved! You can learn more about membership and our application process here: corasfoundation.org/membersh… Thank you for continuing to support grassroots, peer-led community care. 💗

Coras Autumn Fundraiser photos- a huge thank you to @project.veraa (IG) for taking these! 💞 Contuining with our gratitude, a massive thanks to; Kevinn Schofieldd for being our music and sharing his history as a 2-Spirit indigenous person @sia.shad0w (IG) for being our brave speaker and our amazing stunning dancer (with an adorable kid friendly drag set!!!) The AIDS Committee of Ottawa Le comité du sida d'Ottawa for sponsoring us, and having their beautiful confident Marieann speaking! Action ontarienne contre la violence faite aux femmes for sponsoring us and having their stunning inspiring team speak as well! A huge thank you to our artists (Katrinna especially!) and local stores The Witch Chest on Bank, and Il Negrozio Nicastro alongside the Atlantic store of Venus Envy for donating to our silent auction! Thanks to Octopus Books 📚 for bringing an amazing selection of titles for us, and- a big thanks to Madahoki Farms for hosting us and having such helpful staff on site, and making such amazing indigenous fare for our attendees to try! ✨ And huge thank you to everyone who came out to our autumn fundraiser, helped out, and made things go right when the weather had other plans. Community care is such a big part of our mandate, so seeing our community come together to care for us, too, felt especially magical. This was our biggest turnout yet, and we’re so grateful to everyone who made it such a warm, welcoming evening. Meeting and feeding the animals with everyone’s children was definitely a highlight! For the first time ever, we brought in a little money past breaking even- and that’s after paying our staff, covering childcare, feeding everyone, sending money for missed work shifts and covering transportation for anyone who needed it. (Accessibility is central to our ethics! It may be expensive, but we’re happy to spend it so everyone can participate, not just those who can afford the time off.) We’re especially grateful to have been able to prioritize Indigenous voices, and excited about the new direction we’ve taken and the immediately growing diversity of the people shaping our work. We hope to keep creating family-friendly gatherings like this, where people who might otherwise never share a room can meet, connect, and build community. A big thank you, too, to the NDP for consistently showing up at our gatherings, treating the people at our events with respect, and helping us work toward a political reality where elected representatives political parties are accessible to the everyday people they serve. *A note about the photos: most faces are intentionally blurred, or photographed from behind, to protect people’s privacy. Unblurred faces belong to people who specifically agreed to be shown (as speakers or otherwise). Neither choice confirms or denies that someone is a CORAS client. Please do not circulate these photos in printed publication, or beyond sharing our own posts, without permission. Please email us to use any of these photos (outside of it being completely okay to share our posts) as we will check in with the relevant parties first.* (X is only allowing a certain amount of photos so check out our instagram for more! @coras.foundation)

Sex workers’ rights are workers’ rights. Our safety matters as much as anyone else’s.

Trying to write a formal email. Unable to refrain from calling cops wicked bastards.

Our fundraiser is tonight at Madahoki Farm! Come out for Sia Shadow’s burlesque performance, food from Indigenous chefs, a silent auction, and good company. Childcare on site, and kids come free! We run on the goodwill of our community. Every ticket helps keep CORAS’s care and support available to the people who need it. We’d love to see you tonight! (You can purchase tickets at the door in cash, too 💞)

Visiting the farm before our event tomorrow and was greeted by this lovely gentleman (who is apparently the little pig!!!) 💞

12 tickets to go and we’ll be SOLD OUT! We’d love your help getting there before Friday. Join CORAS this Friday at Mādahòkì Farm for burlesque, a costume contest, food from local Indigenous chefs, a silent auction, and two speakers alongside some of our sponsors. Kids come free (they will have a separate play space!), childcare is available, and the farm will provide feed for the kids to feed the animals! We survive entirely on the goodwill of our community. 💞 We are not publicly funded, and we frequently pay out of pocket to keep support available. That’s hard to sustain when we’re all in the same garbage scenario with this economy, as mothers, in school, or juggling other commitments- but we know how hard it is to stay alive in this economy and we want to change that for all of us. So, we’d love to sell out and be able put the money into a housing support fund and back into our food bank. Winter is coming, people are falling on hard times, and so many of our services are already strained. We have enough volunteers now, but if ticket cost is a barrier, please reach out anyways. Our own allotment of free tickets is spoken for, but supporters sometimes pay for tickets we can pass along. We’re happy to offer those as they become available. Buy a ticket, bring a friend, or please share this post. This community is what keeps us going. For the people, by the people 💞

Show up. Even if it’s raining. Even if the signs are soggy. Even if you don’t like the venue. Even if you’re tired. If the sound system fails, yell. Don’t wait for a permit. You don’t need the government’s permission to protest it. Get together. Tell this system ENOUGH.

Our collaborative healing piece is officially finished! 🖼️ A huge thank you to everyone who contributed to this project over the last few months. This is something really special. This project was so beloved we opened the painting up to the broader community, welcoming other women to add their flowers to this, especially survivors’ families, children, and loved ones. It’s been beautiful watching so many different people come together and leave their mark on something meaningful to all of us. Every addition tells a little story, and the finished piece is something we can all be proud of. Thank you to everyone who helped bring it to life. We’re so happy to have created something together that reflects our shared perseverance and love. 💕 #survivorssupportingsurvivors #ottawa

Please join us October 16th! 💞

amazing digital circus Yuri on the work feed (oops) (sorry)

These have all been dispersed! 💞