Maya Siegel - Founder of Space to Speak - Advocate for Sexual Assault Survivors
By now you may have seen Sarah Everard’s name floating around on your social feeds. On March 3, Sarah went missing while walking home from a friend’s house. Nine days later, it was confirmed that she had been murdered, her alleged killer an active police officer. Her disappearance and the week-long search that ensued before her body was found, sent shockwaves throughout the world, sparking widespread conversations about women’s safety in 2021. I was absolutely heartbroken when I heard the news and realized what lengths we go to ensure our safety and how many other females have gone through something similar.
According to a recent poll, 80 percent of all U.K. women have been sexually harassed and in Canada, half of all Canadian women have been victims of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16. These staggering figures are but a snippet of today’s realities as women or non-binary people. Yet within conversations surrounding Sarah, victim blamers and misogynists have still found ways to take up space.
With that in mind, today I am joined by Maya Siegel.
She the Founder and Executive Director of Space to Speak, an organization dedicated to giving youth a leading voice in the sexual violence prevention movement. Under her leadership, Space to Speak helped raise over $118,000 for survivors experiencing domestic violence during COVID in 2020. In addition to her work with Space to Speak, she is also a web designer, strategy consultant, campus outreach manager, and full-time college student. Her work has been recognized in the Washington Post, HuffPost, MTV, and the NYT Upfront.
In this episode, we talk about her personal experience with sexual assault and why she started Space to Speak, realizing your worth and what you deserve, how to become a better ally to a sexual assault survivor, what men can do to better educate themselves, and how to approach intimacy after being sexually assaulted. I really valued my conversation with Maya today and I hope you learn something new. My heart goes out to all those sexual assault survivors - you're not alone.
Please seek out professional help if you're in need.
Space to speak: https://www.spacetospeak.org/
Maya: @maya.siegel
@wellnowwhatpodcast