The We Stand with Survivor Campaign began as a small local awareness campaign, as one way to let local Renfrew County survivors know that, “We See them, We Hear Them, We Believe them”.  The first banner was hung in the community of Eganville, in 2019, on the bridge over the river, on a street that is the thoroughfare to the biggest part of Renfrew County.  The feed back we received from both survivors and the community was heartfelt and encouraging. One survivor told us “my heart sings each day I cross the bridge and see that banner”.  When I asked one of the businesses that hung our poster, if the campaign had elicited any conversation in the workplace, I was told yes… “We knew there was a survivor’s monument in the park in Eganville and none of us had ever visited it – we organized a brown bag lunch, and we all went to the monument”.  Those were powerful statements!  Those and many other comments inspired us from the very beginning and we knew we had to keep growing. As we grew, our plan was to invite Sexual Assault agencies from across Ontario to join the campaign, but we decided to include Women’s Shelters and Women’s Centres across Canada after they informed us, they too, would like to be part of the campaign, as many of the women they support are also survivors of sexual violence and they felt it was an excellent way of letting them know they support them as well. Many of the agencies are either located in rural communities, some quite isolated, or have a mandate to support parts of rural community in their catchment areas.