Sarah Winstanley dreams of a world that is non-hierarchal and safe for everyone. She is a feminist and a social worker and is part of the Women’s Centre community…or maybe the community is a part of her. She became a social worker because she feels like the world has a lot of big problems and those problems need a lot of people with a lot of love to give working on them. Inequality makes her angry. Community organizing makes her excited. Working with young gals to change the world makes her happy. Being in the woods gives her some necessary healing. Riding her bike makes her feel badass. Sarah grew up in Calgary. She loves to travel, but this is where her community is.
Sarah was a participant in Next Up Calgary (2013 - 2014) and is a current participant of the Climate Leadership Program.
Sarah Winstanley dreams of a world that is non-hierarchal and safe for everyone, where anyone can walk at any time of day without fear or threat of harm. If you asked her what her occupation is, she’d probably say social worker, but she thinks of herself mostly as a part of the Women’s Centre where she works (either that or it is a part of her). She loves the way the centre not only works to meet eh basic needs of women, but that they also address the systemic need for change in order to sustainable meet those needs in the future. Sarah grew up in Calgary. This is her community, but it took her a trip to Central America to realize it. She loves to travel, but this is her home. This is where she has a voice. This is where she can really speak to the issues affecting her life, where she can support other Calgarians on the issues affecting their lives. She originally wanted to be a writer, but decided that it involved too much time alone with her thoughts and not enough time connecting with people, so she applied to study Social Work at the University of Calgary and ended up studying herself – her biases, the privilege she carries around, and her unfair access to resources due to a combination of things she did not earn. It made her angry and uncomfortable, and now she refuses to shut up about the unfairness of it all. She was drawn to a practicum at the women’s centre because of a (at the time) passing interest in feminism and passion for community organizing, and found out that the two are deeply linked. Sarah loves reading. She loves Virginia Woolf and Jonathan Safran Foer. She hates income inequality and classism, and hates domestic violence. She wants to do her masters of social work around gender issues and youth programming, and loves to dance to 90s hip hop and people watch. She loves challenges. She wants to learn to listen and question more effectively, rock climb and blow bubbles with bubble gum.