build a listening circle with Blank Noise:
Blank Noise facilitates Listening Circles . Listening Circles create a safe space for survivors of violence, i.e all each of us in varying degrees to speak, be heard and be believed.
Believing survivors is social justice. Listening Circles have revealed that this is the start of a healing process. The Listening Circle works to create a community that has the capacity to listen deeply, when welcoming an individual in to speak. The Listening Circle also creates a community of individuals who initiate care practice, solidarity, and empathy.
Listening Circle is a facilitated process. Blank Noise facilitates the session amongst co strangers, with community led organisations , with college students and more.
To invite Blank Noise to host a Listening Circle / I Never Ask For It workshop, get in touch via the form below. This form is for communities and groups.
If you are an individual who wishes to be part of a Listening Circle, please email us at actionshero@blanknoise.org subject titled “ Listening Circle - Listener ” and we will connect with you right away.
The I Never Ask For It mission is led through Listening Circles and workshops. Workshop participants bring in garments they wore when they experienced sexual violence.
I Never Ask For It workshops co create a safe space for shifting and knowing blame to experiencing empathy.
The Listening Circles and workshops are audio recorded and become the Listen Podcast Series. Listen, also invites participants to bring in the garment they wore when they experienced sexual assault, threat, abuse, intimidation, or discrimination. The garment is memory, witness, voice. It resonates " I Never Ask For It ". Bring your garment to build the I Never Ask For It mission. Invite Blank Noise to build Listen via the form below.
I Never Ask For It was initiated in 2004 and has seen several iterations. Blank Noise works with communities of women, girls and non binary persons to create circles of listening towards experiencing empathy.
The Listening Circles are a component of the I Never Ask For It mission.
Listening Circles are audio recorded and will be made available via a podcast series.
The session is recorded to build public consciousness and create societies, communities that rest on believing survivors.
Listening Circle no. 1 : 25th Sept - 1st Oct 2016
Location : Max Mueller Bhavan I Never Ask For It Week, Bangalore, India,
Listening Circle no. 2: 2nd February 2017,
Location: Studio XX , Montreal, Canada.
Listening Circle no. 3: 2 January 2018
Location: Rabindra Sarobar Lakes, Kolkata, India
Listening Circle no. 4: 21st January 2018
Location : Cubbon Park, Bangalore, India
Listening Circle no. 5: 14th July 2018
Location : Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India
Listening Circle no. 6: September 2018
Location : Jamshedpur, Jharkhand India with CREA and its SELF Academy
* audio not documented
Listening Circle no. 7: 28th October 2018
Location : Cubbon Park, Bangalore, India,
Listening Circle no.8: 6th November 2018
Location : McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Listening Circle no.9: 27th April 2019
Location : WeWork Galaxy, Bangalore, India
Listening Circle no. 10: 31st August, 2019 + 22nd September 2019
Location : We Work Galaxy and Cubbon Park, Bangalore, India
Community : 18 Students from across college campuses in Bangalore
How are listening circles experienced?
notes from the community of listeners below.
Listen. To know you are not alone.
Listen. To shift from knowing blame to knowing empathy.
We Are Done Defending.
Sit in to Listen.
Because I feel safe when I am heard,
I feel safe when I am believed.
I feel safe when we do not have to defend myself, over and over again.
I Action Shero, am your safe space,
as you are mine.
#INeverAskForIt.
“Cubbon Park never seemed as beautiful and warm as it did on January 22nd, 2018. Sorry not sorry for romanticizing this meet because it truly was a beautiful experience to me. Funny enough, I heard about the safe space meet from a colleague who insisted that I cover this story and so I did. Walked into Cubbon Park, with my mic and camera person, all set to take the interviews, stay for a bit and head back to office. But what followed, really hit home. For the longest time, I’ve had an abusive father who would and still continues to blurt out abuses on the lines of prostitution and rape to me, for merely bunking a class, or coming back home late from WORK, yes WORK. I dealt with it or rather let myself into being submissive for 23 years of my life. But from a few days before I had come for this meet, I had started to hit my threshold of tolerance and had decided that I would soon HAVE to move out of home to have a sane mental space for myself. During the course of the meet at Cubbon Park, I began to hear the experiences the women there had faced and it brought back every abuse that was hurled at me, for no fault of mine. It started to kick-in when everyone around me at the meet reiterated the fact that they never asked for it and that it was in NO WAY our fault. If you were at the meet, you would recall me breaking into an episode of ugly crying the minute Jasmeen asked me if there was anything I had to share. It hurt every piece of me that I was allowing myself to live in that hell hole and go through abuse time and again. Thanks to all the women who courageously came in that evening and share your experiences, without which I would have still been in abuse land with my father. After that meet, I left with every part of me itching to leave home, and so I did. What made it easier? I had stayed on for longer than my curfew, making me late to reach home and that lit the abusive side of my father once again but for the last time. I went home, sat him down and told him that I was NOT going to put myself through this anymore. Packed my stuff, argued my way through my stubborn father and brother and left home, with 7-8 bags on me. And I have never looked back ever since. I now live with a roommate who I met at that meet and we live our very own triple A (Akeli Awaara Azaad) lives, and I will do so for as long as I live. Thank you Blank Noise for giving me my happily ever after. I will forever be grateful. ”
