What it Means to Be an Advocate and Survivor
RAFT Team, December 5, 2025
In this powerful episode of the RAFT Podcast, we bring together survivor-advocates from across the movement for an open and honest conversation about what it means to hold both identities—survivor and advocate.
Join Nicole Crespi and Joy Ingram, RAFT Workshop Facilitators, along with guest Jaime Cypher from the Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect (PCAR), as they share stories of resilience, reflection, and belonging. Together, they explore how lived experience shapes advocacy, what it takes to sustain ourselves in this work, and how community care helps us thrive.
Episode Time Codes
- 00:00 Intro
- 00:44 Podcast participants and Advocate-survivors Nicole, Joy, and Jamie introduce themselves.
- 04:45 Participants talk about a time when they felt empowered in their roles as advocates while also being survivors.
- 12:18 What contributions and characteristics make us feel empowered and supportive?
- 25:06 What motivates us to continue advocating?
- 33:34 The grieving process involved in being an advocate and survivor.
- 37:54 What would you say to another survivor who is thinking about getting into advocacy work?
- 48:19 Taking a break from professional advocacy work
- 50:36 What does organization/movement leadership need to know/do to empower their advocate staff who are also survivors?
- 1:00:53 What are you enjoying?
- 1:07:27 Outro
