Vancouver Island Voices for Eating Disorders Society is a peer-led community rooted in lived and living experience. We are passionate about raising awareness and advocating for those struggling with disordered eating and eating disorders.
We are a registered non-profit Society in what is colonially known as British Columbia, Canada. We are based in lower Vancouver Island but our advocacy stretches across the province.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
— Margaret Mead
Our vision.
We are guided by the belief that meaningful change requires collaboration with the people directly affected by the policies, systems, and professionals that provide eating disorder services. We want to keep the dialogue going about eating disorders and create partnerships that help us improve the lives of those living with eating disorders.
Through our collective lived experience, years of community engagement and advocacy, and our understanding of emerging research in eating disorder treatment modalities, we have a vision.
We are re-imagining a world where outreach services and mutual aid can fill the gaps in service and provide low-barrier, person-centred support for people in need. We are building a community grounded in mutual support and care.
Tara’s legacy.
Tara loved life with all of her being. She wanted to experience all of the world’s adventures in full technicolor. She was an avid reader and writer and she loved helping people. She was the first to offer comfort or support. It was her dream that her story might lead to changes in treatment so that others don’t have to suffer like she did.
Tara knew what she needed. She imagined a collaborative, multi-level, harm reduction approach that prioritized her needs on her terms. She wanted to build a better life for people with long term eating disorders and complex co-morbidities.
We carry forward the lessons we learned from her, the love we have for her, and the determined spirit that was her essence. We owe it to Tara to create the change she fought so hard for.
“Dum Spiro, Spero,” while I breathe, I hope.
Her legacy lives on through us. We will hold her memory close and carry her legacy with us as we build the community of care she longed for.
“You would be amazed at the hidden places we carry strength, even in the darkest crevices.”
— Tara Levis (1984–2024)
Our story.
We first gathered as a collection of concerned citizens after the Victoria Eating Disorder Peer Support Group was founded by Sally Chaster and Elise Skoglund in 2015. Within the first few years of weekly meetings, we lost several peer members and it became glaringly apparent that there was an urgent need for improved treatment for adults. The concerns and experiences shared in our group inspired us to dream of something more.
In 2017, Shaely Ritchey, Sally Chaster, and Grace Davies co-founded an initiative to address the gaps in service and advocate for adults who were inadvertently harmed by ineffective and inaccessible treatment. Vancouver Island Voices for Eating Disorders was officially incorporated as a non-profit Society in the province of British Columbia in September 2018.
Although our founding members got an incredible amount of work accomplished, we decided to dissolve the Society the following year to give us the flexibility to operate as a flat structure and be more accessible to the peer members in our community.
Supporting Each Other
Our dedicated volunteer peer facilitators have been running the VIVED Eating Disorder Peer Support Group for over ten years. Before Covid-19, we held weekly in-person meetings. We started hosting virtuall meetings after the Pandemic and decided to continue offering meetings online to keep it more accessible. We’ve had participants join from all over North America!
In 2023, we moved to a biweekly meeting schedule due to facilitator burnout. Although our meeting attendance fluctuates seasonally, we are still struggling to find enough volunteers.
We became intimately knowledgeable on how to navigate the complex health care systems that confused even the most seasoned of medical practitioners. Our collective experience made us experts on what services were available, what programs needed referrals, and how to find creative ways to support ourselves while waiting for treatment.
Above all, we have always found the greatest healing in the peer spaces of shared experience. We attended community events, organized fundraising campaigns, and hosted stand-alone peer study groups, workshops, collaborative art projects, and activities. We helped to empower our peers in self-advocacy even though many of us could not get help for ourselves.
Our Values
- No Judgement
- Inclusivity
- Respect
- Safety
- Awareness