About Tending the Garden
A place to grow, heal, and come back to yourself.
Tending the Garden began with an idea that came to Jimanekia Eborn during a 10-day silent retreat. What started as a vision for creating retreats for survivors grew into a bigger dream: building spaces where survivors could feel supported, connected, and free to show up as their full selves.
Founded in 2019, Tending the Garden is a survivor-centered organization rooted in equity, community, education, and compassionate care. We exist to support survivors of sexual violence, especially people whose experiences and needs have too often been overlooked, misunderstood, or pushed to the margins.
We believe survivors deserve spaces where they can feel seen, respected, supported, and free to be themselves.
Why We Do This Work
Mainstream conversations about sexual violence and healing have not always made room for everyone. Survivors who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQIA+, trans and nonbinary, disabled, sex workers, and others living at the intersections of marginalized identities often face additional barriers to support.
We created Tending the Garden to help change that.
Our work centers the experiences, needs, and voices of survivors who deserve more than being included as an afterthought. We are building opportunities for education, connection, reflection, and growth while honoring that every survivor’s experience is different.
There is no single timeline for healing. No one should have to share their story, prove their pain, or fit someone else’s expectations to deserve care.
The Garden: Growing Our Mission
Our vision has always been about creating meaningful ways for survivors to access support. As Tending the Garden grows, we want to expand opportunities for survivors to connect with resources, learn together, and experience community both online and in person.
The Garden, our upcoming digital space for learning, reflection, and connection, is one step toward that vision.
The Garden is designed to help survivors explore what they need in the moment, whether that means finding a grounding practice, learning about trauma, exploring communication and boundaries, reconnecting with their bodies, or finding relevant support resources.
Rather than expecting someone to have all the answers before they begin, The Garden starts with a simple question:
What do you need today?
From there, survivors can explore educational practices, reflective exercises, practical tools, and resources at their own pace. The experience is grounded in choice, autonomy, and the understanding that people need different things at different times.
But our vision doesn’t stop at a screen.
We hope to grow into offering more in-person opportunities for survivors to gather, connect, learn, and receive support. That includes working toward our original dream of survivor-centered retreats and creating spaces where people can experience community, care, and connection together.
We’re building toward a future where survivors can find meaningful support in different ways, whether they need a resource they can access from home or a space where they can be in community with others.
How We Tend the Garden
We approach this work with care, curiosity, and respect for each person’s autonomy. We believe in:
Centering survivors. The people most affected by sexual violence deserve a meaningful voice in the spaces created to support them.
Making education accessible. People deserve practical information and tools they can explore in ways that work for them.
Honoring choice. Survivors get to decide what they share, what support they seek, and what their own growth looks like.
Building community. We work toward connection that respects boundaries, differences, and lived experiences.
Growing together. Healing and social change require ongoing learning, reflection, accountability, and care.
We know that creating supportive spaces takes more than good intentions. It takes listening, learning, and continuing to build with the people we’re here to serve.
There’s Room for You Here
Whether you’re a survivor looking for resources, someone who wants to learn how to show up for survivors, or a person who believes our communities can do better, we’re glad you’re here.
You don’t have to have everything figured out to begin. You don’t have to move at anyone else’s pace.
There is room to learn. Room to rest. Room to ask questions. Room to grow.
And as Tending the Garden grows, we hope to create even more opportunities for survivors to find community, both online and in person.
Welcome to Tending the Garden. Let’s keep tending.