The Ishtar Collective

At A Glance

Location: 

Montpelier, Vermont

Primary Issue Area:

  • Food

Active since:

2020

  • a table of harm reduction materials, plants, and pride flags next to some resource lists and current events
  • our farm director and our co-founder stand off to the distance behind a huge cabbage in rows of produce, harvesting and weeding in the summer of 2024
  • looking down into a basket of varying size tomatoes, ranging from rich golden orange to cherry reds in little green pint containers, and to the left are a handful of small yellow flowers
  • a member with bubble braids and a pink jacket is getting a vaccine from a nurse in a blue sweater next to a table with supplies on it

Our Purpose

We want sex workers to have a seat at the table, to be respected members of their communities with their work at the very least, just being understood as work. After some years of being active, we realize that not just sex workers experience general de-valuement in society, but many others. Locally, we want Vermont to become a safe space in whatever capacity it can, as more people seek safety from discrimination, harm, and displacement. To do that, able community members have to be ready to put resources together to provide basic needs, and we have to create spaces that cater to a diversity of solutions. Where one person may not want to be a policy advocate, they might want to learn about food justice or healthcare access and how THEY can impact their neighbors' access to resources for the greater good. We want to create access to solutions NOW, while people are scared and grasping for something to plug into, or somewhere to go to find relief.  We want to make these things a reality because sex workers and survivors of State violence know what it’s like to live in a world without them.