Shawn Broom started his podcast, The Story of U, one year ago. It tells the stories of everyday people in and around Regina.
“I’m a massage therapist by trade and so I’d spend all day talking to people and getting to know them,” Broom said.
“I realized that I found people fascinating and loved hearing their stories.”
Out of this interest, the podcast was born. After months of preparation, the podcast launched on September 13, 2016.
Broom records out of a home studio, and releases a new episode of The Story of U almost every week.
A disturbing trend emerged, however, as the podcast went on. Broom noticed that many of his guests had said they experienced sexual violence in their life.
“Through doing the show, I met a lot of people. Those numbers just kept coming up and the experiences kept coming up and it shocked me pretty deeply,” Broom said Tuesday on Global News Morning.
“I knew it was an issue but I didn’t realize how deep it ran.”
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In Saskatchewan last year, there were around 1200 reports to police of sexual assault.
Broom wanted to do something to help, so he created A Night of Hope and Healing. The event is a live podcast Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at The Artesian and all money raised from ticket sales will be donated to the Regina Sexual Assault Centre.
“It’s basically a chance for past guests of the show and people from the Regina Sexual Assault Centre to come together and talk about rape and sexual assault in our culture and hopefully to inspire people to feel comfortable speaking up about it,” Broom said.
One of the guests at the event is Danielle Gauthier, a sexual assault survivor.
“I’m really excited about this project that Shawn’s put together because it will try and help to remove that stigma,” Gauthier said Tuesday.
“There’s a lot of shame. There’s a lot of embarrassment. I know I was disappointed in myself, and probably still hold on to that, for not reporting, not saying anything.”
Both Gauthier and Broom have the same vision for what will constitute success for the night.
“If one person takes anything away from that, then it’s a success for us,” Gauthier said.
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