The advocate | Zoë Dodd
When the Ontario government announced that they would be closing multiple supervised consumption sites across Toronto, harm reduction advocate and co-organizer of the Toronto Overdose Prevention Society Zoë Dodd got to work. She took time to train community members how to reverse drug overdoses and spoke out against the policy, noting rightly that consumption sites save lives. A long-time advocate for Toronto’s most vulnerable, Dodd is doing more than harm reduction — she’s reminding us what real community means.
By Diana Chan McNally, Community crisis worker
The fact that I can even call Zoë Dodd a colleague is humbling. No one has been more passionate, more vocal and more caring than she is as an advocate for unhoused people and people who use drugs — in Toronto, across Canada, and everywhere. Zoë’s bravery — really, her utter fearlessness — in pushing against anyone who encroaches on the right to life for people who are constantly maligned should be inspiring to all. She is a human rights defender of the truest kind and not because it’s always popular, but because it’s just. And this is the thing about Zoe — something that’s rare, but too often placed on women and femmes to endure: she can weather anything, and anyone, without ever losing her fire, her sense of justice, or her heart in the fight to humanize people and uphold their rights. At this point, I’m old hat in the field, but she changed my life almost a decade ago, when I saw her speak about the fight to establish life-saving supervised consumption sites. That she and others opened up an unsanctioned site in Moss Park — because it was the just thing to do — was and is the most badass affirmation of human rights I have ever seen. We’re in this fight again, and Zoë is once again at the forefront to save lives. It shouldn’t have to be her fight, but I know she won’t quit. Because that’s what justice requires — vigilance and endurance. She taught me this, and I’m grateful.
For more of Toronto’s most inspiring women of 2024, click here.
