As community leaders, employers, soccer, football and netball coaches and teachers we have an important role as influencers in our community. We should all speak up about violence against women and children in our community. When we stay silent we are denying the voice of those who cannot speak for themselves; our neighbours, our friends, our sisters.
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With a national statistic of 1 in 3 Australian women having experienced physical violence since the age of 15, how can we stay silent on this issue any longer?
I often reflect on this statistic, being a mother of two young girls, knowing that it is not my relationship with my father nor my husband that has been one of family violence. I look at them as they are growing into confident, strong and inquisitive young women and I hope and pray that I have instilled in them the confidence and ability to navigate their relationships to insure this statistic does not include them.
But as I reflect on the number of my friends and community members who I have supported and cared for I am always reminded that this issue knows no boundaries and can happen to anyone.
Every week the staff at the community centre support women and children in our community who are living in domestic violence or are living with the effects of family violence.
This issue has enormous individual and community impacts and social costs which our community, our town, is not immune from.
With the statistic of 1 in 3 Australian women experiencing violence this means we all know a perpetrator of violence against women. Just as I don’t want the sum of who I am being only based on the worst I have done, nor too should the perpetrators of family violence; these men are our friends, our neighbours, our brothers. We not only owe it to the victims of family violence to speak up and take a stand, we also need to do this to ensure that we can provide support, guidance and encouragement to the perpetrators so they can get help, find other ways to deal with their anger and be the man we all deserve them to be.
White Ribbon day is an opportunity to share with your family, your friends and your community your commitment to prevent men’s violence against women. Come along and stand with your community on Friday 24th November at the White Ribbon BBQ from 4pm at the Tin Shed.