Wrapping up 2019 – Community, Respect and Equality Sundowner
To wrap up the year, Desert Blue Connect held a final CRE Sundowner for stakeholders with guest speaker Tania Cecconi, Executive Officer for CEOs for Gender Equity. Tania spoke on “turning the dial” on gender equity in Western Australia using a variety of approaches but emphasised that getting leadership on board is vital to the success of any strategy.
Thirty representatives of CRE organisations attended and were able to discuss these strategies and how they might work in their organisation through important networking. For further information about CEOs for Gender Equity and how you can become involved please go to their website https://www.ceosforgenderequity.com.au/
We would like to thank everyone who has been involved with the CRE reference group or the CRE Agreement for all the work they have done to make our community safer for everyone. We wish everyone a happy, and safe, Christmas and New Year. 🎄
16 Days to End Violence Against Women Campaign
The annual 16 Days in WA – Stop Violence Against Women campaign took place from 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, to 10 December, which is Human Rights Day. This campaign aims to raise awareness, motivate positive actions across Western Australia and advocate on behalf of organisations that oppose violence against women. We were pleased to see a number of organisations join in the 16 Days in WA campaign including the Mid West Ports Authority and WA Centre for Rural Health.
Desert Blue Connect, on behalf of the Community, Respect and Equality Initiative ran a localised social media campaign with messages and local photos aimed to educate, motivate and advocate in the Geraldton community to stand up to stop violence against women. It was great to see so many CRE businesses getting involved with the campaign and stepping up to say that #ViolenceIsNEVERok. We reached 8140 people through the Desert Blue Connect and the CRE Facebook pages. If you are interested in sharing any of the posts to increase their reach please go to the CRE Facebook page (@communityrespectandequality) to like the page and share the campaign photos.
Workshops for business and organisations
During this 16 day campaign, Desert Blue Connect also held short workshops at the Mid West Ports Authority work locations and to Meedac at their office. These workshops are available to other businesses and organisations and an outline is below:- (fees apply to some workshops)
- How to help a colleague who may be experiencing or perpetrating family violence – covers what family violence is and how to get help (either as a victim or as a perpetrator who wants to stop using violence). This will be aimed at showing workers how to help a friend or colleague rather than the individuals themselves.
- What you need to know about sexual harassment in the workplace – covers the basics of what sexual harassment is and why it matters in the workplace (e.g. laws around sexual harassment and repercussions on perpetrators and victims). It also discusses what sexual harassment is in a non-judgemental way as to facilitate learning and avoid defensiveness, as some workers may not know what they have been doing can qualify as sexual harassment.
- Supporting managers to assist them with family violence in the workplace – This workshops is specifically to designed to give managers strategies to navigate having perpetrators and/or victims of family violence at work, focusing on legislation that protects victims, policies they can put in place to increase protections and more.
- Family Violence Restraining Order short presentation by Alison Muller from Regional Alliance West (RAW) will cover an overview of some of the legal issues that can arise with family violence (30 minutes).
Format of workshops:
- 45 minutes – 1 hour each
- Target audience = workers and managers (with #3 being specifically for managers)
March Against Violence
On Friday 22nd November around 75 community members joined us at Stow Gardens for our annual March Against Violence. We hold this event on the last Friday in November each year to mark the start 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. Our theme this year was how men can help prevent family violence, with inspiring speeches from local men answering the question “What are men doing and what can men do to help stop violence against women in our community?”
We then laid flowers and shared a minute’s silence in remembrance of the 11 women, children and men who lost their lives this year in WA to family violence before our peaceful march along the foreshore and through the mall. The morning ended with a ceremonial paddle out by A Glassy Day Surf Coaching to lay the flowers to rest.
Summer Campaign
Desert Blue Connect working with the Midwest Family Violence Alliance have initiated a summer prevention of family violence campaign. We will have postcards to share and a PDF poster that organisations can print off to display around the Christmas, New Year and school holiday period. Please contact Monica if you want some postcards or the electronic PDF poster to print for your organisation.
