{"id":25388,"date":"2019-12-13T18:47:57","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T23:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=25388"},"modified":"2019-12-18T19:06:23","modified_gmt":"2019-12-19T00:06:23","slug":"education-government-support-key-to-tackling-domestic-violence-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/education-government-support-key-to-tackling-domestic-violence-shelter\/","title":{"rendered":"Education, government support key to tackling domestic violence: Shelter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Friday marked the 30th<\/sup> anniversary of the\nMontreal Massacre, which saw 14 women killed simply due to their gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much has changed in the country over those intervening\nthree decades, but the statistics are still sobering, according to Yellow Brick\nHouse, the Aurora-based shelter for battered women and their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The anniversary, National Day of Remembrance & Action\non Violence Against Women, which was marked here in Aurora with a special flag\nraising at Town Hall, was an opportunity to not only raise awareness but\nunderscore how far societies \u2013 including governments \u2013 need to go to make a\nsubstantive difference in the fight against domestic violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know that 30 years ago 14 women were killed at Ecole\nPolytechnique because they were women,\u201d says Lorris Herenda, Executive Director\nof Yellow Brick House. \u201cHere we are, 30 years later, and we\u2019re still dealing\nwith the same issues where a woman is killed every second day in Canada simply\nbecause she is a woman. Women are dying because of their gender and we, as a\nsociety, need to take some serious proactive actions to change that, to change\nour attitudes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such proactive measures, she says, include the investment\nin programs to support both victims of violence and foster prevention. Working\nin tandem with these initiatives is educating the young generation of the\nimpact of \u201cviolence, respect, equity and fair treatment with each other.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s down to education and information, starting\nwith the earliest at elementary schools and talking about healthy\nrelationships, about equity, and [challenging stereotypical gender roles],\u201d\nsays Ms. Herenda. \u201cWe should all have access to equal opportunities to be the\nbest that can be on our individual basis and not stigmatize girls and women to\nbe less important or less of, or not capable of doing certain occupations, for\nexample, that have traditionally been driven by a male workforce. The stigma\nstill exists starting from our childhoods when we\u2019re given specific choices\nthat are aligned with our identified gender, to being in school where girls are\nnot encouraged to answer certain sciences or maths or engineering or technology\nfor that matter. It really is about having those conversations about what it\nmeans to be equitable and equal. Continuing those conversations in elementary\nschool and high school and post-secondary education \u2013 there has to be\ncontinuous emphasis on this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2019 has been an important year in making these inroads\nfor Yellow Brick House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to their education officers taking their\nmessage into the schools, the organization has forged important new\nrelationships with educational institutions, including St. Andrew\u2019s College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this fall, St. Andrew\u2019s College hosted Yellow\nBrick House\u2019s annual Walk A Mile In Her Shoes fundraising and awareness event which\nsaw scores of individuals from the community \u2013 including students \u2013 don high\nheels for a hike around campus to show just how far we, as a society, need to\ngo in order to reach gender equality.
\nElsewhere, Yellow Brick House is focused on challenging systemic issues which\nwork to perpetuate the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These systemic issues, says Ms. Herenda, include biases\nagainst victims of sexual and domestic violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUsually women are put in the position where their\nbehaviour is questioned that it is assumed to have led to that attack,\u201d she\nexplains. \u201cWomen are asked what she wore and did she have anything to drink?\nWhy did she find herself at such and such place at such and such time of the\nday or night? The question should be different: it should really be emphasizing\nwhy do men feel that they have the right to take advantage of another human\nbeing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a society, we\u2019re still not there. Our legal system is\nnot there. Over 91 per cent of the sexual abuse cases are not reported to the\npolice because women do not want to go through the legal system where they were\nvictimized. We need to start changing that. When it comes to workplaces, there\nhas been an increase of women in executive positions at workplaces and it is\nstill not an equal percentage \u2013 women are still flighting for pay equity in\nthis day and age. We\u2019re in 2019 and we\u2019re still talking about not giving\nCanadian [women] the same dollar value our male counterpart is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the early weeks of December, Ms. Herenda and the\nYellow Brick House team have raised the flag in just about every municipality\nin York Region. Their message, as it was in Aurora, is invariably clear: \u201cWe\nneed a community, us individuals, corporations, community leaders who are\nelected, to advocate for ending violence against women and children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne way to do that is [to] support the sustainability of\nthe existing infrastructures that deal with victims of violence on the one hand\nand, on the other hand, there has to be an investment in public education,\u201d\nsays Ms. Herenda. \u201cCurrently there is no investment \u2013 it is done currently by\nagencies such as Yellow Brick House who fundraise dollars to support our public\neducation coordinators going to school or going into the community to talk\nabout this issue. There has to be an actual financial investment from our\ngovernment and a commitment to address this issue and to address this\nsystemically at all levels, starting from a young age and going all the way\nthrough senior adulthood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have a new government, two-years-young government\nthat we have been making aware of some of our system challenges and I am\nhopeful that we have their listening ear and I am hoping that they are going to\ntake some measures in this upcoming budget for Year 2020 to invest in the\nviolence against women sector.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information about Yellow Brick House and how you can become involved, visit www.yellowbrickhouse.org.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir <\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday marked the 30th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre, which saw 14 women killed simply due to their gender. Much has changed in the country over those intervening three decades, but the statistics are still sobering, according to Yellow Brick House, the Aurora-based shelter for battered women and their children. The anniversary, National Day of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/2019-12-12-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6Bu","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 05:53:23","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}