Executive Director's Report – 2008

We have had another busy year at SWOVA with some wonderful expansions. SWOVA has moved to our new office space at 344 Lower Ganges Road. Our long-awaited comfortable office space became a reality last May. We have two separate offices, a meeting space, a kitchen/storage area and indoor plumbing. This is all new for us as our first 15 years of existence took place in an open room overtop a garage, with an outhouse.

We have a number of new staff in the office, with Office Administration being shared by Megan Manning-Burton and Randie Clarke. Juli MacDonnell is our new Financial Administrator.

We have also said goodbye to some SWOVA staff, including Judi Stevenson of Minerva Communications, our longtime program Evaluator. We are grateful to Judi for many years of dedicated evaluation of our programs. We are fortunate to have obtained the services of Denise Buote, Arbor Educational and Clinical Consulting in Vancouver, to carry out our evaluation this year.

Programs

Respectful Relationships (R+R) Program in School District #64

The Southern Gulf Islands School District #64 has the R+R program in the classroom for the ninth consecutive year, with approximately 500 students in grades 7,8, 9, and 10 participating in the program. Christina Antonick is the program Coordinator, with Nicola Temmel and Sean Mulligan as the Adult Facilitators for the program delivery. They will be ably assisted by thirteen Youth Facilitators from the high school. Workshop delivery to the grades 7 and 8 students is completed and delivery in the grade 9 and 10 classes is currently taking place and will be completed by the end of March 2009.

R+R Outreach

In September twenty-four adult facilitators participated in a six-day training on Salt Spring Island, by SWOVA’s Respectful Relationships (R+R) trainers Robert Birch and Christina Antonick. The outreach of the Respectful Relationships program to seven school districts in British Columbia is ongoing. During this school year over 3,000 students in B.C. will participate in our 12- workshop series on developing healthy and respectful relationships that raise awareness about sexism, racism, homophobia, and bullying, and provide skills to have safe interpersonal relationships.

Prince George, Valemount/McBride, the Boundary, Kamloops, Gold Trail Region, Cowichan, Ucluelet, and Southern Gulf Islands will all have implementation of the R+R program in their schools this year.

Robert Birch, our Provincial trainer has been visiting all of the outreach communities to provide additional training and support to the R+R teams.

Pass it On

Pass it On: Women and Girls Working Together for Health and Safety is a new SWOVA pilot project. During SWOVA's Respectful Relationships separate gender classes last year, GISS girls asked for more time to talk together about important issues facing them. As a result, SWOVA developed the Pass it On project for senior high school young women and middle school girls.  In addition to workshops for older teens, there will be a mentorship component where trained young women will be partnering with younger girls.

Christina Antonick, an experienced Respectful Relationships facilitator, and Debbie Magnusson, former GISS teacher, are co-coordinating the program and will be leading workshops with help from various community professionals. The Pass it On Youth Advisory team is helping to organize and promote the workshops.  Pass it On is funded jointly by Status of Women Canada and by proceeds from the BC Civil Forfeiture, Crime Prevention program.  A parallel boys’ project has received funding and will begin in the new year.

Widening the Circle

The Widening the Circle pilot project was completed in June of 2008. Many workshops were delivered to parents and teachers in the five pilot communities. The goal of this project was to build on its successful schools-based violence prevention program to include new partners—parents and teachers—as allies and active participants in creating respectful relationships with and for youth as a means of violence prevention throughout their lives, with emphasis on safety for girls and women.

The opportunity to participate in the Widening the Circle (WTC) pilot project was offered by SWOVA to four BC communities and their school districts as well as to SWOVA’s home base of Salt Spring Island, the Southern Gulf Islands: the others were Duncan-Cowichan, Kamloops, Prince George and the Boundary, a rural area centred in Grand Forks. Each one is a location where SWOVA’s four-year classroom program, Respectful Relationships (R+R), has been delivered, at least on a one-year basis. The community-based organizations in those four “outreach” locations all expressed considerable enthusiasm for this new opportunity made available through SWOVA, to work with parents and teachers in their communities. All indicated that they shared SWOVA’s view that engaging parents and teachers in (1) learning more about the R+R program itself and (2) developing more respectful relationships with and among the children of all ages in their care would strengthen the existing R+R program for youth and contribute to violence prevention in their communities.

A comprehensive set of educational materials were created as part of the Widening the Circle project and are available through SWOVA for further program delivery if the opportunity for further funding becomes available or if communities are able to find their own resources for delivery of this program.

Communication and Education

On an ongoing basis, SWOVA offers a free lending service of print and video materials, as well as organizing community education events. A new edition of our newsletter ‘Roar’ has recently been published and distributed. Our website is updated on an ongoing basis (info@swova.org). We also offer a referral service for people seeking information or assistance with issues related to violence prevention.

At the end of November, 2007, the Salt Spring Island premier of Christine Welsh’s film, Finding Dawn, was held at the Fritz cinema. This was a benefit for the R+R program. We had many wonderful speakers, including the filmmaker, Christine Welsh in attendance. A snowy night did not prevent many people from attending this important film.

This past June, Alan Moberg and friends donated an evening of wonderful musical entertainment as a fundraiser for the local R+R program.

Each year we mark December 6th as a day of remembrance for prevention of violence against women, with a candlelight vigil in Ganges. This year there will also be an evening of song on December 5th at the Core Inn, with proceeds donated to the Pass It On Program.

Recognition

SWOVA has recently been awarded the patronage of the Honourable Steven L. Point, OBC Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.

 

About SWOVA

SWOVA Community Development and Research Society is a non-profit society and registered charity in British Columbia. Its members are women and men who work for social change, helping to create a world where women and children are valued and able to live without fear of violence and abuse.

The mandate of SWOVA is

To work to prevent violence.

To develop community solutions to violence.

To promote research into violence issues.

To support and enhance violence prevention in the schools.

The objectives of the society are

To conduct research in order to better understand the complex issues surrounding violence and abuse against women and children.

To educate the public about violence and abuse issues through media, workshops, vigils, letter writing campaigns, etc.

And to work within our community to eliminate violence and to empower local girls and women.

Our Policy on Inclusiveness
As a society, SWOVA acknowledges the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We strive to foster a world that honours diversity. SWOVA is an equality-seeking society. We actively oppose all forms of discrimination based on sex, race, sexual orientation, age, spiritual choice, or ability. SWOVA works to re-dress the unequal distribution of power, resources, and privilege, that we see in society. We actively work in the community and schools to stop oppression in all forms, including sexism, racism, and homophobia.

 

 

"Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society's margins, all of us will be impoverished. Let us ensure that all young people have every opportunity to participate fully in the lives of their societies."
--Kofi Annan

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