On Thursday, September 1, 2022, we proudly welcomed the Honourable Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and Associate Minister of Health, Carolyn Bennet, and Viviane Lapointe, MP for Sudbury to announce funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to help support the Building Opportunities for Women (BOW) program and to speak about gender-based violence (GBV).
Hon. Minister Bennett and MP Lapointe graciously spent time with staff from Genevra House, learning more about the programs and services we offer to the community. During the announcement, they spoke earnestly about the challenges and enduring harms of violence against women and children.
“… My father was a police officer before the second world war. And he didn’t talk much about the war, and he didn’t much about policing, but he did talk about domestic violence and about how it was the hardest thing he had to deal with.”
Honorable Carolyn Bennett
Family violence and GBV are serious public health issues that are strongly linked to mental health concerns, including depression, PTSD, and substance use disorders, and have long-lasting, generational consequences for survivors and those around them. We saw emotional stress, economic impacts and isolation from the Covid-19 pandemic tragically amplify the risk and effects of violence. Women who were isolated at home with abusive partners had a lot less opportunity to carry out safe exit plans and were forced to remain in or even return to violent situations.
Recognizing the need to take immediate action, the government of Canada is providing $589,340 in funding over four years to YWCA Sudbury to extend the BOW program, with ongoing evaluations that will allow us to identify best practices that can be adapted and scaled across the province and across Canada. YWCA Sudbury received the Special Program Recognition Award for innovation in the development and delivery of the Building Opportunities for Women (BOW) Program at the YWCA Canada Annual Membership Meeting in June, 2022. We are excited to continue this important work.
“We want to express our gratitude to the Public Health Agency Canada for the funding to continue to deliver, evaluate and develop the BOW program as a promising practice to address GBV. Recognizing the connection between GBV and women’s health helps to address the systemic factors that perpetuate GBV and improve women’s health outcomes. We’re excited to continue this important work. Thank you.”
Marlene Gorman, YWCA Sudbury Executive Director
BOW is an education and support program premised on the idea that women are entitled to reflect and learn about violence, how to respond to it, what resources are available to them and how to protect themselves in the context of their own community. Throughout 12 weeks of facilitated workshops, women aged 16 an up from varying educational, relationship, economic and cultural backgrounds are empowered to explore the roots of GBV, address their self-esteem and vulnerabilities, identify their future education and training needs, and develop financial and social skills that help them build the confidence to face new challenges.