Hannah Hammoud
GenWest will share in a pool of $1.2 million funding from the state government to help in promoting a culture that prevents violence against women and families.
Serving Melbounre’s western suburbs, GenWest provides services that help victim-survivors of family violence in Brimbank, Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Melbourne, Melton, Moonee Valley and Wyndham.
For the past two years, GenWest has been partnering with the Western Bulldogs Community Foundation and Women’s Health Grampians to run a community awareness campaign that champions respectful relationships and prevention of violence against women.
The recent funding boost will allow GenWest to continue with their ‘Champions of the West’ program for another year.
Champions of the West co-ordinator Theresa Stewart-Moore said the program is all about harnessing the power of footy communities in the west to prevent gender-based violence.
“In the prevention of gender-based violence sector for a long time we’ve recognised the massive influence sports plays in our culture,” she said.
“Sporting clubs are committed to ultimately contributing to happier and healthier communities and when you do that you are also preventing gender-based violence. The more equal and respectful the spaces can be then we can create culture as a community and work together to prevent gender-based violence.
“It has been a really tragic start to the year – 31 women have been murdered this year so far. It’s a tragic situation and one we know if we work together as a community we can work to prevent this.”
Ms Stewart-Moore said sporting clubs carry a social responsibility to tackle issues like this.
“We need to recognise the power sporting clubs have in communities to promote a positive culture. We do this through workshopping issues such as the impact of rigid gender stereotypes in driving gender-based violence, how to harness the influence of football to share these messages, and just making sure sporting clubs are welcoming and safe spaces and asking different people to contribute to what it looks like.”
“For us as a prevention of gender-based violence organisation, being funded for this work and in particular in the sports sector in this grassroots way, it’s the first time we’ve had funding for this specific work and that means we can enter into spaces that we haven’t previously had those links and connections made.”
