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The Big Give is an event supporting central Victorian community groups. The Bendigo Advertiser will be profiling several of the registered campaigns each week until the initiative ends with a 24-hour giving day on September 1.
Equity Prevents Violence is a new central Victorian initiative working towards a violence-free future for women and children.
It aims to do this by increasing awareness of the underlying drivers of violence against women, including gender inequality, rigid gender stereotypes, and cultures accepting of violence.
Victoria Police recorded 76,529 family incidents in the year ending 31 March 2016, 10.2 per cent more than the 12 months prior.
Women are at least three times more likely than men to experience violence from an intimate partner.
They are also five times more likely than men to need medical attention or hospitalisation as a result of intimate partner violence, and five times more likely to report fearing for their lives.
Of those women who experience violence, more than half have children in their care.
The Community Foundation for Central Victoria and Women’s Health Loddon Mallee are leading the Equity Prevents Violence initiative and have each contributed $6000 to the cause.
Shop to Stop Violence Against Women, an event hosted by Merinda in June, raised $560.
“We are putting effort into raising $50,000 for grassroots community groups as they implement programs to stop violence before it begins,” Women’s Health Loddon Mallee’s Makenna Bryon said.
“Our communities can help us create change – and we are investing in their passion and commitment by creating a fund for local action.”
A fundraising goal of $3000 has been set for an Equity Prevents Violence Big Give campaign.
The Big Give started on August 1 and culminates on September 1 with a community giving day, when almost 70 causes will stand to share in a $30,000 prize pool.
Among those involved in Equity Prevents Violence are HALT founder Jeremy Forbes, Gender Equality Projects Victoria chair Michelle Barton and Man Enough founder Hugh Martin.
“It’s about being proactive,” Mr Forbes said.
“We want the community to come to us with an idea.”
Through his work with HALT and Men Can Bake Cakes, Mr Forbes said he knew awareness of family violence was growing.
“The conversations are happening more in the community,” he said.
The involvement of Gender Equality Projects Victoria lends additional expertise in developing and supporting community-led projects.
“There are a lot of people out there who want to improve conditions in their communities and in their families and workplaces,” Ms Barton said.
She said gender equity was also about giving men the freedom to change who they are and the way they behave.
“When you are talking about gender roles and gender stereotypes, men are trapped in who they can be as much as women are,” Ms Barton said.
Mr Martin said he was involved because of his work in engaging men to find a solution for themselves to prevent violence.
“I work with men to challenge concepts of male entitlement, male privilege, and look at a lot of the personal causes for violence as well – get men to come to terms with any internal sense of disharmony, any internal sense of distress - and work with those to get men to take charge and take responsibility for their own emotional and mental state before allowing it to wash out and impact others,” he said.
He believes the way in which masculinity is portrayed in society is problematic.
“We see it in sport, we see it in advertising, we see it in all forms of media where we have this toxic form of masculinity, a hyper masculinity,” Mr Martin said.
“As a society, we do really well with the secondary and tertiary prevention, but we don’t do well with primary prevention – to prevent violence from happening in the first place.”
If you are experiencing family or domestic violence or sexual assault or know someone who is, please call 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or visit the 1800RESPECT website.