Program gives rural women a voice
Connor MacEachern connormac@thecasket.ca
Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre Violence Against Girls Project site facilitator Wyanne Sandler shows off the new program’s poster. (Connor MacEachern photo)
The Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre has begun a two-year project focusing on challenges facing young women in rural communities. “We’re going to start out by looking at the challenges they face, and how they define violence,” Violence Against Girls Project site facilitator Wyanne Sandler said. Violence Against Women: A Rural Response began in May, and is being done in collaboration with the Pictou County Women’s Centre and Sydney’s Every Woman’s Centre, which will focus on challenges facing seniors and aboriginal and black women. The Women’s Program Community Fund at Status of Women Canada funds the project. “Our choice to focus on adolescent and young women was because of our experience providing services,” Sandler said. “There isn’t a lot of information about the challenges rural women face.” Sandler said the program will focus on communities in the county, but young women in the Town of Antigonish will be welcomed in the program. Sandler said the AWRC provides programs and services to adolescent girls as well as women, and through this work have become aware that while girls and young women do experience violence in their lives, they sometimes struggle to access the services and resources available to them. Through this project the AWRC will work with community agencies, community leaders, mentors and girls in six rural communities in Guysborough and Antigonish counties to determine what challenges girls in rural communities face, what services and supports they want and how those services can be brought to the community. Project activities will include needs assessments with girls and with service providers, the development of information pamphlets on available services and identification of better practices among agencies and services working with girls. The second phase of the project will include training and education opportunities for service providers. This may include a one-day workshop and a skills development forum for agencies and organizations that work with girls throughout north-eastern Nova Scotia. Service providers and girls will be involved in research design and information delivery throughout the project, and all project activities will be tailored to meet the needs they identify. Lack of confidentiality and transportation are two issues Sandler said she expects to address as the project continues. “It can be difficult to find someone to talk to who doesn’t know you or isn’t a relative,” she said. Part of the first phase includes forming an advisory council that includes young women, Sandler said. “Programs don’t often give young people a chance to speak for themselves,” she said. “When given the opportunity, young people are generally excited about it.” >> Return to articles main
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