We are excited to share that we have been granted $138,000 to deliver partnership project Champions of the West: Western Region Prevention of Violence and Gender Equality Capacity Building.
Champions of the West is a project in partnership with Western Bulldogs and Women’s Health Grampians. Funded by the Preventing Violence Through Sport Grants Program, Champions of the West aims to deliver capacity-building training to the Western Region Football League and the Western Bulldogs staff, boards, and volunteers, and health promotion education to young people in the Western Region Football League through to 2024.
The Preventing Violence Through Sport Grants Program acknowledges that community sport can influence positive behaviours and attitudes and help prevent all forms of violence against women. The program will support organisations to design and deliver activities around prevention of violence within community sport settings.
Ros Spence, Minister for Community Sport, and Gabrielle Williams, Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence, shared:
“Sport is a core part of Victoria’s social fabric. Across codes and in communities big and small, local clubs give Victorians of all backgrounds and ages unique opportunities to share in a deep sense of belonging and camaraderie.
“We know that for many children and young people, the behaviours modelled to them in community sport have a profound impact on the values and attitudes they take off the field, sometimes for many years into the future.
“The benefits of safe, inclusive and equitable sporting cultures can be felt across our whole society.
“For this reason, the Victorian Government has identified community sport as a key setting to change the behaviours, attitudes and outdated norms that can lead to family violence, violence against women and sexual violence in our communities.”
Read more about the Preventing Violence Through Sport Grants program.
What is primary prevention?
Primary prevention aims to prevent violence from ever happening in the first place. Primary prevention works by identifying the deep underlying causes of violence – the social norms, structures and practices that influence individual attitudes and behaviours – and acting across the whole population to change these, not just the behaviour of perpetrators.
Family violence and all forms of violence against women are driven by gender inequality and other forms of discrimination that give rise to power imbalances.
Read more about our primary prevention work here and the Preventing Violence Together (PVT) partnership.
