Accompaniment manual for audiovisual material

Accompaniment manual 

 

OVERVIEW OF TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Summary excerpt: INTRODUCTION
The Ethnic Media Project
Background: 1997 - present
 
Public awareness and outreach to ethnocultural communities on family violence have been important issues for the Shield since its inception fourteen years ago. The Ethnic Media Project began in 1997 as a Federal initiative to counter violence, using ethnic media to raise public awareness in communities where little English or French was spoken.  Our specific approach encompassed our outreach campaigns in addition to intervention services that the Shield developed to support women victims of violence and their children.
 
In Quebec, in our previous five-year project, we targeted the following ethnic groups: Armenian, Arab (Lebanese, Egyptian), Chinese (Mandarin & Cantonese), Haitian, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, South Asian (Bengali, Urdu, Hindi, Tamil communities) and Spanish (European & Latino American communities), reaching approximately 500,000 people in communities where little English or French was spoken. We worked in conjunction with existing mainstream service providers, including police (SPVM), S.O.S. Violence Conjugale, youth and family services, community groups, women's shelters and even men's groups. In the first phase, we produced 26 videocassettes of approximately 15 minutes in duration each, translated into 15 language and broadcast on local ethnic programming.
 
Obviously, the participation of so many partners showed the significance of these programs to ethno cultural communities on both family violence and on the nature of existing resources. These programs succeeded in also reached into communities in ways that were acceptable to those communities, rendering the ' invisible' problem of violence 'visible', and generating more dialogue on issues that were both taboo and delicate from within those communities. The 'made to measure' programs conveyed the message in a non- threatening manner. 
 
In our current project we are continuing our efforts ' to increase public awareness, understanding and informed public dialogue'  on family violence in multicultural communities and to facilitate collective community initiatives and responses on this issue, in all its forms; intimate partner and domestic abuse, children witnesses of violence, and elder abuse.
 
We hope to expand the scope of informed public discussion on these issues so as to promote more understanding and support at the family and community levels for victims.
 
Ethnocultural communities and women from these communities have specific issues: They may be isolated, with linguistic, cultural and perhaps even religious barriers that impede access to mainstream social services and the police. Community organizations that speak their language are the necessary link whereby they can access them. Similarly women who are victims of family or conjugal violence are surrounded by circles other than violence that stop them from accessing the services. These may be problems of language, lack of knowledge of services; lack of support at the community level; sexual stereotyping ,and so forth.
 
© Shield of Athena Family Services 2004
Dépôt légal - Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, 2004
Legal Deposit - Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 2-9807645-2-3
 
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