The Week Without Violence (18-24th October 2021)
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The Week Without Violence (18-24th October 2021)
The Week Without Violence (WWV) is an annual campaign to raise awareness against violence and promote attitude change against any form of violence. Every year, the Didi Bahini Samaj Victoria (DBSV) participates in the Week without Violence campaign to raise awareness against family violence. This is one of the signature programs for the DBSV.
Since 2012 DBSV has launched a series of the Week without Violence campaigns for example, by drawing or painting T-shirts that display a virtual or real clothesline as well as by making movies that deliver the message of preventing or reducing domestic violence. This year WWV is held between 18-24 October. This year’s theme is ‘CONNECT, LISTEN. BELEIVE’: Contribute to healthy, happy families in our communities. Every year DBSV is facilitating various programs and virtual sessions focusing on activities on raising awareness, promoting attitude change, and enabling individuals and organizations to begin positive actions towards ending violence in communities. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 restriction in place, DBSV’s program modalities are different. However, different programs are run in different areas. Some of the DBSV’s WWV awareness campaigns are:
a. ‘Knitting: The New Me’: Breaking the Social Isolation and Promoting Connection (https://www.facebook.com/100004573898072/videos/412435530281540/
A part of the WWV campaign is exhibiting and story sharing for 16 days of activism called “Knitting: The New Me” Breaking the Social Isolation and Promoting Connection. Following are the objectives of the knitting project are:
To conduct awareness campaigns by participatory knitting or ‘adjoining patches’ program in the community.
To improve family bonding by sharing skills, knowledge and stories
To let women feel positive vibes while working in a team and support mental health and wellbeing
To use the knitted-adjoined patch blanket as an awareness campaign tool for future campaigns
b. Clothesline Project: The clothesline project was initiated by DBSV Mernda Unit, DBSV Craigieburn Unit and DBSV Ballarat Unit Committee. Each participant expresses their feelings and painted messages against family violence, on a T-shirt and white colour cloth. The painted T-shirt and cloth were displayed via the organisation’s Facebook. Some of the glimpses of our clothesline project:
https://www.facebook.com/100004573898072/videos/550763486022086/
c. Presentation and information session via online platform Zoom:
On the 4th Day of WWV DBSV organised an information sharing session on family violence and family violence services intending to share various information focusing on raising awareness against violence and promoting attitude change.
Panel speakers of the session are Bijaya Pokhrel (PhD scholar ) and Shova Lamsal, Secretary (DBSV ) / Specialist Family Violence.
Date: Oct 21, 2021, Thursday
Time: 7-8 pm
d. River Walk (https://www.sbs.com.au/…/dbsv-to-organise-river-walk-as…)
The river walk was organised by DBSV West Unit Committee members with an objective to raise awareness against violence and promote social connection.
e. Story Sharing Session
f. Social Media Campaign: DBSV has also initiated a social media campaign to raise awareness by uploading photos, videos and short clips along with key messages via DBSV’s Facebook, Youtube and website.
Please join the Week without Violence campaign. Everyone deserves to feel safe and respected in this world.
If you or someone you know is experiencing family violence, help is available.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1986451574850620&set=a.264185863743875
Family Violence Services PDF FILE
Call 000 if you are in immediate danger
Parenting children in different culture: challenges and opportunities
Women Dialogue Digital Forum
‘PARENTING CHILDREN IN DIFFERENT CULTURE: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES’
Open Discussion Forum with Didi Bahini Samaj Victoria (DBSV)
Guest Speaker: Dr Arun Raj Kunwar, M.D, Renowned Child and Adolescent Specialist
With ongoing dedication and commitment to promote gender equality and build a platform especially for women, Didi Bahini Samaj Victoria (DBSV) has been successfully organising women dialogue digital forum, an open digital discussion forum, every two months since March 2021. It is a forum for all women to share experiences, challenges and raise awareness to empower women and their families to work towards equality and just society.
After completing three digital forums, this time DBSV facilitated the forum “Parenting Children in different Culture: Challenges and Opportunities” on the 8th of November 2021. The digital platform brought together 75 participants from the Nepalese community living in Australia and provided them with an interactive session with a place for discussion and raising their queries related to parenting children in different cultures.
As the world moves towards being an inclusive community, more and more people move across and settle in a society that culturally differs from their home country, thus, increasing the number of children born in diverse cultures. Thus, the prime focus of the digital forum was to address parents’ challenges faced in parenting and raising children in diverse cultures and to discuss the opportunities and strategies to deal with those challenges. The panel speaker Dr Arun Raj Kunwar, M.D was invited to discuss the challenges faced in different cultural settings and tips to deal with such challenges when they occur. Different cultural expectations, values, beliefs which bring about the challenges in parenting in a different culture and strategies for overcoming those encounters was elaborated by Dr Arun throughout the session.
‘Parenting in a different culture is bound to have even more challenges given the fact that they are from a different country, cultural background, values, the language of communication, religious beliefs and other factors that may not act in the same direction. However, understanding children’s perceptions, expectations and setting up clear parenting models, rules and expectations, spending quality time with the kid and being flexile and familiarised with their circumstances and the country they live in might help parents to overcome cultural clashes .and to raise a child in a multicultural environment.’
– Dr Arun Raj Kunwar, M.D
The Takeaway:
The session was concluded successfully by Dr Anupam Pokharel, Consultant Psychiatrist; a mental health specialist, by unpacking key concerns related to parenting in a multicultural environment:
Differences in how children are raised compared with what parents were used to.
Differences in how parents from diverse cultures show affection to their children and how independent their children are
Attitudes towards rewards and punishment
Parent’s responsibility to their children, family and community
Parent’s and children’s expectations towards each other
The program was successfully facilitated by Anjana Nepal. Technically, the session was coordinated by Anita Bhandari and Benju Gnawali. Live session via DBSV Facebook was also facilitated. Around 340 people viewed the live stream during and post-session. Hence, very positive feedback and comments were received during and post-session. The forum was remarked as an interactive and informative session which was witnessed by the active participation during the session followed by a Q&A session. Few highlights of the burning queries or concerns raised during the session are as follows:
Communication barrier- language barrier, understanding, identity crisis- whether Nepali or Australian
Late-night out/ patents stress, low confidence/stress, thinking differences in children and parents: -Late night out of children- hard to tolerate to parents
The communication gap between children and parents (over-sensitive of reality and fact) parents are scared with children to ask about where they go and what they do as it may escalate the situation worst. Understanding confusion between parents & children due to language barrier
Lack of understanding of the situation of parents and children or vice versa. Poor Interpretation difference between children and parents
PRESENTATION BY DR ARUN RAJ KUNWAR, M.D
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