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May 19, 2006
Teens teaching teens
JWI-BC reaches out against relationship violence.
SARA CIACCI
Last month, 32 members of TAG (Torah Avodah Gemilut Chasadim) youth
group – high school students from Temple Sholom, Beth Israel
and Schara Tzedeck – met at Temple Sholom for a program about
healthy relationships for teens.
The program, funded by Jewish Women International, B.C. chapter
(JWI-BC), was organized by JWI-BC teen healthy relations chair Darcy
Billinkoff, TAG director Lisa Pozin and Respectful Relationships
(R+R) program co-ordinator and youth trainer Ahava Shira.
Six trained teenage facilitators, members of Salt Spring Women Opposed
to Violence and Abuse's (SWOVA's) R+R program, travelled with Shira
to Vancouver to share their skills and experience with the TAG students
for the evening of workshops.
The program included JWI's short film When Push Comes to Shove,
It's No Longer Love, which documents young Jewish experiences
with abusive relationships. It also included three experiential
activities to help the students recognize the warning signs of a
potentially unhealthy relationship, understand how to support a
friend who is in an abusive relationship and learn about the damaging
consequences of gender stereotypes on relationships.
Comments from the youth about the R+R facilitators were that they
were "cool," "open" and "going through
the same things as us." They appreciated how the facilitators
"have a lot of enthusiasm and genuinely want to help."
In 2004, JWI-BC took on the mandate of providing teens with information
on healthy relationships. In 2005, JWI-BC members Billinkoff, Sara
Ciacci and Isabelle Somekh attended the JWI Domestic Violence Conference
in Washington, D.C., where Shira was a presenter for SWOVA –
a nonprofit B.C. community organization whose mandate is the prevention
of violence against women and children. For JWI-BC, a vital component
of SWOVA's award-winning program is the mentoring, training and
hiring of teenage facilitators to bring their insider knowledge
of youth culture, as well as the ability to model key anti-violence
attitudes and values into interactive skill-building workshops.
JWI-BC hopes to organize training for local Jewish teenage facilitators
who are interested in providing interactive educational workshops
for Jewish youth in Vancouver on themes of dating violence, the
influence of the media, dealing with anger and skill-building to
develop and maintain healthy and safe relationships. For more information,
contact Billinkoff at 604-946-6475.
Sara Ciacci is domestic violence chair of Jewish Women
International, B.C. chapter.
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