Funding boost expands programs to prevent gender-based violence

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This article was published 05/02/2025 (277 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At the Elmwood Community Resource Centre, men learn how to be better men.

The centre’s gender-based violence program, which focuses on newcomers, offers counselling and education on gender inequity — what it looks like, how it is perpetuated, and how it can be harmful.

The program has received $220,000 from the provincial and federal government to expand that work, the province announced Wednesday.

The work has become more crucial over time, Elmwood Community Resource Centre executive director Nina Condo said.

“It’s changing those patterns, the societal norms, that has allowed this to happen,” she said Wednesday.

“Now, newcomer men and young boys are having spaces to look at their culture, look at their upbringing, and changing what they thought was normal and being part of the change.”

They’ve helped 130 men in the program so far, and are expanding it into high schools and post-secondary gym locker rooms.

“Hopefully, we’re planting the seed, but also we’re coming to a place where men themselves are telling us, ‘You know what? I did not know that I was behaving that way, I did not know that I had that bias in me, and unconsciously, I’ve been harming the person that I love,’” she said.

The support comes through bilateral funding from the federal government’s 10-year National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence, currently in its second year.

Other funding announced Wednesday included: $25,000 for The Pas Family Resource Centre’s Northern men and boys programming, $166,000 for the NorWest Men’s Relationship Program, $200,000 for Ma Mawi Chi Itata’s EmpowerMen Program and $200,000 for the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Centre men’s program.

The $811-K in funding focuses on prevention programming aimed at men and boys, Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine said.

“Male violence drives the majority of violence against women and girls and gender-diverse folks,” she said. “If we truly want to make a difference, then men need to be at the forefront of prevention measures.”

Manitoba’s part of the national plan includes a federal contribution of $6.24 million and a $6.25 million provincial contribution to go toward 19 community initiatives over the year.

Stats Canada data from 2021 found Manitoba behind only Saskatchewan and the territories for rates of gender-related homicide of women and girls.

Manitoba also scored second-highest in rates of police-reported family violence and intimate partner violence in 2019, again surpassed only by Saskatchewan and the territories.

With a federal election looming this year, Fontaine said she hoped any government would understand the value of this funding and the provincial government would “continue to do the work that we need to do.”

“Any government can come in and delete programs and delete budget line items,” she said.

“I would hope that whoever is in government understands the critical importance of dealing with male violence and intimate partner violence.”

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca