WOMEN SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE DISCUSS MEANINGFUL CHANGE
MEDIA RELEASE
WOMEN SURVIVORS OF VIOLENCE DISCUSS MEANINGFUL CHANGE
As all the talk on ending violence that hyped up the end of 2021 remains a mere echo in a distance, Samoa Victim Support Group started 2022 with a bold move fronted by the women survivors of violence themselves.
Gathering in four separate groups categorized by; the walk in women survivors; the sheltered women survivors; the working women survivors and the Nofotane women survivors of violence, the conversation focused on meaningful change as a way of moving towards something better.
This is because even though many women had experienced violence, some will experience it more often than others. As such, the focused group discussions enabled an understanding of what it means to each of the different group of women, when they said they experienced violence “a few times” or “often”. This is through putting a number to quantify how many times they considered is “a few times”, and how many times is “often”?
It was a fruitful discussion that helped with the research study on reducing violence against women in Samoa, currently implemented by SVSG, in partnership with the University College of London, supported by the UK Research and Innovation.
The discussion gave the women survivors an opportunity to talk about what they think would be the most important aspects of violence to address as part of the research; whether it be emotional, verbal, sexual, physical or financial.
It is engaging and embracing the women survivors of violence as part of the community to develop a fa’aSamoa approach to ending violence.
According to one of the working women who was part of the focused group discussions, “ending violence against women, inclusive of the contribution from the women survivors themselves, goes beyond the notion of change for the sake of change, as this is meaningful change.”
“Thank you Dr. Jenevieve Mannell, the lead researcher for The EVE Project, together with the research team for helping the women survivors of violence involved in the study, understand the importance of their contribution in developing a new approach to addressing violence against women, that is uniquely Samoan.” Georgina Lui, Chair of the SVSG Board.